The blood on the yellow cotton strip had dried into a stiff, dark crust, but a new spot of bright red was already forming underneath.
I stared at the door, knowing the man I loved had become my jailer.
Phoebe shifted on the hard wooden bench, her small shoulders twitching under my damp wool cardigan. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to stretch as the single lightbulb overhead hummed, casting a yellow, sickly glare over the concrete floor.
I reached out to touch her forehead. Her skin was far too warm, the heat radiating against my fingers like a quiet warning that I could no longer ignore.
“My head hurts, Mommy,” she murmured, her eyelids fluttering but not fully opening.
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist, her small fingers still clutching her stuffed rabbit. The grey fabric of the toy was stained with a dark, damp circle where she had pressed it against her temple to stop the throbbing.
“I know, sweet girl,” I said, keeping my voice level and low. “Just close your eyes. I am right here with you.”
She let out a dry, ragged sigh and drifted back into a shallow sleep. Her breathing was fast, uneven, and the makeshift bandage I had fashioned from the hem of my cotton slip was already showing a fresh spot of dark red.
“Mommy?” Phoebe whispered, her voice cracking slightly from the dry air of the basement.
“I am here, sweetie,” I said, leaning closer so she could feel my breath against her cheek.
“Can we go to Grandma’s house?” she asked, her eyes barely half-open. “The one with the big garden?”
She was referring to my mother’s estate in Atlanta, a place she had only seen in the small, faded photographs I kept tucked in my wallet. I had never taken her there, terrified of what my brothers would do if they saw how thin and tired she looked.
“We will go soon,” I promised, smoothing a damp lock of hair from her forehead. “I promise we will.”
She nodded once, a tiny, fragile movement, before her head sank back into the crook of my arm. Her breathing remained rapid, the heat of her fever warming the fabric of my dress.
The blood was slow but constant, a steady seep that made my stomach tighten. I had nothing but a bottle of water and a few small tissues to clean it, and the air in the basement was growing colder by the minute.
I sat on the cold concrete floor beside her, my hand resting on her knee. The chill from the cement seeped through my stockings, but I barely felt the physical discomfort.
Near my feet lay the pink silk ribbon, its edges frayed where I had forced it apart to free my hands. Russell had bought it at a small boutique in Nashville for five dollars, a cheap gesture to wrap a box of chocolates he had forgotten on the kitchen counter.
Now, it was just a dirty strip of fabric on the dusty floor, a physical marker of how little he valued the woman he had promised to protect.
My gaze fell on the heavy lock on the outside of the door, the metal bolt solid and unyielding. There was no window, no ventilation, only the smell of old cedar wood from the storage trunks nearby and the slow, steady drip of a pipe somewhere behind the drywall.
Russell was not going to send a doctor. He had made that clear through the metal slot an hour ago, his voice sharp with a strange, cold pride that made me realize his cruelty was absolute.
He wanted an apology for Gwendolyn, a confession to a lie I had never told, and he was willing to let his own daughter suffer to get it.
“You will stay in this room until you learn how to apologize properly,” he had said, his footsteps retreating up the stairs before I could even reply.
