The Basement Wolf

Chapter 18. Hate Like Fire

The safe house was nothing like its name. Four walls, peeling paint, and curtains that clung to the windows like tired secrets. It smelled faintly of dust and something citrus Andy had sprayed in a half-hearted war against mildew. But it was quiet. For now, quiet was a miracle.

Sandra sat on the edge of the sagging sofa, her hands knotted in her lap. Across from her, Roy settled his bulk into an armchair that groaned under his weight. Age had carved gullies into his face, but his eyes—wolf-keen, storm-dark—hadn’t dulled. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, gaze cutting between her and the boy curled on the cot in the corner.

Liam slept like a soldier, tense even in dreams. His knees drew up as if the world might kick them out from under him. The blanket barely clung to his frame, shoulders rigid under cotton. His hair—longer than she remembered—feathered across his brow like a shadow refusing to lift.

Roy’s sigh filled the room like gravel rolling in a tin can. “One down,” he said, voice thick as old whiskey. “Two to go.”

Sandra’s pulse stuttered. Words tasted like ash before they left her. “Two to go,” she echoed.

“They’ll chain the walls this time,” Roy said. “Cameras in their damn bedrooms. Guards who breathe down their spines. After tonight?” He shook his head slow. “The whole nest is awake, Sandra. You won’t sneak a spider twice.”

Sandra’s jaw tightened until it ached. Her eyes burned holes into the floorboards, into the shadows trembling in the lamplight. “Then I won’t sneak,” she said, each word carved from iron. Her voice was low, lethal in its calm. “Before I go for the others, I finish him.”

Roy’s head lifted. “Stefan.”

She tasted the name like poison and didn’t spit. “He doesn’t get to keep breathing. Not after this.”

Roy studied her face for a long, hard beat, the silence thick enough to choke. Finally, he grunted—a sound like old wood breaking. “You kill him, you set the whole damn board on fire.”

“Then I’ll burn,” she said, and the air cracked with the vow.

The room folded into hush again. Only Liam’s breathing stitched the silence—thin, uneven, snagging on dreams Sandra prayed she’d never see.

Roy leaned back, eyes narrowing to slits. “You sure you got steel for that? Killing a man who’s still looking you in the eye?”

Sandra turned her head, slow as a blade pivoting in its sheath. “I’ve had steel since the night they made me a stage.”

Roy didn’t ask what she meant. He didn’t have to. The weight of it lay between them like a corpse no one buried.

A small sound broke the air. A rustle, a sigh—then a voice, cracked and hoarse from disuse. “Where…am I?”

Sandra spun before her bones knew they’d moved. Liam was awake.

He pushed the blanket down with a sharp, angry flick, eyes slicing the dim like shards of green glass. Ten years old, but the weight in that gaze was older than ruin. His mouth was a hard line carved from every silence he’d ever swallowed.

Sandra’s throat locked, words strangling before birth. “You’re safe,” she whispered, stepping toward him as if the floor might punish her for moving too fast. “Baby—”

“Don’t.” The word cracked like a whip.

She froze. His eyes burned holes through her ribs. “Don’t call me that.”

Something in her chest caved, but she fought to hold the wreckage in. “Liam,” she tried again, soft as gauze. “I—”

“You left.” His voice was low at first, almost calm, but the calm was a blade, and it was sawing her open with every syllable. “You left me with him.”

Sandra shook her head, frantic, words tumbling like stones. “No—no, I didn’t want to, they—”

“You wanted him.” The pitch climbed, sharp enough to draw blood. “You ran off with your lover while I—” His breath hitched, rage loading the next words like bullets. “While I was locked in that room like a dog.”

Sandra staggered back a step, as if the words had weight enough to break bone. “That’s not true,” she choked. “Liam, please—”

“Shut up!” It was a scream now, ripping the paint off the walls, jagged enough to tear her heart in half. His fists balled in the blanket, knuckles white, shoulders shaking with a storm that had waited years to break. “You weren’t there when he—” His breath fractured, splintering into a jagged sob he strangled with fury. “When he hit me. When he—” His voice cracked, then hardened like steel cooling too fast. “He said I had to be perfect. Perfect, or the chains. Perfect, or the dark. Do you know what it’s like to count the cracks on the ceiling until your head splits? To hold your breath every time the door opens because you don’t know if it’s food or fists?”

Sandra’s vision blurred, tears boiling up and over, but his voice kept coming, savage, unstoppable.

“You left me there!” His throat tore on the words. “Every day I waited, and you never came. Not until now. Ten years too late.”

“No,” she whispered, knees buckling, palms open in surrender. “I fought—every second I fought to get back—”

“You fought?” His laugh was a jagged, broken glass thing, slicing both of them as it fell. “From what? From silk sheets and someone else’s bed?”

Sandra’s breath shattered in her chest. “It wasn’t like that. It was never—”

“Liar!” The word detonated between them, so loud even Roy flinched. Liam’s face twisted, ugly with pain that had curdled into poison. “I hate you.”

Sandra stopped breathing.

Liam’s eyes glittered with tears he refused to shed, his jaw locked so tight it could break. “I hate you,” he said again, softer this time, which somehow hurt worse. “You’re nothing to me. Do you hear me? Nothing.”

The room swayed, soundless now but for the drip of venom between them. Sandra’s knees hit the floor before she felt them go, her hands clutching air because there was nothing left to hold.

Liam turned his face to the wall, shoulders jerking like shutters in a storm. His breath came in ragged gasps, the sound of a child’s heart learning how to beat in barbed wire.

Sandra reached once—just once—fingers trembling like they’d forgotten how to be hands.

“Don’t touch me.” His voice was low, cold, final.

Her hand fell like a dead bird into her lap.

Roy’s shadow loomed in the lamplight, silent and heavy as judgment. Outside, the wind shoved at the window like it wanted in, like it wanted to say what no one else could: that some storms don’t end when you shut the door. They just start tearing the roof off from inside.

Sandra lowered her head until her hair curtained her face, hiding what nothing could save. And in the cot, her son—her blood, her reason—lay breathing hate like fire, and the heat of it burned her down to bone.