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The sound of a drill is what wakes Tabitha up, and she has a brief, sleepy thought of the mines before wakefulness chases it off. This isn’t what the drilling at the mines sounds like, and she’s not at the mines, that would be ridiculous. She’s at the estate, in her bed, because where else would she be? She can feel her familiar blankets and pillow, and if she opens her eyes she’ll see that she is-
Not in her room.
The question of where she is if not her room is quickly settled as she looks around. Fuck, she knows this room. It’s a room she’s been trying and failing not to think about her entire life.
Light streams in from the lone window into the Scarlet Estate’s cell.
Everything feels hazy and sluggish, like she’s been dipped in molasses. She isn’t able to react with the panic the situation deserves, but she manages to sit up, looking around wildly as though if she keeps trying, she’ll see something different. She doesn’t.
The drilling noise stops. It had been coming from the door, which she notices has a rectangular hole cut into the bottom. Through it, she can see a saw and a few other tools lying on the ground. The source of the noise, most likely. There are few moments where the only thing Tabitha can hear is her own quickening heartbeat. Then, the silence is broken.
“Tabitha? Are you awake?”
The voice is muffled by the door separating them, but still unmistakable, even if she’s known it only briefly. It’s her cousin.
Her breath hitches as the recognition hits her, and it must be audible because her cousin acts as though she’s responded.
“Ok, that… that’s good. Means Dr. Kelly didn’t kill you. Not that I thought she would, but y'know. You were out for a while. It was kinda scary.”
Dr. Kelly? What the fuck did Dr. Kelly have to do with this? Had she been drugged?
Her cousin doesn’t give her a chance to put a voice to any of the frantic questions buzzing in her mind before continuing.
“Before anything else, I just wanna say that I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much. It wouldn’t mean much to me. But still, I am, and I do still care about you. Somehow.”
Finally, Tabitha finds her words again.
“What the hell? What is this?”
It comes out hoarsely, her mouth the kind of dry that can only be achieved with a long, bad sleep. She runs her tongue around her mouth, trying to fix it. It doesn’t help much.
“You’re in the forbidden wing. In… that room. The one you were going to put me in.”
She can’t even manage to be surprised. Of course her cousin would find out. As if everything else hadn’t gone wrong enough this week. As if the walking, talking corpse of her ex, the monsters in the woods, the mine collapse, the ghost, all of that bullshit wasn’t enough. As if her resolve to attempt hadn’t been shaken already, the chance to even try had been taken from her. She was an idiot. She’d gotten so swept up in her guilt over doing this to someone who seemed to trust her so much that she forgot what lengths a person might go to avoid such a horrible fate. The full implications of being in this room are starting to sink in. Her stomach drops.
“I am right about that, aren’t I? I wish I wasn’t. I wish I was wrong. And I wish I was confident enough that I was wrong that I could have gone to you, and you’d have told me it wasn’t true. That we could figure this out together. That we were family, and family wouldn’t do this to each other. But that’s not what would have happened. Maybe I was wrong to not give you a chance. But I wasn’t, right?”
Her cousin takes her silence as the confession that it is.
“Fucking hell, Tabitha. What am I supposed to do now? I’m not some goddamn crazy person that keeps a person locked up in their house. I don’t want to do this. I don’t even know if I can.”
Blood roars in her ears. The room feels impossibly small. She already knows this isn’t going to work, but her body will never forgive her if she doesn’t try.
“Then you don’t have to. Fine, you figured it out. I changed my mind. I wasn’t going to go through with it. Just let me out.” Her voice cracks, and Tabitha winces. “Please. We can talk about this.”
There’s an odd, strangled sound on the other side of the door. Something between a laugh and a sob.
“No, we can’t. But it’s gonna be ok, Tabitha. I’ll figure something out. I’ll find some way to undo whatever our family did so you don’t have to be in there anymore, and I can leave. Get back to my life. I don’t want any of this. But I can’t trust you. So until I know I can leave safely…”
She isn’t able to speak aloud exactly what she’s doing to Tabitha. Even though it’s an act born of pure self defense, her cousin is stricken with guilt. She continues as though it were said after all.
“I’ll try not to make it terrible. After I told her about what I found, Dr. Kelly agreed to help me. We cleaned up as best we could while you were at work. I’m no plumber, but I think I rigged up a working toilet in here. Even removed that glass pane over the window to let some fresh air in. She said it’d be good for you.”
Sure enough, there’s a chill coming through the window. Open air. Tabitha finally finds the strength to get up, and scrambles to the window. It’s set too high for her to see anything more than a bit of sky and the tops of distant trees.
“…We also checked to make sure someone outside couldn’t see or hear what was going on up here. Cliff’s too high up.”
That had been Tabitha’s first thought. She turns back to the door to glare at it, as if that would do anything.
“How quickly did you set all this up?” she gets out through gritted teeth.
“I can get you whatever you want, whatever you think might make this easier. Books and stuff,” her cousin continues as though she hadn’t said anything, “Whatever you feel like eating. Anything to make it more comfortable inside. I already brought the stuff from your own bed along with you, but let me know if there’s anything else.”
Something finally pushes past the terror: rage.
“Fuck you,” Tabitha hisses, barely audible. “Fuck you! Do you have any idea what you’re doing? This doesn’t count! You’re not fixing anything! You think I wanted to do this either? Of course not, but what we want doesn’t matter when so many lives are at stake. Do you know how many people work at the mine? How many of them have families? Do you think your life is more important than all of theirs?”
She’s shouting now, trying to hide the warble in her voice as tears threaten to fall. “I’ve worked too hard to keep this place alive. I’m the only reason there’s still a Scarlet Hollow. It can’t have all been for nothing. It can’t. You’re going to ruin everything. Let me out. Dammit, you have to let me out.”
The only response she gets is the drill being turned back on. Her shouting, cursing, and eventual sobbing goes unacknowledged as a small door is fitted over the hole. It’s locked, for good measure.