Chapter 11 - Cut Nothing Until Dawn
He came back down to the hatch after midnight with a folded blanket over one arm and a bottle of water in his coat pocket, and for a second I thought he'd come to end it.
The stone space held the cold differently at night. It sank through my dress and into my knees. My wrists had gone past burning into something dull and thick. I heard his shoes stop above me, heard Mia's bare feet shift beside him, and I lifted my face toward the thin line of light around the hatch.
He opened it only an inch. Just his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He looked down at me for a long time before he spoke.
I'd brought a knife that afternoon. I hadn't told Mia, but I'd seen the shape of it in his pocket when he'd knelt to check the handle. Now he set the blanket down on the marble and I heard the soft click of metal. My chest tightened.
"Don't," I whispered. I didn't mean it the way it sounded.
He shook his head once. He slid the knife out where I could see it in the crack of light, then laid it flat on the floor beside his knee, out of reach. Deliberate. He wanted me to see he wasn't going to use it.
Mia crouched beside him. Her ponytail had come loose and hair stuck to her damp cheek. She stared down at me through that narrow opening like she was afraid I'd disappear if she blinked.
"Mommy," she breathed.
"I'm here, baby," I said. My voice cracked on the second word. I tried to smile.
He leaned closer to the gap. His voice was low, almost flat, the way a man sounds when he's forcing himself not to shake. "If I cut that rope now, we lose him."
I stared up. The words took a moment to land. All day I'd thought about nothing but the feel of that rope coming off, blood moving back into my hands. I'd begged him with my eyes every time he looked down.
"What?" My wrists throbbed as I shifted.
"The sheriff needs to see it how it is," he said. "The knots. How it was wrapped. If I cut it, Nathan says you tied yourself up. Says I staged it." He paused. "I don't want to leave it on you. You have to know that."
I did know that. That was the worst part. His hand was braced on the edge of the hatch, knuckles white. He kept glancing toward the hall, listening.
Mia's fingers curled around the edge of the wood. "Please take it off," she whispered. "It hurts her."
He closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them, he looked at her, not me. "I know, kiddo. I have to leave it so we can prove who did it. So he can't lie anymore."
I swallowed. My throat was so dry it clicked. I thought about another night with my shoulders aching and my hands numb, about Nathan's footsteps crossing the marble in the morning like nothing was wrong. I thought about Mia testifying someday and someone asking if her mommy ran off.
I nodded before I could talk myself out of it. Small, just once.
"Okay," I said. "One more night."
He exhaled. It sounded like he'd been holding that breath for hours. "Thank you," he said quietly.
He didn't open the hatch wider. He pushed the water bottle through first, on its side, rolling it carefully across the stone toward my knees. Then he took the blanket and lowered it down by one corner, letting it drop softly beside me. He kept everything slow. No untying. No loosening. His hands never touched my wrists.
I managed to nudge the bottle upright with my chin and shoulder. I couldn't grip it, not with the rope the way it was. He saw that and his jaw tightened.
"Tip it," he whispered. "I'll hold it."
He reached down just far enough to steady the bottle while I bent my head and drank. Water ran down my chin into my cardigan. I didn't care. Mia made a small sound up above and I heard him murmur to her, "She's okay. She's drinking. See?"
The blanket lay out of my reach. I looked at it, then at him. He understood. Using the toe of his shoe against the hatch frame as leverage, he stretched farther and nudged it with two fingers until the edge brushed my leg. Enough that I could pull it over my feet by shifting my weight.
A board creaked out in the hall.
We all froze. His head snapped up. Mia's breath caught. From below I heard it clearer than they did — the heavy, unhurried step from the direction of the staircase, then a pause.
Nathan.
May you like
He pulled his hand back. He eased the hatch down inch by inch, never letting it slam. The line of light narrowed to nothing. The last thing I saw was Mia's eyes wide in the crack.
In the dark, I listened to his shoes move away fast and silent across the marble, and Mia's bare feet padding after him, and then Nathan's steps passing right over my head.
