And when I finally stopped, it wasn’t because I was done. It was because exhaustion dragged me like waves pulling a corpse out to sea.
My dreams weren’t soft. They were full of teeth.
I was running through ash and fire, barefoot and bleeding. The monsters behind me had his face. The monsters ahead whispered Adrian’s name. I didn’t know who I was running from anymore. Or who I was running to. But either way, I knew the girl who loved the dead boy was gone.
And the woman in his enemy’s arms… she was something else entirely.
I woke up to the blinding sun. To the golden light that spilt across the room and the ocean just outside. Like the night hadn’t been violent, and I hadn’t been silenced.
I was in a bed, one I didn’t recognise. Pillows too soft and sheets too clean. Pristine white. No street noise. No broken pieces. No cold night air around my ankles like chains. However, I was one who was still attached to them.
Just stillness. And his scent.
I wasn’t wearing a dress anymore.
A white shirt hung off my frame, too big. It smelled like power and spice and the skin carved from hell.
I was also clean. Washed. It must’ve been Elena. She would’ve done it gently, wouldn’t she? Would’ve tried not to look. Would’ve cried when she saw what her master did to me.
Soreness bloomed between my thighs, across my ribs, and inside my mouth. My body pulsed with phantom pain, some places from the impact and others from the way I let it happen.
Mechanically, I moved. One step at a time. One breath at a time.
I brushed my teeth with a trembling hand, watching the foam bleed pink into the sink.
I bathed. Hot water stung, and the soap slid across bruises I earned. My skin flinched beneath my own touch. But I didn’t cry. Not anymore. I was emptied last night.
When I was done, I didn’t look in the mirror.
I knew what waited for me there.
The ghost of a woman who lost the war she didn’t even know she was fighting. Swollen lips, purple constellations on my neck, and fingerprints pressed into flesh. Dignity buried somewhere between the bed and the floor.
But I dressed anyway.
I found a red dress in the closet, silk, slit high and low neckline, the one he liked on me. The one that made him look at me like a slut. I put it on. Painted my lips red. The same shade he smeared across my cheek the first time he kissed me.
I curled my hair and left it wild. Let it fall like chaos around my shoulders.
When I was finished, I finally looked in the mirror.
And this time, I smiled.
Because I looked beautiful. Ethereally so.
But inside… inside, I was bleeding. Still drowning. I was still pushed down on the stone and taken like a cheap whore.
And maybe that’s what survival is. Looking like heaven while carrying hell inside you.
I didn’t know what time it was. Morning? Afternoon? The sun poured through the windows like honey, too sweet for a day like this. But I needed to go downstairs. I needed him to see me. See what he did. See what I made of it.
So I walked. Each step was a small war in itself. Thighs ached, and muscles trembled; it hurt like hell.
And somewhere inside it, buried deep in the bruises and the burn of movement, was that sweet, tangy, regretful feeling.
Not his regret. Mine. For letting it happen. For not stopping it. For some terrible part of me still wanted to be seen by him.
The corridor was long, too quiet as I made my way down the stairs.
