Chapter 2 - The Phone Beneath the Floor
Marcus stood outside the cage staring at me long enough that I knew I had made a mistake.
Not because I had sent the message.
Because I had allowed hope to reach my face.
People like Marcus study weakness, but they also study hope.
Hope means a person has a plan.
“What did you do?” he asked again.
“Nothing.”
He looked toward the corners of the basement.
Shelves.
Old paint cans.
Storage boxes.
The furnace.
Then the floor.
My pulse jumped.
Marcus noticed everything when he became suspicious.
I forced myself to look at him instead of the loose panel beside me.
“Maybe I finally realized something,” I said.
“What?”
“That you need me alive more than you pretend.”
His face changed slightly.
It worked.
I had redirected him.
Marcus believed he was smarter than everyone.
Appealing to that arrogance was sometimes the only weapon I had.
“You think that?” he asked.
“The baby.”
His eyes dropped to my stomach.
I hated the possessiveness I saw there.
“My baby,” he corrected.
I said nothing.
That irritated him.
But it also made him forget about the floor.
He straightened and glanced upstairs.
“You’re going to behave tonight.”
Another contraction pressed through me.
I breathed slowly.
Marcus saw it.
For one second, genuine uncertainty crossed his face.
Not concern.
Logistics.
If the baby came now, his perfect dinner became a problem.
“What happens when labor starts?” I asked.
“It hasn’t.”
“It has.”
His jaw tightened.
“You always exaggerate.”
“You can keep pretending. The baby doesn’t care.”
Marcus stepped backward.
“I’ll decide when you need a hospital.”
“You aren’t a doctor.”
“No. I’m your husband.”
He said it as if marriage were a legal title of ownership.
Then he climbed the stairs.
The basement door slammed.
I waited.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
When his footsteps disappeared into the noise upstairs, I pulled the phone from beneath the blanket.
The battery showed two percent.
And there it was.
A tiny status beneath my emergency text.
Delivered.
I nearly dropped the device.
The message had reached Leah.
But delivery did not mean she had seen it.
I opened the thread.
No reply.
I typed again.
BASEMENT. CAGE. PREGNANT. CALL POLICE.
The message hung.
Sending.
Sending.
Then the signal disappeared.
One percent.
I could not waste battery.
I turned the screen off.
My hands were shaking.
For the first time in weeks, I allowed myself to imagine the front door opening.
Police.
Paramedics.
Anyone.
Then fear immediately followed.
What if Marcus saw them coming?
What if he moved me?
What if Evelyn convinced them I was unstable?
Marcus had spent months preparing stories about me.
I had overheard him tell someone on the phone that pregnancy was making me emotional.
He told his business partner I was “taking some time away.”
He told a neighbor I had gone to stay with family.
He understood something terrifying: people accept simple explanations.
A woman vanishes?
She is resting.
A phone stops answering?
She wants privacy.
Appointments are canceled?
Pregnancy is difficult.
Marcus built his lies from normal things because normal lies attract fewer questions.
The recording on my phone was the difference.
If someone arrived.
If they came downstairs.
If I survived.
Another contraction came.
I curled onto my side.
“Not yet,” I whispered to my baby.
I had never chosen a final name.
Marcus wanted Benjamin if it was a boy.
We had eventually learned we were having a girl, and he switched to Victoria.
I secretly preferred Grace.
Grace was my grandmother’s name.
Marcus hated it.
“Too plain,” he said.
Inside the cage, with the child pressing lower and each contraction becoming stronger, I made the decision alone.
“Grace,” I whispered.
The baby moved.
I smiled through tears.
“All right. Grace.”
Upstairs, dinner continued.
The absurdity of it almost broke me.
Someone complimented the wine.
Someone told a story about a golf trip.
Music played softly.
Then a woman’s voice drifted through the vent.
“Marcus, when is the baby due?”
“Any day.”
Laughter.
“Are you nervous?”
Marcus answered, “I’m ready.”
I closed my eyes.
Ready.
He had prepared a nursery upstairs.
Painted pale green.
Bought a handmade crib.
Placed framed ultrasound photos on a shelf.
Anyone entering that room would believe Marcus was an excited father.
No one would imagine the mother of that child was locked in the basement beneath it.
That was the lesson I had learned about monsters.
They rarely look like monsters when witnesses are around.
A sound came from the phone.
I froze.
One weak vibration.
The screen lit.
A message.
LEAH: WHAT? WHERE ARE YOU?
My throat closed.
I typed with trembling fingers.
HOME BASEMENT. HE LOCKED ME CAGE. LABOR. DO NOT CALL HOUSE. POLICE.
Send.
The progress wheel turned.
Battery one percent.
No signal.
I lifted the phone toward the wall.
Nothing.
I crawled farther.
Nothing.
I stretched until my shoulder hurt.
One bar.
The message disappeared.
Delivered.
Then another message from Leah arrived.
POLICE NOW. STAY WITH ME.
I pressed the phone against my chest.
For weeks, I had refused to cry where Marcus could see.
Now I cried silently because somewhere outside this house, another human being finally knew.
Someone believed me.
Someone was coming.
Then the phone screen went black.
Battery dead.
That was fine.
It had done enough.
I tucked it beneath the panel.
Now I had another problem.
Time.
How long would police take?
Ten minutes?
Twenty?
Would Leah explain clearly?
Would dispatch treat it seriously?
Would Marcus answer the door and tell them I was visiting family?
What if officers left without searching?
I needed noise.
I looked around.
The cage was welded metal.
Marcus had secured it to a heavy base so I could not tip it.
But one water bowl remained beside me.
Metal.
I picked it up.
If I slammed it against the bars, people upstairs would hear.
Marcus would also hear.
That might force him downstairs.
It might expose me.
Or it might make him dangerous.
I held the bowl and waited.
Above me, conversation continued.
Five minutes.
Maybe seven.
Another contraction.
Stronger than any before it.
A sound escaped my throat before I could stop it.
Then liquid spread beneath me.
My water had broken.
Panic rose fast.
“No.”
I knew enough to understand that labor could still take hours.
Or not.
My body was weak.
I had barely eaten.
No medical care.
No clean environment.
No freedom of movement.
Grace needed help.
I lifted the bowl.
One strike against the bars would be loud.
Maybe loud enough for dinner guests.
Before I could swing it, I heard a chair scrape upstairs.
Then footsteps crossed the kitchen.
Someone said, “Did you hear that?”
I stopped breathing.
Another guest answered, “Hear what?”
A woman said, “Something downstairs.”
Marcus’s voice came immediately.
“Old plumbing.”
The woman laughed uncertainly.
“That sounded more like—”
A contraction hit.
I tried to stay silent.
I failed.
A low cry escaped me.
Everything upstairs went quiet.
Then I heard the words that changed the night.
A female guest said:
May you like
“Marcus, is someone in your basement?”
And for the first time since he locked me inside the cage, Marcus did not have an answer ready.
