But the words sound thin. Weak. Lying.
When I look at the necklace—twisted, bent, still breathing his scent—I know the truth.
Paper isn’t the cage.
He is.
And worse—I’m starting to want the lock.
The laugh doesn’t stop.
It claws out of me like something feral, filling the room until I sound like I belong in a padded cell instead of a velvet cage. My chest aches with it. My throat splits with it. But still, I laugh, because the alternative is sobbing, and I promised myself I wouldn’t give him that again.
The papers whisper against the floor, rustling with the draft of my madness, every page a reminder that someone, somewhere, sat at a desk and decided I was worth less than ink.That I could be written over, signed away, filed into the hands of a man who doesn’t know how to do anything but break.
My laugh shatters into a choke.
Then silence.
The quiet is worse.
It gnaws.
I crawl through the mess on my hands and knees, palms pressing into words that cut sharper than glass. One sheet sticks to my skin again—my name scrawled across the margin, Hook’s initials bleeding beside it like the world already knew we’d end up here. I tear it in half with my teeth, spitting the scraps across the floor like venom.
“Is this what you wanted?” I scream at the red blink in the corner. My voice ricochets off the walls, jagged, broken, too loud for the tiny room. “To see me reduced to paperwork? To watch me choke on signatures? Fuck you!”
The silence answers back.
I slam my fist against the floor until my knuckles bloom purple. Again. Again. Pain rattles up my arm, but it isn’t enough. Nothing is enough. Not without him here to twist it deeper.
“You’re a coward,” I whisper, breathless, forehead pressed to the boards. “Hiding behind your cameras, your contracts, your ink. You want to own me? Then come earn it.”
The fire hisses low in the grate, embers crackling like laughter that isn’t mine. I curl onto my side, cheek pressed to the rug, eyes fixed on the bent necklace glinting in the half-light.
I should throw it.
Destroy it.
Spit on it until it corrodes.
But my hand reaches instead.
The chain bites my palm as I clutch it, harder, harder, until the teeth of metal break the skin. Blood wells in tiny crescents, staining the charm. It looks right that way. Honest.
My pulse slows. My chest tightens. And somewhere in the back of my head, a voice I don’t recognise whispers the truth:
He doesn’t have to chain you anymore.
You’re already collared.
I squeeze my eyes shut until stars burst behind my lids. I want to scream again, but there’s nothing left. Just this raw, trembling quiet inside me, the kind that feels like an animal waiting in the dark.
When I open my eyes, the cracked mirror stares back.
Two girls.
Both his.
