Silent, but I feel it.
It rips through me, claws down my spine until my breath turns ragged, until I’m gripping the arms of the chair hard enough to leave marks in the leather.
She hurls the pillow across the room—it hits the wall with a muffled thump—kicks the blanket to the floor, fists poundingagainst the mattress like she can bruise the silence into submission, like violence might set her free.
My smile is sharp and wrong.
Good girl.
She collapses sideways, trembling, palms covering her face as though she can hide from herself, from me, from what we’ve become. And then—slowly, so slowly I can count each second—her fingers part. Her eyes find the camera. Not a glance. A stare. Direct, unflinching, burning with something that might be hatred or might be hunger or might be both. Straight through the glass, like she knows I’m back here. Watching. Breathing. Wanting with an intensity that should frighten me but only makes me harder.
Her lips shape a single word.
Hook.
The sound doesn’t reach me through the speakers. It doesn’t have to. I taste it anyway, bitter and sweet, echoing against my teeth like communion, like the body and blood of a religion that worships only us.
I lean forwards, elbows on the desk, eyes drinking her in until mine sting from not blinking, until the world narrows to just her image on the screen.
Patience, I remind myself again.
Patience is cruelty.
Patience is worship.
Tomorrow, there will be no patience. Tomorrow, the waiting ends and something new begins.
Tomorrow, I bring her the ink.
Tomorrow, I draw the blood.
Tomorrow, I’ll make her sign herself over to me all over again. Make her understand that every signature, every mark, every drop of blood spilled on paper is just another way of saying what we both already know.
She was always mine.
And I will never let her go.
Tahlia
The scream burnt out of me hours ago, but the taste of it still lingers—iron and ash, like blood caught between my teeth, like I’ve been chewing on metal and sorrow.
My throat feels raw, stripped bare, vocal cords shredded into ribbons. My chest hollow, as if I coughed out the last piece of myself and left it bleeding on the cold marble floor for him to collect when he finally decides to come, when he finally deigns to acknowledge my existence.
The silence is heavier now, thick as tar, viscous and suffocating. It sticks to my skin like oil, clogs my ears with cotton and static, makes every breath sound wrong—too loud, too desperate, too alive in a room that feels like a tomb.
I lie in the bed I swore I wouldn’t touch again, the four-poster monstrosity with its carved posts and velvet canopy that probably costs more than a house. Sheets twisted around my body like a straitjacket, like burial shrouds, Egyptian cotton gone damp and sour with sweat. The fabric clings to my spine, cooling, making me shiver despite the fire still crackling in the ornate hearth across the room.
My fist is still clenched around the necklace, fingers cramped and aching. The chain cut deeper in my sleep—if I even slept, ifunconsciousness counts as sleep when it’s thick with nightmares and his face.
When I uncurl my fingers, slowly, painfully, blood smears the charm like a blessing turned curse, like communion gone wrong. The silver is warm from my grip, sticky with crimson.
I thought the cage was steel.
But it’s paper.
Contracts. Pages yellowed with age and spotted with God knows what. My name written in ink that won’t wash off no matter how hard I scrape at my skin, no matter how many times I’ve tried to claw it away in the marble bathroom with its claw-foot tub and gold fixtures that mock me with their beauty.
Bought.
