HIDING - every scar has a story

43. The door.

{Cary}

Cary fell asleep curled in Jon's bed with his forehead against the wall. He woke up on the floor in his own bedroom. He got to his feet, looking at the sun going down in the window. He had been dreaming that he was in Jon's house, that he lived there. The dream fled, and Cary made a sound as it went, taking all the warmth with it.

There was something wet on his face: he was crying. He never cried at this house anymore. If he was back here without his jacket... Jesus-God, I'm fucked. He slapped the tears out of his eyes and dried his face on the hem of his shirt.

His room was completely empty, and the carpets were torn up. The floor was obscured by a layer of sand, and the walls were smudged and grimy up to eye level. Cary hunched his shoulders and went to look for Liam.

Liam's nursery was bare except for his crib, standing in the middle of the room with a naked plastic mattress behind the bars. Cary's heart jumped into his mouth. He turned from the doorway and went from room to room, panic rising. There was no furniture anywhere and nothing on the walls. His mother's closet was bare except for a tangle of hangers. The chandelier was missing in the front entrance. The rooms were all empty, and the silence pressed on his ears like water.

Cary stood in the hallway, short of breath. There was one place left to look. He went to the end of the hall and opened the door to the basement.

In this house, there were no stairs. The basement was a finished room, with another room inside it. There were no windows. The hall light made a rectangle of light on the bare floor, and there was a thread of light where the drywall of that other room didn't meet the ceiling.

"Liam?" Cary stepped through the doorway and to the side, putting his shoulders against the wall. His fingers felt how smooth and cool the painted surface was. Red. The room, the floor, and the ceiling were all painted red. Cary's head buzzed.

The room inside the red room had a white door, which was startlingly clean and bright in the dark. Cary crossed the room and tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Cary threw his shoulder against the door, yelling, "Liam!" He heard a sound and held his breath. On the other side of the door, a child was crying in short gasps like he was trying to be quiet. Panic beat its wings inside his chest. Was the light on? Was Liam in there in the dark? His brother was too small to reach the cord.

Cary swore and hammered on the door until his knuckles broke and bled. He leaned his shoulders against it, breathing hard. He lifted his face.

"JESUS!" he hollered. "WHERE ARE YOU? GET HIM OUT!"

"You locked him in," a soft voice said. Jon was sitting cross-legged next to the door. He lifted his face to Cary, and his mouth pulled up in an unhappy smile. "That's not Liam in there, Cary."

Cary started away from the door like it was red-hot. Jon's eyes followed him, and there were whispers in the shadowed corners of the room. Cary drew his hands against his chest. They were freezing cold. "I need to get out of here."

The child's sobs rasped in Cary's ears. In every break, he hoped he was done—that he had finally curled up in the corner and died. Jon blinked, and two tears dropped, shining on his cheeks. "You have the key to this door. You can open it."

"No," Cary said. "He needs to stay in there."

"Why?" Jon asked. "Why is he different than Liam?"

The shadows in the room gathered thickly, a deeper darkness high in the corners. Cary whispered, "Liam never did anything wrong."

Jon spread his hand over the white door. "What about you?"