She pounds the door once with the flat of her palm, just once, then she spins, eyes wild, chest heaving like she’s trying to breathe me out of her lungs.
I open the driver’s door and slide in without looking at her, movements smooth and unhurried because I don’t have to look.
She’s already loud enough without my attention.
“You don’t get to do this,” she snarls, voice shaking with impotent rage. “I said no. Do you even fucking know what that word means?”
I close the door behind me with a soft click.
Start the engine with a press of the button.
The car responds immediately, purring to life. No hesitation. No warning lights. Everything working exactly as intended, as I’ve maintained it to work.
“Don’t ignore me, you sick fucking?—”
“Breathe,” I say calmly, adjusting the mirror.
“Go to hell.”
“I’ve been there,” I reply, and it’s not a lie. “It’s not as interesting as people think.”
“I’m not yours.”
“You’re already in my car,” I point out, as if that settles the matter.
The tyres roll forward, smooth and unhurried, like time itself has slowed to match my pace, like the universe is in no particular rush to intervene.
She kicks the back of the seat behind me.
Hard enough that I feel it.
Not like a scream.
Like a warning, like she’s still got fight left and wants me to know it.
I don’t react, don’t give her the satisfaction of a flinch or a word.
That’s the mistake the others made—thinking resistance meant she was still in control, that her fury indicated power rather than the last desperate gasps of autonomy.
But her fury is just foreplay, just the opening act.
She’s already chosen submission by staying, by getting in, by showing up tonight.
She just doesn’t want to say it yet, doesn’t want to admit it to herself.
I drive slowly, deliberately, every turn smooth as silk, every stop calculated and precise, because chaos would give her the illusion that she’s still shaking something loose, still affecting the outcome.
But nothing’s loose anymore.
Everything’s exactly where it should be.
She’s contained, sealed in metal and leather and my will.
The city slides past outside the windows—lights bleeding in the rain, signs reflected and distorted, people who will never know how close she is to disappearing from her old life entirely.
She leans forward, eyes burning through the side of my face with an intensity I can feel.
“Take me back.”
