56. Utah

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

utah

I had to go back to the truck for bolt cutters to get that floor hatch open, and I very consciously carried in two giant canisters of gasoline back into the house with me to leave just inside the front door.

I couldn’t very well tell Memphis that she wasn’t allowed to go into that basement with me, but I sure as fuck wished she would just decide against it on her own. I wanted this to be freeing for her; not a huge fucking disaster that would only traumatize her further by revisiting the area of this house that seemed to haunt her most.

She took three entire steps backward and out of that closet entirely once I opened the hatch.

“I won’t be long, angel. Just wait here.”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t respond in any sense. I wasn’t even sure that she was still breathing.

I hustled down the rickety ladder that was leaning at the most awkward angle possible from the floor to the basement ceiling just beside the hatch. The smell down here was significantly worse than the smell from the bedrooms. It was rancid enough that I stayed perfectly still for a moment and tried to blink the stinging tears from my eyes.

“Utah,” the shakiest, most broken voice possible said from above me. Memphis waited until I looked back up to the opening before she spoke again. “Watch your step. There were—they put traps around the floor.”

The absolutely inhumane things that I suddenly imagined doing to every person involved in this was disturbing.

I pulled the flashlight from my belt and turned it on to scan the floor before I dared to take another step. I didn’t even have the balls to ask Memphis what kind of traps I might be on the lookout for. Making her say the words to even describe them sounded wildly cruel. If I lost a toe or a whole ass foot just to make sure she didn’t have to explain any further, so be it.

I didn’t see any obvious traps around the base of the ladder. I spent a second wondering if these were the kinds of traps that they’d pack up and take with them to the next location, but I wasn’t actually willing to bet a whole ass foot or even just a toe on that. It was hard to imagine that they wouldn’t set traps near the ladder, though, if the goal was preventing children from getting close enough to use it.

I stayed where I was and sent the beam from the flashlight further into the darkness to see if there was anything obvious somewhere else. The light landed on a crate that looked like it was meant to contain a rabid animal. It was nothing like the small wire crates used for dogs that needed to be kept off the carpet while their owner wasn’t home. It was the kind of small crate that a monster squished a whole fucking lion into. The top and bottom were just thick metal plates with jail cell bars on all four sides.

The white-hot rage that filled my bloodstream had me taking a step forward with absolutely zero thought, but my brain registered the tiny hint of pressure at the front of my shin in just enough time. I heard the metallic clink of a mechanical release. I could hear something obviously heavy start to move from my left side, but I’d never be able to look with the flashlight quickly enough to know what it was and get out of its way in time. I took the chance of a lifetime and just fucking threw all my body weight backward to land flat on the ground beside the ladder to stare straight up at the still-open hatch.

Whatever had gone flying across the room crashed into the wall somewhere with enough force to shake the entire house. I continued lying perfectly still for another second, trying to get my brain to determine if I was injured, because the amount of noise that came from that crash also had me concerned that I might need to get up and run for it if the house was about to collapse.

“Colt!?” Memphis screamed from the hatch.

“Stay up there!” I yelled right back. “I’m alright, angel.”

“I told you,” she hissed so quickly. “ I told you , Utah, that there were traps.”

“Are we doing this right now, baby? Maybe save the I told you so’s for when I’m out of the dungeon of doom, huh? Say it all you want straight to my face when I’m standing in front of you again.”

Her silence on the matter told me that she heard the hidden I dare you in my words.

I stayed on my back and lifted just my head and the flashlight to look around the basement.

Who would place strategic fucking tripwires as boobytraps for children ?

The white-hot rage returned in an instant when I realized they might not have been boobytraps for just regular children. The stories that she’d told us made me believe some of these were probably Memphis-specific boobytraps, because they hadn’t been up against regular children when they were up against her.

I spotted what should’ve been a regular floor joist against the far basement wall and trailed the flashlight along it until I reached the place where it hung on a hinge from the ceiling to be able to swing down at whatever tripped the wire. I made my way back to my feet and turned the flashlight on myself so my eyes could tell my adrenaline to chill the fuck out because my body was unharmed.

I scanned the entire floor before every step I took from that moment. I had to avoid two other tripwires and a series of bear traps the closer I made it to the crate across the room. I wasn’t sure what I thought I needed to see by being directly in front of that crate, but something in me needed to be that close to it. There wasn’t anything to learn from it; nothing I could take away from it that would help me locate the people who’d put it here.

There was another padlock on the door to the crate. A chain that was bolted to the bottom plate of the crate ended in handcuffs; as if being locked in a crate in a basement wasn’t cruel enough on its own. But that was all there was to it. There was nothing else in the crate. Nothing else around it. Another look around the room revealed two other crates set up exactly this way. No doubt they were complete with their own sets of handcuffs and boobytraps.

I’d had enough of this fucking house by the time I very carefully picked my path back to the ladder.

“Are you okay?” Memphis asked once I was in front of her again on the main level. I didn’t bother to respond to her, because I had nothing helpful to say in this moment. I was nothing but the embodiment of anger.

She reached around me to try to close the hatch, but I grabbed her wrist to stop her.

I shook my head. “Wait here.”

I went back to the front door and grabbed one of the canisters to bring it back to the hatch. I poured at least half the gas in it straight down that ladder before I stopped and handed the canister over to Memphis.

“There’s another full one by the front door,” I said to her. “Make sure you leave a trail right out the door. I’ll be waiting out there for you.”

I’d never been so fucking proud in my life to see her hands as steady as could be when she took the canister from me.

Of all the things I’d experienced in my years, having the chance to witness Memphis morph into who she was really meant to be was the thrill of my lifetime. I was here to watch while she set herself free; while she wiped out the hurt that kept her trapped inside a mind that was far too powerful to have to function under the limitations of fear and shock.

She didn’t look frantic or out of control when she finally appeared in the doorway again. She was out of breath, and she looked every bit as pissed off as I felt, but she looked like a woman who’d finally realized all the power to be held was in her very own hands here.

I watched her walk down those steps and turn back to face the house again. I took the lighter from my pocket and flipped it open for the flame to spark to life before I went to stand just behind her. I reached the lighter around the front of her body and held it just in front of her heaving chest while I leaned down to her ear.

“Leave it all inside, angel. The pain, the memories, the fear. Everything that’s ever trapped you into thinking you had to live your life a certain way. Leave it in there where it belongs, then light it up. And burn it down.”

She tossed the gas can right to the ground and took the lighter from my fingers with the steadiest hand I’d ever seen for a woman who’d just spent the last half-hour sprinting around like a pyromaniac on cocaine.

I kissed her cheek and stepped right the fuck back to let her have this moment completely to herself. “You’re breathtaking with charred wings, angel.”

She didn’t acknowledge my words. She didn’t look back at me. She didn’t need even the slightest hint of reassurance to know that she was in charge here and that she could do this.

She simply knelt down to where her trail of gasoline ended and laid the flame directly in it.

Memphis stood right there at the bottom of those front steps until I was certain the flames were about to collapse the house. She even resisted a little when I took her by the hand to try to pull her away from it. She wanted to watch the bitch fall in on itself completely. I couldn’t even blame her for wanting to be here for the moment that it crumbled, but I’d be damned if I was going to let any of it fall on her.