The Confrontation

Julian’s voice crackled through hidden speakers, filling the small, damp cell with a sound that was nowhere near loud enough to drown out the roaring of the fire upstairs.

"Get out of there, Iris."

It wasn't a plea. It wasn't a warning. It was a command, delivered with the same weary impatience he used when the movers scratched the floorboards.

Iris gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white. She held it up, aiming the camera at the ledger, at the writing on the wall, at the empty bed. She wanted him to see that she saw.

"I know," she screamed, her voice bouncing off the cinderblocks. "I know everything, Julian. I know about the girl in 1990. I know about the trust fund. I know you framed your own nephew to cover up a murder!"

On the screen, Julian didn't flinch. He didn't look guilty. He looked disappointed. He took a sip of something from a tumbler on his desk—whiskey, probably. Amber liquid catching the light.

"You have a very vivid imagination," he said. "Just like your mother. She always saw monsters where there were only men making difficult decisions."

"Men don't lock their family in a dungeon for thirty years!" Iris shouted. The smoke was getting thicker now, curling through the hole she had smashed in the brick, a gray snake seeking oxygen. "Men don't poison their fathers!"

That got a reaction. A slight twitch of his left eye. Maya was right. The heavy metals.

"My father was sick," Julian said, his voice dropping, becoming distorted by the static. "The business was failing. The town was dying. We were going to lose everything. Mercer Hall. The legacy. I did what I had to do to preserve this family."

"You destroyed this family!" Iris coughed, the smoke stinging her throat. "You turned Cordelia into a ghost. You turned Elias into a... a thing."

"I kept him safe," Julian countered. "He was weak, Iris. He would have cracked under the interrogation. He would have told them things he didn't understand. I gave him a life of peace. He had his books. He had his food. He was happy."

"He was writing the dates on the wall so he wouldn't forget he existed!"

"He existed because I allowed it," Julian snapped, his composure cracking for the first time. "I fed him. I clothed him. I paid the bills. Just like I paid yours, Iris. The tuition. The debts. I carried all of you on my back."

"And now you're burning it down," she said. "You're burning the house to hide the theft. Because the money is gone, isn't it? There's nothing left."

Julian leaned back in his chair. The fire in the main house must have breached the floorboards above; a heavy *thump* shook the ceiling of the cell, dust raining down into the water.

"It's a reset," Julian said calmly. "Insurance will cover the loss. The land is valuable. We start over. It's the cycle of things. Fire purifies."

"You're insane."

"I'm pragmatic. And you are a liability."

He reached forward, his hand hovering over a control panel on his desk. His eyes, pixelated and cold, bored into hers.

"I gave you a chance to leave, Iris. I opened the gate. But you had to dig. You had to break things."

"I'm going to the police," Iris said, though she knew the threat was hollow. She was trapped in a stone box beneath a burning building.

"No," Julian said. "You're not going anywhere. The ventilation system in that room... it's quite sophisticated. It draws air from the outside. Or, with the flip of a switch, it stops drawing air at all."

He smiled, and it was the terrifying, genuine smile of a man who believed his own lies.

"Goodbye, Iris."

He pressed a button.

"And now I'll do what's necessary with you."

The basement lights went out.