“Theo! He isn’t breathing!”
The voice cut through the quiet of the morning like something sharp being dragged across glass.
I woke with a jolt, my chest already tightening before I even understood what was happening.
Barefoot, I ran toward the dining room.
Miranda was on the floor, cradling Theo against her. His little face had turned an alarming red, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled for air, his fingers clawing weakly at his throat as if trying to pull something invisible away.
“What happened?” I gasped as I dropped beside them.
“He ate a cookie!” Miranda cried out, her voice breaking into hysteria. “He’s allergic to peanuts! You knew that!”
She pointed shakily at the table where a plate of peanut butter cookies sat half-finished.
“I didn’t give him anything,” I said quickly, my heart beginning to race. “I just came down. I haven’t even touched the kitchen—”
“That’s a lie!” Miranda screamed over me. “You put them there! You’re trying to kill him because you can’t stand him!”
The sound of rushing footsteps filled the hallway.
Victor came in, already alarmed. The moment he saw Theo struggling, he didn’t hesitate—he grabbed the EpiPen from the counter and drove it into the child’s thigh.
Theo cried out sharply, then suddenly sucked in a deep, desperate breath as air rushed back into his lungs.
Relief lasted only a second.
Victor turned to me.
Something in his eyes changed—cold, stripped of anything human, like I was no longer a person to him at all.
He grabbed my wrist.
“Victor—what are you doing?” I stammered as he dragged me away. “Stop—please!”
He pulled me straight toward the basement door.
“No,” I begged, planting my feet against the floor as hard as I could. “Not down there. You know I can’t—Victor, I can’t go in there!”
The words barely came out between panicked breaths. He knew. He had always known I couldn’t stand tight, dark spaces. They made it feel like the air itself was being stolen from my lungs.
“You should’ve thought about that before you tried to harm Theo,” he said sharply.
Then he shoved me forward.
I fell down the stairs, tumbling into darkness.
The door slammed shut above me.
The lock clicked into place.
“Victor!” I screamed, pounding the wood until my hands hurt. “Open the door! I can’t breathe down here!”
No answer came.
Only silence.
The basement smelled damp and old, like something forgotten and rotting with time. I sank to the floor, pulling my knees to my chest, rocking slightly as I tried to calm myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to imagine sunlight, open fields, anything that wasn’t this suffocating dark.
But the walls kept closing in, not physically, but in my mind, pressing tighter and tighter until I could barely think.
When the door finally opened again, light spilled in harshly and stabbed at my eyes.
“Get upstairs,” Victor said flatly from above. “You still need to cook dinner.”
I pushed myself up on unsteady legs and climbed out. My throat was raw from screaming, my body stiff as though it didn’t belong to me anymore.
“I need a moment,” I whispered hoarsely. “I just need to wash my face, change—”
“Be quick,” he cut in without even looking at me.
I turned toward my bedroom.
And stopped.
The room had been stripped.
Drawers were empty. My clothes were gone. Even the hidden things I had kept—photos of Caleb, small pieces of him I couldn’t bear to throw away—had vanished. The blanket I used to hold when I couldn’t sleep, the one that still carried his scent, was gone too.
My breath caught.
I ran to the window.
Outside, something was burning.
A metal barrel stood in the middle of the lawn, thick black smoke rising into the gray sky.
I didn’t think—I just ran.
Barefoot, I rushed through the house and out into the yard.
Heat hit my face the moment I got close.
Inside the barrel, flames devoured fabric—blue fabric with tiny dinosaur prints.
“No…” my voice broke as I reached forward instinctively, trying to pull something out, only for the fire to force me back.
It was his things.
Caleb’s clothes.
His blanket.
Everything I had kept of him.
I collapsed to my knees right there in the grass as the fire swallowed the last pieces of my son.
“Why are you doing this?” I sobbed, my hands digging into the soil. “Why would you take this from me?”
I stayed there until the fire burned itself out, until only gray ash remained and the barrel went cold again.
When I finally stood, I felt empty.
I walked back inside without really seeing anything, my gaze fixed somewhere far away.
Then I heard it.
A soft, rhythmic shaking sound.
Shake… shake… shake…
I lifted my head slowly.
Theo was sitting in the hallway.
In his hands was something heavy and pale—marble.
My stomach dropped.
The urn.
Caleb’s urn.
Theo was holding it upside down, shaking it like a toy.
“Rocket!” he giggled, banging it lightly against the floor. “Empty rocket!”
Everything inside me went still.
“Stop that!” I screamed, rushing forward.
I snatched it from him and dropped to my knees, clutching it to my chest as if it could still be saved. My hands trembled violently as I forced the lid open.
I looked inside.
Nothing.
No ashes.
No remains.
Nothing left of him at all.
My breath stopped completely.
“Where is he?” I whispered, voice breaking apart. I turned toward Theo, panic rising fast. “Where did you put him?”
Theo shrank back, frightened now, pointing down the hallway toward the trash chute.
“It was just dirt,” he said quietly. “I put it there so the rocket could fly.”
A scream tore out of me.
“What is going on here?”
Miranda appeared in the doorway, annoyed as if I were disturbing her peace. Her eyes flicked from me to the broken urn, then to Theo.
“Oh,” she said lightly, almost bored. “He must’ve thrown it away. Honestly, Vivian, you shouldn’t leave things like that where a child can reach them.”
“You let him—” my voice cracked as I stared at her.
My grip loosened.
The urn slipped from my hands and shattered against the floor.
It didn’t matter anymore. It was already empty.
Before I could even process it, Victor looked up from his desk in the next room.
“Divorce me,” I screamed suddenly, running toward him. “Just sign it—let me go!”
My hands slammed onto his desk, papers scattering as tears fell onto everything he owned.
“I can’t live like this anymore, Victor. Please.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
A quiet, hollow sound that made my skin crawl.
“You want me to let you go?” he asked, leaning back casually.
“Yes,” I choked. “You hate me anyway. You have Miranda. You have everything.”
His expression didn’t change.
“I don’t just want you gone,” he said calmly. “I want you to suffer. Every single day until there’s nothing left of you.”
My breath trembled.
“Why?” I whispered. “I loved you. I gave you everything. If you don’t love me anymore, fine—but why are you doing this?”
Victor stood.
The air around him shifted, colder now.
“I’m only giving you what you gave me,” he said.
I froze.
“What are you talking about?”
He walked around the desk until he was right in front of me.
“You cheated first,” he said quietly.
My mind went blank.
“I never—”
“Don’t lie!” he roared, slamming his fist into the wall beside my head. “Miranda told me everything. The DNA tests proved Caleb wasn’t even my son!”
