Contract Marriage: I Will Never Love You-Chapter 40: Panic

Sarah

I can’t breathe.

The darkness swallows me whole, pressing against my skin and crawling into my lungs. My fingers shake as I pound on the door, my voice cracking.

"Matthew! Please, please open the door!"

No answer.

The tightness in my chest spreads, constricts. My lungs feel shrunken, incapable of drawing enough air. I sink to my knees, back against the door, trying to remember the breathing exercises my therapist taught me years ago.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

"Help," I try to call, but it comes out as a whisper.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the darkness behind my eyelids is the same as the darkness of the basement. There’s no escape from it.

"Matthew," I call again, but my voice breaks on his name.

"Matthew, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Just—just let me out!"

My voice breaks on a sob. My knees buckle, but I catch myself, pressing my forehead against the door.

I claw at the wood, my nails scraping, desperate. Pain shoots through my fingers as one nail bends too far, then—snap.

I barely register the sting before warm blood drips down my fingertip.

A whimper slips from my throat. My vision blurs. My breath comes too fast, too sharp.

The dark. The walls. The air too heavy.

I’m a little girl again.

Locked in that tiny room.

Screaming. Crying. Begging.

"Mommy! Mommy, please!"

But no one came.

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push the memory away, but it crashes over me, drowning me. My body shakes, my legs giving out.

I hit the cold floor, gasping, trembling. My chest squeezes tighter and tighter, my throat closing up.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

"Please," I whisper, though I don’t know who I’m talking to. Matthew, who locked me in here? He won’t come back. This is his punishment to me.

It feels like time stretches differently in the dark. Has it been minutes or hours? I don’t have my phone with me.

I’m going to die here, I think with sudden, terrible clarity. Not from some monster in the dark, but from my own fear. My heart will simply give out, unable to maintain this frantic rhythm. Or I’ll pass out from lack of oxygen and never wake up. They’ll find me here when they eventually come looking, curled up against the door like a child hiding from the bogeyman.

Maybe that will be for the best. Matthew will be happy when I am dead.

The thought should scare me more, but instead, it brings a strange calm. If death is coming, at least the fear will end. At least the darkness will finally be complete.

But then the calm shatters as another wave of panic hits, stronger than before. No, I don’t want to die. Not here, not like this. Not alone in the dark with no one to hear me scream.

"Help!" I call out, voice breaking. "Someone help me!"

I bang my head back against the door, once, twice, the pain distant and unimportant. Maybe if I hit hard enough, I’ll knock myself out. Maybe unconsciousness would be better than this waking nightmare.

Where is Marishka? Can’t she hear me?

She can’t.

I know she can’t.

Her room is too far, and she sleeps like the dead. Even if she could hear me, what would she do? Will she stand up to Matthew?

My fingers ache, my broken nail throbbing, but I barely feel it. My body is shaking so bad, I can’t stop it.

I can’t stop anything.

I claw at my arms, as if scratching at my own skin will somehow make the panic lessen. It doesn’t. It only makes the buzzing under my skin worse, like I’m trapped inside myself, spiraling into a place I can’t escape.

The memory grips me again, dragging me under.

A tiny room.

Four walls, closing in.

No windows. No light.

I was so small.

I can hear my own screams from years ago, echoing in my head. Feel my little fists pounding against the door. My throat was raw from crying, my body exhausted from fighting.

But they left me there.

Alone.

Terrified.

Just like now.

A sob rips from my throat. My head spins, my vision blurring at the edges. The darkness warps, twisting, shifting. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.

I fold in on myself, curling up against the cold, hard floor, trying to make myself smaller. Maybe if I make myself small enough, the fear will stop. Maybe if I close my eyes, I’ll disappear.

But the dark is still there.

The air still won’t come.

I gasp, but it feels like I’m swallowing nothing. My heart is beating too fast, too hard—it hurts, like it’s trying to escape my chest.

I’m going to die.

I’m going to die here.

Alone.

The thought fades as the dizziness takes over. My limbs feel heavy, my head swimming. The blackness stretches wider, swallowing me whole.

And then—

Nothing.

~-~

A sharp inhale jerks me back to consciousness. My lungs burn, my throat raw. I look around and wonder.

How long have I been unconscious?

A sob slips past my lips before I can stop it, a quiet, pathetic sound.

"Are you done screaming?" I suddenly hear Matthew’s voice through the door.

"Matthew," My voice cracks. "Please let me out."

Then, a soft chuckle. "Beg better."

A fresh wave of shame washes over me. My fingers curl into fists, my broken nail throbbing.

I swallow back another sob, pressing my forehead against the door. My body is shaking so violently I can barely keep myself upright.

"I—I’m sorry," I whisper, my voice hoarse from screaming. "Please, Matthew. Please let me out."

Silence.

Then, a sigh. "That’s barely trying," he says, his voice thick with amusement.

Tears slip down my cheeks. My breathing is still uneven, panic clawing at my throat, but I force the words out anyway. "Matthew, please," I say, louder this time. "I’ll do whatever you want. Just—just let me out."

"Maybe what I want is for you to spend the rest of the night here. I will open the door in the morning," he says.

No.

No, I can’t stay here.

Another wave of panic slams into me, harder than before, stealing the last bit of control I had left.

I need to get out.

I push away from the door, stumbling backward. My legs are unsteady, trembling beneath me. I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t—

My foot catches on something. The world tilts and I fall.

A sharp pain explodes through my side as I hit the cold floor. My head snaps back, smacking against something hard. Stars burst behind my closed eyelids.

For a moment, everything spins.

The panic doesn’t stop, and it gets worse.

I hear my own ragged breaths, sharp and uneven, but they don’t feel like mine.

I start to sob louder and scratch at my arms. They feel itchy, and I feel like something is crawling under my skin.

The door suddenly flings open with a loud bang, light from the hallway spilling into the dark basement. Yet, I don’t turn to look. Instead, I frantically scratch myself, desperate to remove whatever is crawling all over me.

Matthew stands in the doorway, his tall frame silhouetted against the light. For a second, he almost looks like an angel, coming to rescue me from this hellish prison. But then I remember - he’s the one who locked me in here in the first place.

He rushes over to me.

"Sarah!" Matthew drops to his knees beside me, his hands reaching out to grasp my shoulders. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Matthew’s hands grip my wrists, forcing me to stop clawing at my skin. I barely feel the sting of my broken nails, the raw burn of my torn flesh.

"Sarah, stop," Matthew snaps, shaking me hard enough to make my teeth clack together.

I whimper, my voice hoarse. "I can’t stay here," I plead, my vision blurring with panic and tears. "Please, Matthew. There’s something down here. They are clawing all over me."

"There is nothing on you," he says, his grip tightening.

I know I’m going to pass out again. I can feel it coming. Then suddenly—I’m being pulled forward.

My body crashes into Matthew’s, his arms locking around me. Heat. Strength. The steady thud of his heartbeat against my ear.

I freeze. I should shove him away. Scream. Fight. Hate him.

But I don’t.

Instead, I clutch onto him, my fingers curling into his shirt, desperate and weak. His scent surrounds me, familiar despite everything—despite the cruelty, despite the fear.

His hand presses against the back of my head, holding me there, grounding me. "Breathe, Sarah," he murmurs, his voice lower now, steady. "Just breathe."

I try.

Inhale.

Exhale.

We stay like that for a moment. Slowly, I start to calm down.

Matthew carries me to the bedroom. My body feels weightless in his grasp, my mind barely registering the reality. He sets me down on the bed, his movements surprisingly gentle.

I curl in on myself the moment he releases me, pulling my knees to my chest, my hands trembling against the sheets.

"Who gets so scared of a basement at your age," he mutters, but there’s no real bite to the words.

He suddenly unzips my dress and slides it off my shoulders.

"What—what are you doing?" I ask.

"Shh...let me clean those scratches. Shit, you are insane. Look what you did to your arms," Matthew scolds. frёeωebɳovel.com

I flinch slightly as his fingers brush against my arms, the rawness of my skin stinging. I can feel the tears welling up again, but I don’t let them fall. I’ve cried too much already, and I don’t want to give him any more reasons to pity me.

Matthew’s hands are careful, but his touch is still firm. He applies something cold to my arms, and I wince at the stinging sensation, but it’s a relief at the same time. It feels like he’s trying to piece me back together, bit by bit.

"I am sorry I went overboard. I didn’t think you’d react like...that," he says.

I say nothing.

"Why did you react like this? It’s just a basement. Why were you panicking like you were some scared child?" he asks.

"I don’t know," I whisper.

Matthew doesn’t say anything right away. "You are lying to me."

I shake my head no.

I thought he would argue some more, but he just sighed. "Get some rest. We will talk in the morning."