Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (win 10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Chloe. Do you have her here too?”

“She’s downstairs, she has to pay for what she did, River.”

Before I can even really think, I’m getting to my feet and walking towards her. “If you hurt her, I swear to god…” She pushes me back again and starts walking towards the door. “I’ll do far more than hurt her. If you won’t love me, I’ll make both of you pay. Starting with her.” she leaves the room before I can respond and slams the door in my face; locking me inside.

☀Ellie☀

 I rouse from my “sleep” sometime later with a splitting headache and I struggle to remember what happened. I try to open my eyes to gauge my surroundings. The first thing I notice is that I’m now sitting up, leaned against something; a wall probably. It’s cold and slightly damp.

I try again to open my heavy eyes, there’s a small light in the room I find myself in. Someone is crouching infront of me, watching me.

“Wake up!” something slams into the side of my face and I’m forced to do as the person instructs. My eyes snap open and in a panic I try to look around. I’m in some kind of basement with a girl hovering around me. I suddenly remember what happened and realize in a hot second that this is the same girl that broke into my home. When the shock of the punch wears off, I focus my eyes more closely on the girl in question; trying so desperately to see if there’s any detail I can spot on her. She’s blonde.

“C… Chloe?” Suddenly everything clicks, of course this would happen. Who else did I expect? But why does she have me here? What’s going on?

“Of course it’s me, you stupid whore.” she slaps the other side of my face and I try in vain to shield myself; only to realize my hands are tied together. “Wh-where am I?”

“Shut up!” she slaps me again and I start to feel tears form at the corners of my eyes. “You don’t deserve to know where you are, you’ll never get out of here anyways.” I try not to speak, in fear of her silencing me again. “This is all your fault, everything was perfect until you fucked it up.”

“I didn’t do anything… Why am I here?” as much as I tried not to speak, fear of what may happen drives the words past my lips. “You’re here because you ruined everything, you took her from me. I’m going to make you pay for what you’ve done.” the low growl that emits from the seemingly angelic looking cheerleader sends a shiver down my spine. I don’t know what I did, but I regret it already.

“I’m sorry, whatever I did, I’m sorry. Please let me go.” a sob of pure fear works its way out of me and again she hits me.

“You’re not sorry!” She nearly screams it at me and I shrink back against the wall, startled by the outburst.

“You don’t even know what you’ve done, how dare you try to act like you’re sorry? You’re not sorry, but you will be. And when you are sorry, I’m still going to make you pay. You’re never getting out of here, no matter how sorry you say you are.”

☯River☯

I hit the door when she slams it in my face, as if it’ll actually help me. After a minute, I look around the room to take in my surroundings. I’ve definitely never been here before; she must have actually brought all of her stuff to this abandoned house.

The windows are covered with wood and bared up like a jail cell. I can’t tell if it was her doing or not but regardless I’m trapped in her until she comes back for me. Unless I find some way to get the door open.

I turn back to the door I’m leaning against and stare at it silently for a moment. I reach out to turn the knob, as if I actually expect her to keep it unlocked. But by some miracle the door isn’t locked and it gives way after a little pushing.

Cautiously, I step into the small hallway that greets me on the other side of the door. I walk down it, trying to ignore all the pictures that Chloe and I took when we were friends hanging on both walls. I don’t bother to open any of the doors that occasionally interrupt the walls of the dark hall, instead I follow the hallway all the way to an end. A living room is the first thing I see on my left and a kitchen on my right. It’s a small, simple house, but still I find it surprising that it’s fully furnished; as if someone’s been living here. For a brief second I start to worry if Chloe was lying about the house being abandoned. Did she lock up the owners? Or is it really abandoned and she was crazy enough to set up all this stuff? Does she think that we live here together?

I try to push the thought aside as I wander the house, I find myself in the kitchen. There’s a back door and right beside it, a door that leads to what I can only guess is the basement. Carefully I press my ear to the door and listen.

I can hear muffled voices and in hot instant, I know she’s down there. And so is Ellie. Chloe’s voice raises for a minute and the shear anger in her voice leaves me standing here stunned. I still can’t believe such a seemingly normal looking girl could go this far off the edge.

Chloe’s voice fades from yelling into a low, warning growl and I look around the room in a futile attempt at trying to figure out what to do. Cautiously I open the door and stare down the dark stairway, another door at the end of it. I try to walk down the wooden steps as quietly as I can manage and slowly but surely I find myself in front of the other door.

Again I press my ear to the door as a murmuring voice starts up again. Then it happens. It’s sudden and the moment goes by so fast that I almost don’t catch it. But it’s this distinct sound of a bone snapping. This sound of pure agony emits from the other side of the door, it’s an odd mix between a scream and a groan but somehow it sends a shiver down my spine. Because instantly I know it has to be Ellie.

I try to push past the barrier of the door only to find that Chloe had actually locked this door. A wave of panic washes over me and my only instinct is to hit my fist against the door. “Chloe, Stop!”

My voice seems to draw the attention of someone inside and they move to hover infront of the door. “River… Just go back to our room, you shouldn’t have come here. I’ll be there to talk to you in a minute.” Chloe’s muffled voice reaches my ears but it does nothing to calm me. “Let me in, let me see her!”

“You don’t need to see her, River. It’s better if you don’t. I’ll take care of this, please go back to our room.” her reply only causes my panic to increase and I ram my shoulder into the door once before a stream of protests leaves my mouth without me even really knowing what I’m doing. “Stop! Don’t hurt her anymore, please!” I hit the door a few times but my efforts are in vain and her shadow starts to move away from the crack at the bottom of the door.

“If you won’t leave, then I can’t keep you from hearing. I’m sorry.” is her last warning before I’m ignored altogether. As soon as her figure is gone from my view, I start banging on the door again; slamming my shoulder into it a few more times. But this door is made of metal and it wouldn’t move an inch if I hit it with all of my force.

I rush back upstairs to try to find something, anything in the kitchen to get me past that door. I find a fire extinguisher and not being able to use anything else, I grab it before rushing back down the stairs to slam it against the doorknob.

Just as I get to the door, another muffled sound of pain reaches my ears and my body’s only reaction is to let out some sound of anger and fear mixed into one. I start hitting the doorknob but it seems like a pointless endeavor, as it does little to open the door. Another, louder snap rings in my ears and it’s followed shortly by another scream from Ellie that seems to shatter my heart.

I drop the fire extinguisher and go back to fruitlessly hitting the door, trying in vain to get Chloe’s attention. “Stop it! Stop hurting her, please…” the demanding yell morphs into a plea for mercy, which soon turns into uncontrollable sobbing. I fall down infront of the door, feeling like I failed Ellie in every way possible.

The torture abruptly stops, Chloe’s shadow moving to hover by the door again. A few minutes of silence pass and I stare down at my hands with every sense of hope draining from me.

Suddenly Chloe’s face comes into view as she crouches down infront of me. “Please stop crying, I can’t stand to see you in pain like this.” I push myself to my feet as soon as I realize what this means. I try to push past her to get to the door but she slams it shut before I can get inside. The automatic lock clicks into place and in the blink of an eye, I redirect my attention on Chloe.

“What did you do to her? Open the door now, I need to see her.” I shove her against the wall, my fists balling up in her shirt. “River, you can’t see her. I told you… ”

“I don’t care, let me see her.” my voice comes out as a low grumble, in a tone I never realized I could use before. I’ve tried to be threatening before but nothing quite compares to this.

“River… Don’t make me resort to drastic measures, we can talk. Please? I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, but we can’t keep getting mad at each other like this. It’s not good for our relationship.”

“I’m not your girlfriend, we don’t have a relationship.” I snap back immediately, a small part of me still wanting to try to reason with any sane part of her that might still be in there. Again that hurt look falls onto her features and suddenly something stabs my left side. I stagger away from her, startled by the small pinch of pain. She tosses an injector pen to the ground and instantly I realize what the small stab was.

“It’s okay, it’ll make you feel better.” She murmurs, trying to get rid of the panicked expression on my face by caressing my cheek. All the anger and fear I was feeling starts to quickly fade and within a few minutes I forget what I was upset about in the first place. “W-what did you do?” I stumble away from her until I’m backed into the opposite wall.

“You weren’t acting like the sweet girlfriend you usually are, I just gave you some medicine to get you back to your old self.” She smiles at me brightly and I feel like I should take it as a bad sign. But I can’t manage to think of her as bad anymore, she is smiling after all. Bad people usually don’t have a nice smile like that do they?

“I should take you back to our room, you