I don’t know what escape looks like yet. I don’t have a plan. But if I can keep the men away from her—if I can take the worst of it—maybe that’s a start.
The problem is the drugs.
They’re still in my system, whispering promises of numbness and forgetting. And I can already feel the craving creeping in—the urge to disappear back into that depth where nothing hurts and nothing matters.
Night falls too fast.
The shadows stretch long across the floor, and the sound of footsteps outside the door has become a rhythm I know too well. My body tenses before the handle even turns.
It’s him again—the man in the balaclava, the one with eyes like polished stone. Soulless. Unreadable. He steps inside with the same routine, the same little white tablet in his gloved hand like it’s a gift instead of a weapon.
I shake my head, backing up against the wall, hand flying to my mouth. “You don’t have to do this,” I plead, voice trembling. “I won’t fight them. I swear. Just—don’t.”
But my words vanish into the stale air, swallowed by the silence he wears like armour.
His eyes crinkle at the corners. A smile I can’t see, but feel.
“Nice try,” he mutters, and then he’s on me—ripping my hand away, prying my mouth open with that same force. The tablet hits the back of my throat, followed by a splash of water that chokes more than it helps.
Across the room, Lea doesn’t move. She’s curled toward the wall, her back to us, her silence a shield. I’m grateful he doesn’t touch her. That, at least, is something.
But as the door clicks shut behind him, the world begins to tilt.
My legs buckle. I sink to the floor, the mattress catching me like a trap I’ve fallen into a hundred times. The numbness spreads fast—first my limbs, then my thoughts. It’s like ink in water, blooming through me, blotting everything out.
And the worst part?
It feels good.
Warm.
Safe.
Like nothing can touch me here.
It’s not fear I feel anymore. It’s relief. And that terrifies me more than anything else.
The edges of the room begin to blur, softening like a painting left out in the rain. The ceiling pulses gently above me, the light flickering in slow, syrupy waves. My limbs are heavy now—too heavy to lift, too distant to feel. I’m sinking again, deeper this time.
And I let it happen.
Because here, in this place between waking and gone, nothing hurts.
There’s no fear.
No shame.
No memory.
Just quiet.
I know I should fight it. I should claw my way back to the surface, hold onto the pain if that’s what it takes to keep me here. But the numbness is kind. It wraps around me like a blanket, whispering that I don’t have to feel anything if I don’t want to.
So, I close my eyes.
Somewhere, far away, I think I hear Lea’s voice. Barely more than a whisper. But I can’t make out the words. I can’t even be sure it’s real.
My thoughts drift again, curling around fragments of memory—Cameron’s laugh, the warmth of sunlight on my skin, the sound of waves crashing on a distant shore. I try to hold onto them, but they slip through my fingers like sand.
