He didn’t ask.
He didn’t explain.
He just locked me down like I’m something that needs to be kept.
I didn’t fight him.
Not once because I think I want to be kept.
I think I want to be his.
Even if I’m starting to forget what I was before him.
Before the cage.
Before the lock.
Before the chain’s cold bite became part of my skin.
He doesn’t sleep anymore. Not really.
He paces.
He stalks.
He hunts through the feeds, the records, the static, chasing the ghost that’s unravelling him thread by thread.
He hasn’t told me what he found but I hear him talking to himself.
Low. Sharp. Fractured.
Snapping orders to no one.
Repeating the same phrases under his breath until the words lose their shape, until they’re nothing but sound scraped raw.
His knuckles are raw.
His boots still stained.
His mouth still tastes like blood when he kisses me—metallic, warm, the taste of someone who’s been fighting shadows and losing sleep.
The chain rattles every time I shift, every time I try to move just enough to stop the cold metal from biting into my skin. The sound follows me through the room, an echo, a tether, a reminder.
I don’t ask for the key.
I don’t ask to leave.
I don’t want to leave.
Damien’s losing something now.
Not just time.
Not just control.
Something deeper.
The way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking—like he’s memorising the shape of me in case I disappear.
