Carson watched, her expression hard as stone as the boys tried to lift up the board, the wood creaking under the pressure.
"Whoever moved it in the first place put it back pretty nicely," she muttered, grabbing the nice from the cabinet next to her and moving next to Caleb, placing the blade under the board.
"Ready? One, two, three."
The trio pushed, the board moving slightly. With one, final pull, the wood finally cam lose, shifting from its position in the floor and finally moving away, creating just enough space to fit a decently small person.
"Caleb," Bradley called, looking at his brother. "Can you fit?"
Caleb looked at the hole in the floor hesitantly, examining it.
"I– I don't know," he admitted, Carson doing her best to suppress a groan.
She was going crazy, locked in that little room. It was like being in the same house as her father all over again. She subconsciously brought her hand to the cut on her neck, feeling the tender spot gingerly. It wasn't bleeding as bad as before, but there was still a stripe of scarlet decorating her pale skin.
"Go on," Bradley told Caleb, the younger boy attempting to slip into the floor.
"Do you need a hand?" The older Baker said, concern peeking its way into his voice.
"I don't think so," Caleb responded, slowly going deeper and deeper into the wood.
Caleb shifted a bit, and Carson watched as he finally managed to get under the floor.
"Hey, can... can you see anything? Is there a way out?" Carson called after him hesitantly.
"I don't know," Caleb called back, squinting through the darkness.
Carson looked around the room frantically. Her eyes finally landed on the flashlight they'd used earlier, which laid forgotten on the floor. She maid a reach for it, clicking the switch to see if it was still charged. She breathed a sigh of relief when a ray of white shot from it. Turning it off again, she crouched down next to Bradley, passing the flashlight down to Caleb.
"Here," the girl said as the younger boy took the object from her.
"Anything?" Bradley asked when he noticed that Caleb had turned the flashlight on.
Caleb shimmied under the floor, crawling and making his way farther apart from the two.
Carson and Bradley looked at each other for a moment before moving closer to the hole, lowering themselves, trying to get a better perspective of what was underneath.
After a few moments, they heard Caleb's voice again.
"Brad! Bradley! Carson!"
"What?" Bradley asked, frantically.
When no reply came, Carson's eyes widened.
"Caleb?" She called.
The boy finally came back into view, a scared look on his face.
"H– he's not," Caleb panted.
"Shh, shh. Ok... what do you– what?" Bradley said, trying to calm his brother down while attempting to understand what the younger boy was saying.
"He's not– he's not moving," Caleb finally let out, his eyes squeezing shut, like he was trying to send the image of what he'd just seen away from his head.
"I– I don't know what happened," he continued hastily, his voice cracking. "The other guy, he's..."
Caleb looked up then, opening his eyes and locking them with his brother's.
"Brad, he's dead."
Bradley's eyes widened and they shifted over to Carson, only to find her staring at the floor, her face showing no emotions, yet her eyes were utterly filled with fear. She was trying to show this didn't affect her. Probably for poor Caleb's sake.
"Listen, you can't wait," Bradley spoke, turning back to his brother.
"I'll... I'll figure something out and come find you. You gotta go."
He turned to Carson again.
"You need to go with him."
The blonde looked up, confusion lighting up her features.
"Brad, Caleb's basically half of me, and he barely fit. I might be small, but I'm not that small."
Before the boy could reply, there was a noise outside the door.
All three heads snapped towards the entrance of the room, and even the wood surrounding them seemed to be holding its breath as Elliot spoke.
"What's going on in there?" He said, his voice slightly muffled by the door.
"N– nothing. We're fine," Bradley replied, his eyes glued towards the exit.
"You feeling ok?" Elliot asked.
Carson scoffed silently.
"Oh, sure. Now he cares about out health."
"Better, thanks. We're ok," Bradley spoke a little louder, praying that Elliot hadn't heard Carson.
"I'm chopping a bunch of wood, so it's gonna be warm in here in a couple minutes."
Carson's eyes widened visibly, as if she'd heard they were about to get murdered.
When no reply came, Bradley lowered his voice, frantically averting his speech to Caleb.
"Say something, say something!" He whispered.
"G– great. Thank you," the younger boy stuttered from under the floor.
"Hey, uh, how's Carson doing? Her throat healing ok?"
The girl's head snapped up in a second, pure fury in her orbs as she opened her mouth to yell at the man, but Bradley immediately wrapped his arm around her face, placing his hand in front of her mouth so no sound could come out.
"Yeah, yeah she's fine," Bradley said loudly, wrapping his other arm around Carson, keeping her back pressed against his chest when she started throwing a fit, struggling to get out of the boy's grip.
"She, uh, she's asleep right now."
Carson stopped moving, holding her breath against Bradley's hand as the three listened, Elliot's steps getting farther and farther away from the room. Once they heard the front door close, Carson grabbed Bradley's hand, taking it away from her mouth, but not touching the arm that was keeping her still. She knew just as well as he did that if he released her when she was still this angry, she would probably break through the window and punch Elliot until he passed out.
"Ok, ok. The keys," Bradley said, using his free hand to dig into his jacket pocket. "Here, take these. Find their truck and go get help, ok?"
"I– I can't–"
"Hey, hey, shh," the older boy cooed as his brother's eyes widened.
"Hey, I know you don't wanna go on your own, but you have to, ok? You don't have a choice. Ok? You gotta go, you gotta get help, ok?"
Bradley took a breath, both Caleb and Carson looking at him slightly wide eyed.
"It can't be far," the boy breathed, almost as if he were muttering to himself rather than the other two.
Bradley kept his eyes on Caleb before saying sternly,
"Go."
"Ok," Caleb replied instantly, ducking down and crawling away, disappearing from sight.
After a few moments, Carson spoke.
"What now?"
Bradley looked at her, his features softening at the sight of her.
Carson's usual pale skin looked scarily ghostlike, even whiter than usual. Her eyes held slight bags under them, proving that she hadn't been sleeping as well as she said she had. Her hair was a mess, the snow that had made it damp whilst they were outside had dried up, leaving her locks falling wildly down her face. It seemed as though they couldn't stay tucked behind her ears, no matter how many times she tried to get them to be still. She'd only been wearing a hoodie and a light jacket, so her cheeks were slightly flushed from the cold. The gash on her throat wasn't bleeding anymore, but it was still a fierce, dark pink, and Bradley could only hope it wouldn't get infected. Her jeans had a nasty rip on the knee, and there was a short stripe of blood following on the skin beneath. She must have gotten cut while they were in the forest, probably some branch sticking out in the darkness. She was slightly shaking, but was doing her best not to show that she was scared, holding her hands against one another to stop the movement, her eyes looking almost wild. In short, the girl looked like a complete mess.
But, somehow, she still managed to stir something inside Bradley that he would never really be able to explain.
Before he could say anything, a sudden voice made both of them jump.
"Caleb?" Elliot asked in a groggy voice. It sounded like he'd just woken up.
Bradley and Carson gave each other a skeptical look.
"Uh, he's sleeping," the boy said quickly, a new found confidence covering the break in his voice.
"Is he mad at me?" Elliot asked.
"No. He's just tired. He's fine."
After a moment of silence, Elliot's voice weaved its way into the room yet again.
"I'm just trying to keep you safe."
Bradley's hand automatically reached for Carson, grabbing her wrist and stopping her from getting up and possibly slamming the door down.
When she didn't fight back, Bradley risked a glance towards her and away from the door. He found she had her eyes closed, her jaw set and her fists closed tightly.
"Yeah," Bradley said sternly. "Yeah, we're... yeah. Of course."
"As long as we stay together, we'll be ok."
"Sure."
"You gotta trust me."
And then he was gone.
Bradley turned to Carson again. Her eyes were still closed, but she looked more calm than she had five seconds ago.
"Cars?" He asked carefully, as if the girl were a deer in headlights and he didn't want to scare her away.
She opened her eyes then, slowly moving them to lock with Bradley's.
The boy felt something shift, and he felt Carson moving her hand so that he was no longer gripping her wrist, but pressing his palm against hers.
"We need to get out of here," she spoke, her voice just above a whisper.
Bradley nodded, helping the blonde to her feet before reluctantly letting go of her hand.
"Help me push the other board away," he said. "We'll have enough space to move around if we do."
Carson nodded, moving to sit back down on the floor.
"What are you doing?" Bradley asked, giving her a puzzled look as she placed her feet onto the wood.
Carson looked at him.
"I'm moving the floorboard," she told him slowly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Bradley's eyes widened as he realized how they were going to do this, so he took a seat next to her, copying her position.
"On three. One, two, three."
A few grunts and pushes later, the board finally shifted, ripping off the floor and giving the two a new passage under the cabin.
The two looked at each other, and, through some sort of silent agreement, got to work.
Bradley went to move a long enough piece of wood away from the wall and placed it between the door and the floor, blocking the entrance to the small room.
Carson grabbed the small crates that littered a forgotten corner of the room, placing them in a pile next to the window, and taking the lantern off its place on the nightstand, going visibly stiff as she watched the dancing flames.
"Oh, shit, ok," Bradley said whilst turning around to face the girl, but froze when he saw her staring into the fire inside the lantern.
"Cars, are you ok?" He asked, his tone still cautious.
The girl opened and closed her mouth, no words coming out as the boy got closer.
"Carson?"
"I– I can't..."
"What?" Bradley asked, confusion and concern lacing his tone. "What do you mean?"
"Brad, I never told you how my mother died, did I?" Carson said, her voice suddenly lower.
Bradley thought for a moment, realizing she actually never head. She'd told him about her father and her brother, but never about the woman.
Almost as if sensing his thoughts, Carson spoke.
"She died in a fire."
When Bradley didn't say anything, Carson continued, her tone far different than it had been moments ago.
"She died in a fire at a friend's house. They had been friends since they were kids, and the woman and her husband had just moved back in town. Obviously, my mother wanted to catch up with her after so many years, and she went over to their house for lunch."
After a small pause she added quietly, almost as if she didn't want Bradley to hear.
"It was three months after I'd lost Jack."
Bradley walked next to her then, grasping her free hand and taking the lantern from her other one, placing it back onto the nightstand.
Carson barely seemed to notice his movements, her eyes fixed in front of her, now staring at Bradley's chest instead of the wall.
"The police didn't know how the fire started. Or, if they did, they never told me. They might have told my father, but he was probably too busy getting drunk to even listen. It's the way they found the bodies that haunts me so much."
She was whispering now, and Bradley had to lean closer to her to properly hear what she was saying.
"I was walking home from school. I passed by the house everyday, but I didn't know it was the woman's. When I saw the police cars, I got scared, but I was far too curious to just walk away. SO I got closer, I noticed a girl. She went to my same school, I think she's a year or two younger than me, though. She was crying hysterically, yelling out to her parents. I hadn't even seen the firemen walk out of the house. I only the a glimmer of gold, and I knew instantly it was my mother's ring."
She paused again, her eyes glossing over with the memory of what came out of her mouth next.
"And then I saw the body.
It was completely burned. They put her on a table and covered her up immediately, but I saw it."
Her eyes flickered to Bradley's then, and he saw the pure terror and pain swimming in her orbs.
"She was burned alive, Brad."
Knowing he couldn't let her say anything else, Bradley didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around Carson, closing the space between them and pulling her to his chest, feeling her entire body trying to hold back the tears.
He didn't say anything, just held her as she gripped his hoodie, her nails digging into the soft material.
A few moments passed, and Carson pulled away slowly, pressing her palms under her eyes and drying away the few streaks of memory that had escaped the flames still dancing in her eyes.
She walked behind Bradley, the boy looking at her, wanting to make sure she was ok, though knowing she definitely wasn't and knowing they'd already wasted enough time. Gripping the lantern in his right hand, the boy aimed for the pile of wood, and the fire burst to life.
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hey so i didn't die YAY
guysssssss there's only one chapter left then the epilogueeeeee
this is literally the first book I've ever actually finished and I'm so happy about that lmao
ALSO THERE'S MORE SHIT COMING?? WHAT???
I DECIDED I'M GOING TO COMPLETE BLOOD FIRST, THEN CONTINUE AND POSSIBLY FINISH TDSOTM, BUT THEN THERE'S MORE WORKS COMINGGGG
IF YOU GUYS WANNA KNOW WHAT THEY ARE THEN LOOK OF THE 'SOON TO BE PUBLISHED' SECTION IN MY DESCRIPTION. BEFORE ANYONE SAYS ANYTHING, YES, THEY ARE ALL FANFICTIONS BECAUSE I DON'T EXACTLY HAVE THE TIME TO DEVELOP A STORY ON MY OWN, AND YES I DO KNOW IT DOESN'T SAY WHICH CHARACTERS FROM WHAT THEY ARE OF, SO I GUESS YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE
BYE BEANSSS