"You think you're funny?"

A giggle escaped my lips. I quickly covered my mouth with both hands to suppress the sound, but it was too late. Dad's office in the mansion wasn't particularly cluttered, and the new leather couch only proved to be a good hiding place until my laughter betrayed me.

Clarence's ocean eyes appeared right above the hand rest. "You're gonna pay for that."

"What?" I stared up at him defiantly, no longer bothering to hide my smile. "You afraid of the dark?"

At almost twelve, he was bigger, and never missed an opportunity to remind me of that. Today was no different.

Straightening to his full height, he stepped around the sofa and scoffed. "No."

His yelp after I'd turned off the light as he was rummaging through Dad's papers begged to differ.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," I said.

It probably wasn't the smartest move, but what was he going to do? Steal my allowance? Eat my candy? He already did that.

"Shut up!" His face contorted in anger and before my eight-year-old brain registered what was happening, his much bigger hand closed around a lock of my hair.

"Wha—"

He yanked me up by my hair.

Tears sprang into my eyes from the sudden pain, and I screamed. My little fists reached up to simultaneously take some of the pressure off and scratch at his hand. His grip was iron, and my efforts were futile.

He pulled again, his high-pitched laughter drowning out my second scream. "Not so smug now, are you?" he said between bursts of more giggles.

Hot tears ran down my cheeks as I struggled to find my voice. "Let go," I choked.

"Let go," he mocked. "You're pathetic."

Vision blurry, I tried to break free once more, but he wouldn't budge. Seeing him raise his other hand, likely to grab more of my hair, I did the only thing I could think of. I kicked him in the balls.

Now huffing in pain, he dropped his hold and stumbled backward into the bookshelf. When his head connected with one of Dad's beloved encyclopedias, guilt pulled at my gut. What had I done? He would never purposefully hurt me and I'd... I'd—

I'd overreacted.

His mom was going to scream at me.

Dad was going to be furious with me.

I would be grounded for—

"You bitch!"

Still holding his groin, Clarence's eyes filled with pure hatred. No trace of that playful cruelty he usually walked around with.

My feet seemed to have a mind of their own as I shuffled back. For the first time, I was afraid of my stepbrother.

"I-I—I'm s-sorr—'' I started, hands shaking violently.

"Not yet you're not." He stumbled forward a step, one of his hands reaching for me once more. "But you will be."

I froze.

Clarence slowly advanced.

I watched his hand curl into a fist, knuckles white and protruding. Was he...? No. He wouldn't... Would he?

He took a swing, barely missing my cheek.

The answer was yes. This wasn't a game anymore.

And we were home alone.

I retreated, reached for the small couch pillow, and threw it at him. It only landed between his feet, but that was enough to trip him as he lunged at me. I didn't wait to see if he was okay.

"Come here!" he screamed as I flew down the hallway toward the stairs.

My room was on the first floor, right around the corner. Thanks to Dad's no-locks policy, locking myself in wasn't an option, but no one knew about the crawlspace behind my closet. If I could reach it...

I took two steps at a time—as fast as my little legs could handle—already feeling safer putting a little distance between us. I would wait for Clarence to cool off and Dad to get home, and then we would sit down for dinner like usual. Everything would go back to normal.

Clarence's screams and curses followed me into my room. I slammed the door for good measure and dove into my closet. Pushing shoe boxes of old pictures and trinkets aside, I scrambled into the back corner.

Whether it was the rushing in my ears or the adrenaline pumping through my veins, or even the sound of the small cardboard containers toppling over, I didn't know, but I only realized Clarence was right behind me when his sweaty palm closed around my ankle.

"Gotcha," he said triumphantly.

Desperately trying and failing to grasp onto first the carpet floor and then the open closet door, I pleaded, "Clarence, please!"

He continued pulling me across my room. Some part of me still wanted to believe that he was only trying to scare me, that he wouldn't actually do anything to hurt me. Only when my elbow connected with the heavy wooden trunk at the foot of my bed with a loud thump and Clarence didn't even budge did it fully dawn on me.

This was actually happening.

"I'm s-sorry." Fresh tears streamed down my face, but I stopped struggling, thinking he'd stop once he realized that he'd won, that I wasn't fighting anymore.

"Shut up!" he snarled, dropping my ankle. His sneaker-clad foot pressed down on my back. Hard. The soft creak of hinges sounded right above me.

The trunk... Why was he opening the trunk?

While I was still trying to figure out what in the world was happening, he grabbed me by the back of my sweatshirt and pulled me up. His angry eyes scanned my tear-stained face. For a moment I thought he'd changed his mind. He hesitated and his grip loosened ever so slightly.

But then a strange smile appeared on his face. Fear crawled up my spine. What kind of person smiled like that?

"Let's see how much you like the dark now," he said. Then he shoved me into the trunk.

My back and elbows connected with the hardwood first. Pain shot through my body, but I was too focused on Clarence as he pulled on the heavy lid. Scrambling into a sitting position, I reached for his arm.

The lid came down.

A muffled crack.

Pain.

Ear-splitting, bone-breaking agony.

And then... Darkness.

Everywhere. Thick and heavy. Pressing on my chest and lungs.

Breathe.

My body didn't cooperate. The muscles in my arms and legs tightened, but I couldn't move. Why couldn't I move?

"No, no, no, no, no."

That voice... It sounded strange, muffled. Familiar. The buzzing in my ears made it hard to hear. Something was off.

My wrist... It wasn't hurting anymore. And Clarence's distorted laughter... It had disappeared entirely.

The cold, wet surface beneath me sent a shiver through my entire being. The trunk... It was gone.

"No, no, no."

It took me another moment to realize the low chanting was my own.

The game... The explosion... My tumble down the ravine and into...the cave.

Something touched my spine.

Shit.

I wasn't alone down here.

Panicked, I scrambled forward, my hands scraping against sharp pebbles and mossy rocks. White spots appeared in my vision. Entirely blind, I pushed on.

At least until my palm found nothing but air and I felt myself falling forward. Right when my fingertips touched freezing water—please let it be water—something wrapped around my waist, and I was pulled up.

Reaching for something—anything—I scrambled blindly, kicking and grabbing at...something very much alive. My foot connected with a soft surface, and the hold on my midsection loosened for a moment. Cool cave air whooshed past my face, and expecting to hit the rocky floor, I braced myself.

Instead, I fell onto something surprisingly soft. And warm.

I froze.

Despite the ringing in my ears, I recognized the agitated voice immediately.

"Are you done now?"

I blinked into the darkness. "H-Haze?"

"You expecting someone else?"

"N-no."

With absolutely no sense of direction, I made to crawl off him. And promptly hit my knee on what had to be another rock. Hissing in pain, I fell back onto the firm cushion that was my demon roomie.

With one hand on what I thought was his stomach, I tried to ease myself off him without landing on the nearest pointy rock. When my foot caught on something else, his calloused hand gently took hold of my ankle.

"Ariel," he breathed, "stop."

I froze once more. "I-I-I can't...see."

"And still you think it's wise to crawl around here?"

I sucked in a labored breath. "Where's my backpack?" I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

Breathe, Ariel. You've done it your entire life. In and out. In and out. In and out.

"Somewhere above us, I assume," he replied slowly.

Realizing that I was basically screwed and entirely helpless in a pitch-black cavern with someone who could very well want me dead gave me the rest. Whatever strength I had left was gone, and I felt myself slump forward as a shiver ran through my body. Once more, what had to be Haze's arm prevented me from faceplanting.

"Hey," he said, "stay with me."

He moved beneath me and before I knew it, I was pressed up against his chest with one of his arms supporting my shoulders, while the other rested beneath my thighs. Comfortable warmth spread through my entire being and that infuriatingly intoxicating woodsy smell surrounded me.

I fought to keep my eyes open even though they were practically useless. "I'm okay," I managed.

"You are afraid of the dark," he murmured.

Deny.

I scoffed but I ended up being more like a weak cough. "I—no." I shook my head and the haze cleared just a little. "I just don't like not being able to see where I'm going, okay? That's perfectly normal."

"Touchy."

"I'm not. You're just..."

Why did everything suddenly feel so heavy?

"Just...?" he echoed, slowly getting up.

A cool breeze caressed my neck and I leaned into his shoulder. Were we moving?

"Thanks for not letting me fall into an underground lake," I said instead.

His chest vibrated with a soft chuckle. "I wouldn't call it a lake. A puddle at best. But I suppose for someone your size that's basically the same thing."

Jerk.

"It's rude to insult your savior."

Whoops, had I said that out loud?

"Savior?" I asked.

"Obviously."

Something warm touched my cheek.

"Still with me?"

"Mhm," I confirmed.

Was it possible for the endless darkness to please spin a little less fast around me?

"Cupcake." His voice was low, almost scolding.

"Why..." I pinched my arm in an attempt to fight the sudden waves of exhaustion. "Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Maybe I'll tell you when we get outta here."

I didn't know how long we'd been walking, but my breathing was no longer strained and the dizziness had all but faded. I'd be okay.

With a somewhat functioning brain, I took a moment to ponder the obvious. Haze. If he wanted to hurt me, he'd had every opportunity. Hell, he could have just left me here to rot, or let me fall into that puddle and likely get hypothermia and freeze to death.

But he hadn't. Even though it would have been a piece of cake.

We were out in the middle of nowhere. Blaming my death on literally anything else... No one would have questioned it. I'd gone here voluntarily, willingly, with my roomies after all.

But no, Haze—the one roomie that had never missed a moment to get under my skin—the one that I'd never resisted to annoy either...

I was here with him. Pressed up against his chest.

And I...didn't hate it.

"Look," Haze said quietly.

I opened my eyes—and stared in awe at the large, open space in front of us.

The high ceiling was covered in specks of luminescent crystals of various colors. Lux crystals. Of course, we were in Ardua after all. This had to be one of many underground cave systems.

Despite some of them glowing very brightly, their light barely reached the rocky cavern floor. On the left, a small stream poured from a black opening in the charcoal-colored rock. The crystals reflected in the water running straight down the smooth stone, creating a beautiful, ever-changing mural of glittering colors. This place was...breathtaking.

I tilted my head to look up at Haze. His face was as stoic as ever, but even he seemed to be mesmerized by the sight in front of us. His features were mostly shadowed, and I could barely make out his dark eyes and the sharp slant of his jaw and cheekbones.

Being this close to him did something to me. My heart rate accelerated dangerously to the point where I could only hope he wouldn't feel it through my clothing.

"Haze..." I started.

"Hmm?" His chest vibrated and somehow that made me suddenly feel even warmer.

"Thanks for, you know, not leaving me to die."

The corner of his lips curled up and I could have sworn his hold around my shoulders tightened ever so slightly. "Where would the fun in that be?" he said.