Rise of the Guardian

CHAPTER FOUR – Things You Can’t Unhear

The camera blinked red in the corner of the garage. Emma never noticed it. She never cared about this space, too much grease, too many half-finished machines. Ryan had installed the CCTV years ago, back when the garage was less about engines and more about protecting assets. Funny how the same little lens that once watched over a collection of cars was now watching over the dismantling of two lives.

On the workbench sat Ryan’s phone, screen dark but still humming from the confessions it had just recorded. Next to it, a digital recorder, light still glowing until he flicked it off. A performance, deliberate. He tucked them into his jacket like a magician pocketing cards. Emma tracked the movement with wet, bloodshot eyes. She thought the show was over. She thought the confession was done.

It wasn’t.

When the door shut behind him, the garage swallowed her and Thompson in thick silence. Only the hum of the old freezer and the faint tick of cooling pipes filled the void. Emma’s chest rose and fell like she was drowning. Thompson tugged at his bindings, not enough to escape, just enough to look busy. Like a kid fidgeting during church.

“You said,” Emma hissed suddenly, voice cracking, “you said it was temporary. That was the deal. A ransom. He’d come back aft-after money, after…” Her words tangled themselves, tripped over air. “You changed it. You. You convinced me.”

Thompson snorted, ugly and short. “Jesus, Emma. You're still lying to yourself? You’re still spinning that fairy tale in your head? You were halfway gone before I opened my mouth. Don’t dump this on me.”

Her eyes widened, darting toward the door Ryan had closed. She dropped her voice, sharp, brittle. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare put this on me.”

“You wanted him gone,” Thompson snapped, leaning forward as much as the tape allowed. “You loved the story better than the truth. Oh, poor Emma, grieving mother, sad eyes at dinner parties. Everybody is looking at you instead of at Ryan. You liked it. You basked in it.”

“That’s not…”

“You basked,” he spat, cutting her off. “And when the grief didn’t fade, you kept it burning. You let it eat you, because it made you interesting again.”

Emma shook her head violently, strands of hair sticking to her damp cheeks. “We met at the bar, remember? I didn’t even want to talk to you. I thought you were another creep trying to hit on me. You told me about your dead wife. You told me you weren’t trying anything, you just needed someone to talk to. I…” She swallowed, staring past him, almost believing herself. “I felt bad for you. That’s all.”

Thompson chuckled, bitter. “And yet here we are. Was she even real? Did you ever check?”

Emma froze.

Thompson grinned, lips cracked. “Exactly. You never checked. Because you liked the story, Emma. You liked it when I told you I was broken, because it gave you permission to be broken too. And Ryan? You loved having a cover. A grieving friend. ‘Support group’ my ass. We cooked that up together, remember? Because you didn’t want to risk him asking questions. And you think I changed the deal?” His laugh was low, humourless. “No, sweetheart. You did. You liked life better without your kid in it.”

Emma’s face twisted, a sound clawing its way out of her throat that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a scream. “You son of a bitch.”

“No,” Thompson said quietly, almost tender. “You don’t get to rewrite this. You were a shitty wife, Emma. Shitty mother. Shitty person. Selfish to the bone. You didn’t even want kids, remember? You told me once, after wine in bed, you never wanted him. You had him because you thought it’d tie Ryan down. Lock in the good life. The house, the trips, the status. You wanted the perks, but not the boy.”

Emma flinched like he’d hit her.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Thompson went on, voice cold now. “You said it out loud. Maybe not those exact words, but close enough. And if you can’t remember, I can. Because I listened. Because I wanted to believe you were more than the mask you wore. Turns out I was the idiot.”

She sagged, the fight draining from her, shoulders trembling.

The silence stretched. For a second, all that filled the garage was the hum of the freezer and the faint creak of the ceiling above.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Upstairs, Kellan sat cross-legged on the bed, pencil gripped so tight his knuckles blanched. A notebook rested on his lap, pages filled with words scratched hard enough to almost tear through.

He wasn’t writing what he heard downstairs. He couldn’t. The noises were muffled, shapeless - thuds, a chair leg scraping, someone’s voice breaking into gravel. They didn’t form words, but they gave him something. An anchor. Like a string tied around his chest, reminding him: Dad is down there. Dad is doing something.

So he wrote what he could remember instead.

Smell of bleach. No, ammonia. Both. Cold chair. Always cold. The tape on my wrists itched. Dog barking outside, not Jackson's. Different dog, lower growl. Jackson whistled when he was in a good mood. Off-key. Always the same three notes.

He stopped, stared, chewed the inside of his cheek.

Maybe I imagined the whistle. Maybe it was just the wind. Or maybe I dreamed it. No, I didn’t. I didn’t dream that. Did I?

He scribbled it anyway.

The notebook was messy, arrows crisscrossing, words underlined three times, some whole sentences scribbled out until the page thinned. Metal walls? Or wood? Maybe both. A cellar. Or maybe it was just the dark making it feel smaller. Jackson laughed at me when I cried. Said real men don’t cry. So I stopped. I stopped even when my throat burned.

The vent above the bed hummed, carrying faint sounds from the garage. Kellan pressed his ear to the wall, syncing his breath to the rhythm of Ryan’s footsteps below. He counted them. Five steps, pause. Another three. A scrape of something heavy. A thud. He inhaled when his father exhaled. It steadied him.

For a moment, he let himself imagine Ryan as a storm under the floorboards, tearing through lies, ripping open walls, making them pay. And for once, the thought didn’t scare him.

He bent over the notebook again.

Her voice. Cold. “No. I’ve closed that chapter.” Said it like she was bored. Said it like I was a story she never finished reading.

His hand shook, the pencil digging in deeper, until the words carved faint grooves into the paper.

No. I’ve closed that chapter.

He wrote it again.

No. I’ve closed that chapter.

Again.

Until the pencil snapped.

Kellan stared at the broken lead, chest hitching. He almost cried, but the sound of another thud downstairs, louder this time, reeled him back. He wasn’t abandoned. Not anymore.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Down in the garage, Emma finally whispered, “He’s going to kill us.”

Thompson’s smile was thin, cracked. “Maybe. Maybe not. But either way, sweetheart, he’s already decided what story the world hears. And guess what? We’re not the heroes in it.”