Chapter 152: Chapter One Hundred-Fifty-Two: The Scream
//CLARA//
The corridor swallowed the light. Ahead, nothing but darkness and the smell of damp stone.
I caught up to Hattie, my chest heaving, my lungs burning from the sprint. But my mind was miles away, back to Gary.
Please, I prayed. Let him be alright.
Hattie’s footsteps faltered.
"Miss Eleanor—"
"Keep moving."
"But it’s so dark—"
"Stay close."
The hallway dead-ended at a door.
Not the red door I had expected. This one was dark, unremarkable wood. The closer I got, the more I could see that the dark color wasn’t grain or age or any kind of varnish I had ever seen.
It was the color of old pennies. Of rust. Of dried blood.
My stomach turned. I told myself it was a trick of the torchlight. I told myself it was cheap dye, or water damage, or decades of grime. I told myself anything could stain wood that color.
But there was no time to dissect the dread pooling in my gut. And the door was already open.
Hattie grabbed my arm.
"Is this the red door Mr. Russell said, miss?"
"It has to be."
I pushed the door open.
Beyond lay darkness broken only by a single lantern guttering on a hook.
My eyes adjusted slowly, shapes emerging from shadow. A table. Chairs overturned. And something overhead—no, someone.
He hung from the ceiling by his wrists, bolted there with iron fixtures. The man’s body twisted slowly, his toes brushing the floorboards without finding purchase.
Blood had pooled beneath him, black in the dim light, and the smell of copper and piss filled my throat like a fist.
My heart dropped into my stomach. Every ounce of air left my lungs.
The broad silhouette of his shoulders, the dark hair matted with slick, wet crimson.
For one agonizing, paralyzed second, I thought the worst. I thought the shadow that had haunted my every waking breath and held my very soul in his palm had been broken.
"Casimir—"
"Oh God." A choked sound erupted from behind me. "Oh God, oh God—"
Hattie staggered backward, hands flying to her mouth as she retched. The hanging man was missing patches of skin along his forearms. His clothes were shredded, soaked through with a steady, sluggish drip that pattered onto the stone floor below.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
My legs moved before my brain could stop them. My focus narrowing with the need to see his face, to know for certain.
The lantern flickered, and in its wavering light, I caught glimpses of swollen flesh, purpled bruises, lips split and crusted with blood.
Unrecognizable. Utterly destroyed.
Yet something in the angle of the jaw, the set of the shoulders beneath the torn fabric.
"Casimir—?" I breathed, hoping to rouse him with my voice.
I reached the suspended body. The man’s chin was pinned firmly to his chest, his breathing nothing more than a shallow, wet rattle in his throat.
He was alive, though barely. With a fiercely trembling hand, I reached up, my fingers brushing against the cold, sticky skin of his jaw, forcing his head upward to look him in the eyes.
The gaslight caught his features. A jagged, broken nose. A heavy, scarred brow.
Not him. There was a gnawing familiarity etched into my bones, but it wasn’t Casimir.
Thank God.
The relief was so violent my knees nearly buckled.
Before I could recover from the horror, rough hands suddenly seized me from behind. One hand clamping over my mouth before I could scream, the other wrenching my arm backward at an angle that brought tears to my eyes.
I heard Hattie cry out but was immediately silenced.
"Kitchen’s down the other hall, sweetheart," a gravelly voice rumbled from the dark. "New doves aren’t cleared to inspect the boss’s personal collection."
"We lost our way," I lied, struggling against his grip. "We got scared. We just ran down the first open hall we saw."
The man holding me gave a short, humorless chuckle.
"Lost your way? I don’t think so."
Behind me, a sharp scuffle broke out as someone grabbed Hattie by the hair. She let out a piercing shriek.
"Let her go!"
I lunged forward, but the man holding me simply twisted my arm behind my back, forcing me down to my knees. The pain shot like a white-hot needle straight up to my shoulder, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of a cry.
"Tie ’em up," the man holding me ordered. "Take them down to the cellar before the noise out front clears. If they’re spies for the Bowery crews, boss will want to peel the skin off their fingers himself to see who paid them."
They didn’t give us a chance to breathe, let alone resist.
Heavy burlap sacks were shoved roughly over our heads, plunging the world into a hot, dusty darkness that smelled of grain and old blood.
My hands were bound tightly behind my back with rough hemp rope that bit deep into my skin, cutting off circulation until my fingers throbbed.
They dragged us out of the room, my feet scraping uselessly against the floorboards, down a steep, narrow flight of stone steps that descended deep into the abyss.
The air grew rapidly colder and damp. When the sacks were finally ripped from our faces, the sudden glare of a single lantern made my eyes water.
We were in a low-ceilinged cellar, with walls of brickwork that oozed white saltpetre.
Hattie and I were bound securely to two heavy iron chairs bolted directly to the damp dirt floor.
Across from us stood a sturdy wooden workbench, and upon it lay a leather toolkit, unrolled to reveal an array of gleaming shears, pliers, and thin, wicked blades.
A man stood by the bench, rolling his shirtsleeves up over his thick, hairy forearms. He looked bored, like an artisan preparing for a long day’s labor.
"We can do this the quick way, or we can do this the way that makes you wish your mother had never met your father."
He selected a short, curved knife from the roll, stepping closer.
"Who are you working for?"
"I don’t know anything!" I cried, straining against the rough fibers tearing at my wrists. "We’re just looking for work!"
The man shook his head, a disappointed sigh escaping his lips. He stepped closer, his heavy leather boot coming down hard on the toe of my shoe, pinning my foot to the dirt while he reached out, his calloused hand wrapping firmly around the collar of my dress.
With one violent, downward jerk, he tore the fabric away, exposing the top of my corset.
"You’re a terrible liar, girl," he muttered, raising the knife until the cold tip of the steel rested just below my left eye. "Now. Let’s try again. Before I start taking pieces of your pretty face apart."
Hattie was sobbing hysterically beside me, her small body shaking so violently the iron chair rattled against its bolts.
The brute adjusted his grip on the knife, his eyes completely devoid of human mercy.
The terror didn’t paralyze me this time. It turned into a wild fire that roared through my veins. I didn’t beg. I didn’t plead for my life.
Instead, I threw my head back, my chest expanding against the tight constraints of the rope, and I screamed into the damp, rotting timber rafters above us.
I poured every ounce of my agony, my fear, and a blind, bleeding hope into a single, shattering cry.
"Casimir!"
The man paused, a cruel, mocking smirk touching his scarred lips.
"Go ahead and scream, sweetheart. The walls down here are four feet of solid stone. No one is coming to save—"
"Casimir!"
I screamed again, cutting him off. The iron chair scraped against the dirt floor.
They just laughed, but I didn’t care.
"Casimir! Casimir!"
The name tore from my chest, echoing off the weeping brick walls.
I screamed until the air left my lungs completely, until my vision blurred with tears of sheer frustration and terror.
I screamed until the back of my throat tasted like copper, pitching my voice as loud as it could go.
"Casimir!"
My voice cracked on the last syllable, splitting into a ragged, broken gasp.
The raw friction of it burned my throat, reducing the next attempt to nothing more than a desperate, hollow wheeze.
I tried again, pushing with everything left in my lungs, but no sound came out, just a breathless, agonizing whisper of his name. My voice was entirely gone, stripped down to nothing.
The man shook his head, the smirk never leaving his lips. His hand shot out, tangling in my hair, and he wrenched my head back so hard my spine arched. The knife came up, its flat cold against my cheekbone.
"All done?" His thumb traced my jaw, mockingly gentle. "It’s a shame. Pretty thing like you could have fetched good money upstairs. But you had to stick your nose where it don’t belong."
I twisted my head away, and I closed my eyes when the door to the cellar exploded inward.
My body flinched, curling instinctively away, my eyes squeezing shut. When I forced them open, blinking through tears, he stood in the ruined doorway.
Casimir.
