ONE SIXTY NINE
The house felt different now.
Oddly.
It wasn’t just the creaks in the floorboards or the worn paint peeling in corners no one had cared about, it was something heavier, thicker, crawling along the walls like smoke. A kind of tension that pressed down from the ceilings and rose up from the cracked tiles underfoot, making every step feel louder, every breath harder to take.
I trailed a few feet behind Dominic and Gael as they made their way down the narrow upstairs hallway, the floor groaning beneath their weight. Dominic nudged Gael roughly ahead of him with the barrel of the gun, steering him toward the stairs.
Barefoot, I moved quietly, the coldness of the wooden floor seeping up into my skin with every slow step. My toes curled slightly, instinctively searching for warmth that wasn’t there.
On this, I agreed with Dominic: Gael couldn’t be trusted. Not locked in a regular bedroom. Not with windows he might try to pry open. Not without being restrained.
And even though some part of me knew it was the smart thing — the necessary thing — another part couldn’t stop the anxious churn in my stomach as we descended the stairs, Dominic’s hand firm on Gael’s shoulder, shoving him harder whenever he hesitated.
Behind us, the hallway stretched empty and silent, but I kept glancing back over my shoulder anyway, half-expecting the walls themselves to collapse inward with how suffocating the house had become.
The huge house suddenly felt way smaller or maybe it was the intensity of the situation that made it appear that way. Now, the windows were shuttered and dark, thick curtains pulled tight against the world outside, casting everything inside into heavy shadows, despite the morning sun clawing at the edges.
The staircase creaked under Gael’s uneven steps, his hands still held awkwardly behind his back even though Dominic hadn’t officially tied him yet. I could see the tremor in his arms, the tautness in his shoulders like a man waiting to be dragged in front of a firing squad.
I clutched my arms tighter around myself, the oversized sweater I wore doing nothing to stop the cold sweat slicking my skin. Please don't be stupid, Gael. Please don’t.
The thought repeated over and over in my head, each beat louder than the last as Dominic nudged him down the final step and into the hallway below.
The air down here was even heavier somehow, thicker, harder to move through, like wading through fog made of pure anxiety.
To my right, past the arch leading into the living room, I caught the flicker of movement.
Isabella. Pacing like a caged animal.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around her waist, her face blotchy red and tear-glossed, though she was clearly trying to keep it together. Her footsteps were frantic but small, her body coiled tight as a spring about to snap.
The television was on, turned low but not low enough — a cartoon was playing, something colorful and obnoxiously loud in the silence. Animated characters laughed and shouted in exaggerated voices, their bright, cheery chaos completely at odds with the funeral-march mood infecting the house.
Adam sat perched on the armrest of one of the couches, his small legs swinging back and forth, sneakers scuffing lightly against the side of the cushion. He leaned toward Isabella, cupping his tiny hands around his mouth in a poor attempt at a whisper.
"Is Gael gonna die?" he asked — and even though he probably thought he was being quiet, his words floated down the hall, loud and clear as a gunshot.
I flinched, snapping my head back to look.
Isabella flinched, too.
She shook her head steadily at Adam, putting a finger to her lips, her pacing quickening. Her cheeks were flaming red now, as if she was biting down hard enough on her grief to keep from exploding, whether in anger or sobs, I couldn't tell.
Adam’s wide brown eyes flickered toward the hallway — toward us — and when he caught my gaze, he froze like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
The cartoon on TV blared on, a grating song about a talking train or something equally ridiculous, clashing horribly against the brittle, razor-edge reality we were walking through.
I turned my head back quickly. Focused on the scene in front of me.Focused on Dominic and Gael. Focused on not letting my mind spiral out into all the awful possibilities lurking just beneath the surface of this day.
Dominic dragged Gael toward the far end of the hall, past the kitchen, past the back door, toward the rarely-used guest rooms, the ones Isabella didn’t seem bothered to clean anymore.
He kicked open the door to one of the smallest rooms in the house as if he had lived here long enough to have every place mapped out already. I wasn’t surprised. Dominic had probably inspected the entire house before he came to the living room the night before, wanting to be sure we were safe and Gael had no means of escaping. But apparently, we had all being wrong and the amount of money that had been placed over our heads had revealed his true nature. The door to the room creaked open loudly, echoing off the walls and down the hallways, a tiny, cramped box barely big enough for a twin bed and a dresser, both ancient and sagging under the weight of decades. I had barely been to this part of the house even when I lived there, hadn’t bothered to refurbish and to have the furniture changed.
It looked so different to the parts of the house I had taken my time with, much older, much raggedy, like a room belonging to a pauper.
The window was so small it was practically useless, more a slit than anything else. Perfect. Horrifying. Perfect.
Gael hesitated at the threshold, and Dominic gave him a hard shove between the shoulder blades, sending him stumbling inside.
"Sit," Dominic snapped.
Gael sat heavily on the lone wooden chair pushed into the corner. It creaked ominously under his weight, its legs uneven on the scuffed floor.
Dominic pulled a roll of duct tape from his belt — how long had he been carrying that? — and began wrapping Gael’s wrists to the arms of the chair with methodical, brutal efficiency.
Gael didn’t fight it. Didn’t even flinch. Just sat there, head bowed, breathing shallow and fast, like a man who knew it would be easier if he just disappeared into the furniture.
I hovered in the doorway, my bare toes curling against the cold wood, my pulse pounding so hard it echoed in my ears.
The house seemed to groan around us, every shifting beam, every rattling windowpane a reminder that we were balanced on a knife’s edge, one wrong move away from disaster.
Behind me, I could still hear the faint, broken murmuring of the cartoon characters, the low hum of Adam’s too-loud whispering, Isabella’s pacing footsteps.
Every sound scraped across my nerves like sandpaper.
Dominic finished binding Gael’s wrists, then crouched to tape his ankles to the legs of the chair for good measure. When he stood, towering over the tied man, there was no satisfaction on his face. No smugness.
Just grim necessity.
"You stay put," Dominic said flatly. "You so much as breathe wrong, you’re dead. I’ll come get you in a few hours, you will be redressing my wound and Tina’s periodically.”
Gael nodded once, jerkily.
Dominic turned, his eyes cutting to me. “We should watch the news. Make a plan. We have things to do.”
I swallowed hard, nodding without speaking, my throat too tight to form words.
Dominic marched past me, heavy footsteps thudding against the floor, and I trailed after him, feeling like a ghost trapped in this crumbling house full of tension and fear.
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