Page 3 of Claimed By the Damned
The four walls of this cheap room press in, a different kind of cage.His voice, a constant whisper in my head those first few years. My phone vanished—“For your safety, Pet.” My mother’s calls, once daily, dwindled to silence after he spoke to her, his tone smooth honey laced with cyanide. Friends… they just faded. Until only he remained.The memories blur with the present, his phantom grip on my jaw.“Do you know what happens to weak little girls who run, Delilah?” he’d murmur, tilting my chin up. “They crawl back—if they make it that far.”
This thin motel sheet feels rough, abrasive compared to the silk that was just another bar in my cage. I curl inward, knees to chest.
And yet, buried beneath the trembling wreckage, a tiny, stubborn ember glows. Something that refuses to be extinguished.
I didn’t break. Not completely.
A shiver rips through me. I slide off the bed, move towards the bathroom, needing to confront the survivor, the wreckage. The woman in the dirty motel mirror isn’t me. A stranger. A living ghost.
I hacked my dark hair shorterin a dingy gas station bathroom hours ago, shaky hands, cheap scissors from Theo’s bag. Now it falls in uneven, jagged waves just above my shoulders. A desperate first attempt to disappear. My face is sharper, gaunt, cheekbones stark. Skin ghostly pale. Bruises bloom purple and yellow on my cheek. A faint scar cuts across my temple.I’d dropped a glass. Expensive crystal. He hadn’t shouted. Just picked up a shard, gripped it tight, and slashed. “See what happens when you’re careless, Pet?” he’d whispered, eyes like ice as blood welled. “Everything breaks eventually.”The memory chills. But I got out. I ran.
My fingers press the infinity symbol tattoo on my wrist—matching ink with my sister.She was my anchor. Gone toosoon. A freak car accident on my eighteenth birthday.That tattoo used to be a promise. Now, it’s a relic of a girl who no longer exists.
And then there was Theo. Different. One of Kolya’s guards, but he never belonged. He didn’t look at me like property. He looked at me like… he knew I was drowning. His jaw clenched when Kolya paraded me, fists tightening when he had to stand by. He avoided my eyes, as if looking too long was an admission of his own complicity. Not just pity. Guilt, conflict. He knew what Kolya was.“I can get you out,” he told me one night, a raw whisper in the dark. "I should have done it sooner. But I couldn't—until now." Desperation in his voice, real fear, for me, for himself. A man at the edge.Trust. What a foreign concept. But looking at him then… I had no choice.It wasn't a trap. It felt like...penance. His last chance.And he kept his word. Opened the door.Faced down the others, buying me seconds.
So now I'm here. Four years stolen. The Delilah Vaughn he took died that night, leaving just... Lila. Whoever that is now. He took a naive twenty-year-old; at twenty-four, I feel like I've lived a lifetime. This cheap motel room, thick with mold and stale air, is another cage. My body begs for rest. My mind, though, is the real battleground, torn between the horrors I fled and the terrifying uncertainty ahead. But I am alive. And for now, that has to be enough. I grip the edge of the sink, forcing myself to breathe. Tomorrow, I run again. Because if Kolya finds me first… there won’t be a tomorrow.
Chapter 3: A Town Called Sanctuary
Lila
The biting wind off the Oregon coast slices through my too-thin hoodie. The acrid, briny scent of the churning Pacific fills the air, mingling with the damp chill of pine and wet earth blown inland. Somewhere nearby, waves crash against unseen rocks, a rhythmic, powerful roar muffled by the thick coastal mist.
I don’t know why I chose Yachats. Maybe because it’s small, quiet—forgotten.Maybe because Theo once mentioned his brother lived here, in a town where people kept to themselves.Or maybe because, when the car sputtered its last breath, this was the closest place I could reach before I was stranded.
I stagger down the empty street, eyes darting between buildings, my breaths shallow and uneven. Every shadow looms like a threat, every distant noise a reminder that I can’t stop. I need somewhere, anywhere, to hide, to rest, to just stop moving for a moment.
The car gave out miles back, leaving me stranded on the side of the road. Sitting there, helpless, is a good way to get caught with Kolya looking for me. Walking is my only option, but now, my legs barely hold me up.
The town is quiet under the dense cloak of night, the ocean’s distant roar the only sound filling the gaps between my shallow breaths. But as I pass a narrow alley between two darkened storefronts, a skittering sound echoes from the darkness, like loose gravel disturbed by a misplaced foot. It stops abruptly when I pause. A prickle of unease crawls up my spine; my instincts scream I am not alone. I glance over my shoulder, my pulse spiking. A shadow shifts across the street, barely visible beneath the dim glow of a streetlamp. My breath catches. Someone is there.
A dim light wavers in the distance—a porch light? A storefront? It doesn’t matter.Move.If I stop, whoever it is will catch up. If I collapse now, it's over. Fear and adrenaline surge through me, forcing my legs onward, even as acute pain lances through my body. Just a little further….
Fierce pounding starts behind my eyes, keeping time with the frantic beat of my pulse. My vision blurs, black spots swimming at the edges like insistent flies.
My heart pounds, my breaths coming in ragged, desperate gasps that barely pull in enough air, panic overriding rational thought. Do I imagine someone there? Is Kolya’s reach already here? The world seems to tilt, the pavement wavering beneath my battered feet.
My body screams protest, but fear shoves me forward. Then, nothing. The exhaustion, dense and suffocating, drags me under like an undertow. My limbs turn useless, heavy as stone; my body finally gives in.
My legs buckle beneath me without warning. The pavement tilts and warps, rushing up cold and unyielding. For a fleeting second, I fight it, willing my legs to move, wanting to get up. But my body betrays me.
A piercing, high-pitched ringing fills my ears, drowning out the sound of distant waves. The last thing I register before everything goes black is that wavering light—so close, yet impossibly far away.
Just before the world fades completely, footsteps crunch on gravel, steady and closing in.
A strange, swaying darkness. Pressure, gentle but firm, against my side and under my knees. The muffled thud of rhythmic steps. It’s…warm? Awareness flickers—floating, then steady movement, and finally...
Warmth surrounds me, steady and solid, rocking me with rhythmic steps. The heat seeps into my frozen skin, a stark contrast to the cold that has lived in my bones for days. It is safe. Or it presents that way. My body surrenders to it, lulled by exhaustion, but my mind claws for clarity, for answers.
Then it hits me—sudden clarity. I am being carried. By someone big. Someone unknown. My breath catches, my pulse spikes, and panic slams into me like a freight train. This isn’t right. This isn’t safe.
Panic surges through me like a live wire, my pulse a frantic drumbeat against my ribs. Every instinct, honed sharp by Kolya, screams: fight, claw, bite, inflict pain, doanythingbut remain passive in the grip of this unknown, powerful man.
Danger. Threat. Escape.
The words cycle frantically. But reality crashes down just as fast.
My muscles are useless, watery, utterly spent. Even lifting my head takes monumental effort that leaves spots dancing in my vision. Weak, pathetically exhausted. The cold, hard knowledge settles in my gut: no matter how desperately I want to break free, my body simply won't obey. I won't get two steps before collapsing again.
