I rise, bare feet silent on cold stone, and I move towards the mirror like I’m walking into war. My reflection flickers in its broken pieces, a kaleidoscope of a girl unravelling—eyes red-rimmed, lips swollen from biting back screams, bruises blooming like ink beneath pale skin. I look like a sin. I look like something ruined. I look like his.
Let him watch me be dangerous.
Let him watch me be desperate.
I reach for the silk robe hanging carelessly off the bedpost. Not to cover myself, but to use it. I tie it around my waist like armour, leave it open just enough. Just enough to provoke. Just enough to remind him I’m not the doll he tried to dress up and shelve. I am not breakable. I am not quiet.
I sit on the edge of the bed, thighs parted just slightly, fingers tracing the edge of my knee. Not touching anything wicked—yet. But enough to suggest. Enough to invite.
If he wants a show, he’s going to get one.
But it’s not for him.
It’s for me.
Because the only way to survive this place—the only way to survive him—is to make the monster salivate. To bait the predator and make him lose his precious control.
So I lean back.
Let the robe fall off one shoulder.
Tilt my head like a challenge and say, to the empty air, to the hidden camera behind the roses on the wall:
“Is this what you wanted, Hook?”
My voice doesn’t shake.
But my hands do.
Because I know what happens when I provoke the dark.
And I just bared my throat to it.
The room is too quiet.
Not even the walls dare breathe with me.
And yet I can feel him behind them—can feel the weight of his gaze bleeding through the surveillance like static. Watching me like he always does. Like I’m not a person, but a performance. A prize. A possession to be catalogued and unwrapped and dragged into the dark.
Fine.
Then let him choke on the sight.
I slide one leg up onto the bed, deliberate and slow, skin brushing silk, the robe falling farther down my shoulder until it’s barely clinging. My pulse taps against my throat like a warning bell, but I ignore it. I don’t look at the camera.
I perform.
One hand dips between my thighs—not to touch, not yet—but to press flat against the inside of my leg, spreading heat through muscle, sending a message. I tilt my head back againstthe pillows and breathe like I’m imagining his hands instead of mine. Like I’m not broken. Like I’m the one in control.
But my body’s a traitor.
It always has been.
And when I close my eyes, I don’t see freedom. I don’t see sunlight or escape or a face that isn’t his.
I see him.
The way his eyes burnt when I screamed. The curve of his mouth when he whispered filth against my ear. The weight of his hand at my throat like a promise he never intended to keep. And god help me, I want it again. I want him again. I want to hate him whilst he makes me beg.
