Disclaimer: I do not own the Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst series. This is an AU of that universe. This was inspired by The Basement Chronicles by SilveRanger on AO3. I highly recommend you read that as well, even though it is not related to this story.

WARNING: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of child abuse. If you are triggered by this, do not read. You could also just read the last section of this chapter. Otherwise, read at your own risk.

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She was violently thrown to the floor, back in that cell Charles had first put her in. A foot came down on her head, painfully pinning her to the hard stone. "I'm disappointed in you, Madeleine," he said from above her, his tone genuine and slightly wrathful. She whimpered under his foot, tears gathering in a puddle on the floor.

"I thought you would've realized by now how wonderful of a family you have. You have people who actually care about you and would do anything for you. And you repay that compassion by trying to abandon it? To abandon me?" The foot pressed harder, making her cry out. She was too afraid to feel guilt from Charles' words, despite how twisted they were. He had kidnapped her and forced her to live underground, forced to play the part of a docile, domesticated daughter, like a pet. A real family wouldn't do that to each other. She wanted to voice as much but she had a feeling Charles already knew what she was thinking.

Charles then shoved her away with his foot, like she was a piece of trash. She whimpered again, curling in on herself in a protective position. The madman regarded her scathingly. "Like it or not, you are part of this family, bound by something much stronger than blood. It is a bond that can never be broken, no matter how much you try to. It is a bond that will transcend death and last until the end of time." His eyelids lowered a fraction, darkening his visage further as he gazed down at the girl shaking and crying on the floor. "It's clear that I haven't been administering enough discipline. You seem to have forgotten who you belong to now."

Maddie flinched at those words. "Belong to." As if she was nothing more than an object, a doll at the mercy of its owner. Her stomach curled at the thought. She unfurled slightly from her position, staring Charles right in the eyes. "This isn't my home," she said. "You're not my family! I don't belong to anyone! I have a mom and dad back at my real home. I want to go back home!" She didn't know how intimidating she looked with all the tears and snot staining her face, but her words had the desired effect. Or maybe not, as Charles' mouth curled up into a bitter snarl.

"I'll need to teach you a lesson, then," he growled, moving forward to grab her. It was at that moment that Rose appeared in a puff of white mist, standing between Charles and Maddie, holding her arms out protectively. Her face betrayed righteous anger but also fear. Fear for the girl. "Stop it!" she exclaimed. "Don't do this, Charles! She's just a child!"

"Yes," Charles agreed, slightly miffed at his wife's appearance, "and children need to know their place. This is necessary, Rose."

"Necessary?!" Rose echoed, visibly agitated. "You speak of breaking her in like a horse. I refuse to allow you to have your way. Not again!"

Charles tilted his head slightly at her, condescending. "You have no say in the matter," he countered. Rose shrunk away from the words, knowing he was right. The madman lifted a finger to point at her. "You are my wife. You do not question your husband. You are meant to be subservient to him until death."

"And yet I am dead, and I'm still bound to you," Rose hissed.

"You're not-" Charles stopped himself, pinching his nose. "We are getting off track. This is about Madeleine, not you. She needs to understand where she stands now." He proceeded to reach through the transparent figure of his wife, gripping Maddie's hair in a tight, painful grip, the girl wailing from the harsh treatment. "That is a father's duty, after all." He pulled her by the hair through Rose, screeching as she was dragged to her feet. She was still being pulled by the hair down the long corridors, Rose following them and begging Charles not to do this. Maddie tried to use one hand to pry at the madman's fist in her hair and the other to reach out to Rose. But neither could release her from Charles' hold.

When they reached the master bedroom, Charles slammed the door shut, effectively cutting out Rose as she was banished outside the room temporarily. She couldn't even act as comfort for the girl. Charles pulled out a chair and shoved Maddie into it, her chest resting against the back of the chair. She yelped as she felt hands unbuttoning her dress from behind, peeling away the undergarments. Her back was exposed now, and her heart beat wildly in her chest at what this implicated.

Charles rummaged around in a drawer that was part of a wardrobe, pulling out a long black stick that Maddie didn't recognize. He approached the frightened girl, tapping the end of it against the palm of his other hand. "Now, hold still," he instructed her, Maddie trembling in anticipation. "It'll only make the pain worse." She barely had time to process that before he raised the stick and brought it down hard on her bare flank.

She screamed as hot, stinging pain lanced across her right side. She glanced down and noticed an angry, red welt forming where Charles had struck her, a trickle of blood escaping it. It contrasted against her pale white, sun-deprived skin in a horrific way to her. Charles wound up to strike her again and she tried to run, but the madman expected this and held her still by the back of her neck. "Didn't I tell you not to move?" he chided calmly despite the situation. The stick came down again on her back, making another sharp, cracking noise.

Charles struck the riding crop on her bare back over and over again. Each blow would send ripples of agony across the entire surface, and she knew that more welts would form from them. It wasn't long before her back was on fire, the pain occupying her perception completely. Her pleas for him to stop were lost in the screaming and wailing elicited by each strike. Soon, she was a blubbering, sobbing mess. She hated this. This was the closest she'd been to wanting to die. Not that Charles would've shown her mercy. He continued delivering blows to any inch he could find.

She didn't know exactly how many lashes she received until he stopped. When he did, she couldn't move, the pain still present and agonizing. She sat there leaning against the back of the chair limply, wishing she could just pass out. She didn't register Charles leaving to the bathroom and returning, not until the sting of alcohol over her gaping wounds made her whine. Once they were cleaned, her clothes were put back into place on her body, the material now feeling like a thousand razor blades across her back. Moving hurt too much, but Charles yanked her from the chair anyway.

They marched through the corridors again, none of the spirits in sight. She hoped that this was the end of it, that she'd be left to nurse her wounds in peace. It took her way too long to realize that this wasn't the way to the cottage. She wanted to ask where they were going, but it was clear that Charles was in a foul mood. So, she kept silent.

They eventually reached a room that Charles used a key to open, the metal screeching on its hinges. The first thing that Maddie noticed was that it was completely dark inside. No torches and no electricity. A dark box. Unceremoniously, she was yanked into the room, her heart nearly pounding out of her chest. It completely stuttered when she saw what was in the center of the room.

A cage, no bigger than a kennel for a dog, but it was designed like those circus cages that the performers kept the elephants and lions in. Charles had crouched down to unclasp the padlock at one end of the cage. Once it unlocked, the tiny door opened. It was then that he turned back towards the girl, ushering her towards it. Her instincts kicked in way too late, pulling and tugging against Charles' firm grip. She didn't want anything to do with this. She wanted to go home.

Charles eventually got impatient and practically threw the girl into the cage, her limbs and head banging painfully against the iron bars. Before she could react, the door was shut and locked again. She shifted around in the cage, finding that it was only big enough to rest on her knees, her body bent in an uncomfortable position, much like how a dog would stand. To her horror, Charles began to walk out of the room, and it was then she discovered what this horrible punishment would entail. He was going to leave her alone in the dark, shoved into an uncomfortable and cramped space where she couldn't even stretch her limbs. Fear gripped her heart like a vice, squeezing her chest until she thought it might burst.

She reached out a hand through the bars, pleading with her captor, her tormentor. "No, no! Don't leave me here, please! I'm sorry, Father, I'm sorry! I'll be good, I promise! Just please... don't leave me!" But the madman hardly spared her a glance, gazing coldly back at the girl once he left the room, the metal door clicking back into its frame. The turn of a lock sealed her fate, a sort of finality to it.

She screamed for hours on end, until her throat turned raw from the abuse. She was alone and scared, trapped in the dark tomb she had always feared. Death sounded like a paradise by comparison at this point. But no one came to let her out. Not even the spirits visited her. It must have been Charles' doing. She didn't know how long she'd been trapped there until the door opened again. It was Eric, carrying a dog bowl dish filled with some... strange brown stuff. It looked a lot like dog food. He set it down within her reach. Her stomach growled at the sight of it. "Eat up, little sister," he said, bending his neck to get a good glimpse of her in the cage. She whimpered, and with a broken voice said, "Please let me out."

Eric didn't say or do anything. His expression didn't even change. Instead, he straightened and strode out of the room as quickly as he'd come, leaving her to her anguish and turmoil. The bowl was still within arm's reach. Her stomach growled again. She pulled the bowl closer to her and began shoveling whatever this was into her mouth. She knew well how humiliating and demeaning this was supposed to be, but she was too hungry to care. She didn't even care if the food was actual dog food from a can.

She ended up vomiting it all up later. She couldn't help it. Her stomach hurt so bad. It happened again when she ate the next meal she was brought. It took her a few times to swallow down the urge to puke out all her guts. It made her abdomen burn in constant agony. She was never let out to relieve herself either, so she was stuck huddled in her own urine and feces. She got tired of the smell pretty quickly.

It had to have been around a week of this torment before she was finally let out. At that point, she hurt too much to move, so Charles had to carry her back to the little cottage. She didn't protest when he washed her, changing her into fresh nightclothes before putting her to bed. The next morning, she woke up with a high fever, and it was Charles who took care of her throughout that. She didn't remember much from that haze, and she was glad about it. But the pit of despair inside her had widened to an unfathomable degree. She would never be the same after this.

And it was a loss she didn't think she could live with.

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Something had snapped inside of her that day. The future was dark and bleak, nothing to hope for. She didn't want to live like this, but she was given no choice.

Her failed escape attempt left her devastated. She wanted to leave because she couldn't stand living one more day down here. She became desperate and enraged. Despite knowing it would never work, she tried to claw her way out, often attacking Charles or Eric with nothing but her bare hands. The man who insisted she call him her father simply called them "tantrums." He was not pleased by this. He kept saying it was "unladylike" for someone her age to act so childish. But she didn't care. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to kill herself. The fantasy of sinking a knife into his throat, watching him choke on his own blood before she turned the sharp edge to her wrists became cathartic for her.

Of course, she was too weak and helpless to realize any of these fantasies. So, these "tantrums" would be treated with more punishment. Which meant more beatings and time in the cage. Charles called this "time-out." She had been in time-out before. This was so much worse. No matter how much she scratched or bit, acting nothing short of a feral animal, Charles did not relent. It was a futile battle, one that she knew she would lose.

Charles had taken something from her, deep inside. The empty hole gaped. As more time passed, she realized she was forgetting things about her mother. What her face looked like and how she smelled. She could only remember her voice and what her heartbeat sounded like when she pressed her ear to her chest when she was a little girl. It made the hole ache all the more.

She didn't know when exactly she had decided to give up. It was just like she sat back and... let Charles mold her into what he wanted her to be. A perfect, obedient daughter. It was hard not to be afraid of the man killing her. She was already dead.

She just hoped that she could die before Charles hooked her up to one of those machines and trapped her soul there forever.

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"What do you mean it's being called off?!" Two fists slammed themselves onto an office desk. A plaque with a name inscribed on it rattled from the force. "We've already got the warrant and everything!"

The Head Investigator regarded the MCF detective coolly, not affected by his outburst. "We did. But you forget that it's private property. And besides, the estate's already been combed over. There's nothing there to find."

"You don't know that!" the detective growled. "Dalimar spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on renovations for Ravenhearst Manor, but he didn't hire any builders, and the house hasn't changed one bit. He's been building something, something that he can hide from the public eye."

The Head Investigator leaned back in her chair. "Legally, Charles Dalimar has been dead for nearly fifty years."

The detective straightened then, fixing the woman with a blank stare. "You and I both know that's not true," he muttered, loud enough for her to hear. She scrunched her eyes shut, already feeling a headache coming on. "After all this time, we still haven't garnered enough substantial evidence to find suspicion. And I'm sorry Detective, but it's been eighteen months. If Dalimar's had her for that long, she's long dead by now."

The detective flinched. He couldn't help but think of Madeleine's poor parents, waiting for the day when he would succeed and bring their daughter home. The girl's father had hopped on the next flight he could to London once Kim contacted him to tell him about the horrible news. The detective had to do everything in his power to keep the man from tearing Blackpool apart with his bare hands. He admired the grieving father's dedication to his daughter. That's why something like this would kill him, kill both of them. He didn't want to be the one to snuff out the hopeful light in their eyes.

The Head Investigator noticed his inner turmoil. "I know this is hard," she said. "I get it-"

"Do you?" he interrupted, a hard edge to his tone. "You understand that you'd have to tell these parents that their only daughter is most likely dead, so we're giving up? Is that what you want to do?"

The Head Investigator sighed heavily, taking off her glasses to clean them. "Like I said, it's been eighteen months," she said. "It's long enough for the local police to make it a cold case. And frankly, we have so many new cases coming in that we don't have the resources to continue this investigation." She slipped her glasses back onto her nose. "So that means we'll have to put it on ice as well."

The detective clenched his fists, but he knew there was no winning here. He lowered his head, hiding his trepidation over this decision. The Head Investigator stared at him levelly. "Get some rest, Detective," she advised. "You're going to need it." He nodded curtly, taking the cue to leave. But he made sure to slam her office door on the way out.

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Author's Note: I forgot to mention that Charles exhibits possessive behavior. That much was evident enough at the end of the third Ravenhearst game, where he wanted to incorporate the detective into his "family" as well. But yeah, really scary, creepy dude regardless.

I'm not too familiar with the history of the MCF department, so I don't know who heads it. I just know that the MCF investigates supernatural things and I know the lore behind the other games, like The Thirteenth Skull and Shadow Lake.

Praise is appreciated and constructive criticism is encouraged.

See you next time!

-The_Mayflower