The Time Between

The basement was cold, but not just from lack of heat. The air felt wrong — heavy and still, the kind of silence that had weight. Faint water dripped somewhere, irregular but constant, like a faulty heartbeat. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, casting a sickly yellow over the concrete floor and the two women chained opposite each other.

Anna sat with her knees to her chest, the skin around her wrists raw from trying the chains earlier. Her hair was tangled, her face smeared with dried tears and dust. Across from her, Lena leaned against the wall, arms limp at her sides, eyes red but dry.

They had stopped screaming days ago. Or maybe it had only been hours.

“You married?” Anna asked suddenly, her voice hoarse.

Lena blinked, as though the question had to travel a long distance before reaching her. “Was. He left.”

Anna nodded slowly, eyes downcast. “I cheated. Twice.”

Silence.

Lena looked at her, really looked. “Did you love them?”

Anna shook her head. “No. I just... I wanted to be someone else for a little while.”

A pause. Then Lena said, “I wanted to have a baby. He didn’t. Said I’d be too much like my mother. That I’d break her.”

Anna looked up. “Did you?”

Lena gave a humorless laugh. “Didn’t get the chance.”

The water dripped. Somewhere above them, footsteps moved. Then stopped. Then silence again.

Anna wiped her nose with the shoulder of her shirt, voice barely a whisper now. “Do you think it’ll hurt?”

Lena didn’t answer for a long time. Then she said, “Probably.”

Anna’s lip trembled, but she kept her eyes dry. “I don’t want to beg,” she said, as if it was important to say it now.

“I will,” Lena said. “If it comes to it. I’ll scream. I don’t care anymore.”

That opened something in Anna. Tears came down without sobs, just a steady stream like something melting. “I used to shoplift. When I was a teenager. Little things. Lip gloss. Cans of soda. I don’t even know why.”

Lena reached out, fingertips brushing concrete too far from Anna to touch her. “I wanted to kill my stepfather. Just once. I thought about it. A lot.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Lena nodded. “Not the way people assume. But yeah. Enough.”

More water. More silence. A car outside, maybe. Or wind. They both looked toward the sound, hopeful, stupidly, instinctually. Nothing came of it.

“I had a dog,” Anna said, a soft smile in the middle of everything. “Charlie. He used to bark every time the fridge opened. Like he was announcing it.”

Lena chuckled — a short, sharp thing that felt like it cut the air. “Mine was named Bandit. He was scared of umbrellas.”

They both smiled for a second.

Then it passed.

Lena leaned her head back against the wall, eyes on the ceiling. “Do you think they’ll bury us together?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “Maybe we’ll just... disappear.”

More silence.

More tears, this time from both of them, quiet and involuntary, like their bodies were mourning them ahead of time.

Anna broke it. “If I had a kid, I’d tell her not to waste time. I’d tell her to go after what she wanted. Even if it was dumb. Even if it made no sense.”

Lena swallowed hard. “I’d tell mine not to let anyone make her small.”

The silence now was almost reverent.

Then: a lock turned, the sound harsh and final.

Anna didn’t look up. She reached for Lena’s voice instead. “Hey,” she said, softly.

Lena turned to her, eyes wide, wet, already bracing.

Anna whispered, “I’m glad I wasn’t alone.”

Lena nodded. “Me too.”

The door opened. But that part doesn’t matter here.

This story is about the time between.