They shoved me in hard enough that I stumbled, catching myself against the far wall.
The door slammed shut behind me.
Lock clicked. Heavy. Final.
I spun around, but it was already done.
No phone—they'd taken it at the airstrip "for security." No windows. Just a cot bolted to the wall, a steel toilet, a sink that dripped in irregular intervals. Safehouse cell. The kind designed to break people without leaving marks that couldn't be explained.
The lights stayed on. Constant. Fluorescent white burning into my retinas no matter if I closed my eyes or turned away.
Almost two days.
No food. Water from the tap that tasted like rust and chemicals. The lights never dimmed—sleep became impossible. Every time I started to drift, my body would jolt awake, confused by the brightness, by the buzzing, by the drip-drip-drip of the sink counting seconds into eternity.
Hunger gnawed at my stomach. Dehydration crept in despite the water I forced down—headache pulsing behind my eyes, mouth dry and sticky, thoughts starting to blur at the edges.
But none of that mattered.
The panic hit on the first night.
Not fear for myself. I'd survive this. I'd survived worse.
The panic was for her.
Alena.
Alone in her London flat. Waking up to my note—Wait for me please—and then… nothing. No text when I landed. No call to say I was safe. No stupid joke, no check-in, no voice saying you alive? the way I always did.
Just silence.
We'd never gone this long without talking. Not in seventeen years. Not once.
And now? After finally having her? After claiming her, fucking her, coming inside her like she was forever, telling her she was mine?
Radio silence.
She'd think I used her. Think it meant nothing. Think I woke up, realized what we'd done, and decided distance was easier than dealing with the consequences.
Fuck.
I paced the cell, fists clenched so tight my nails cut crescents into my palms. The concrete walls closed in. The fluorescent buzz got louder. The drip-drip-drip matched my heartbeat—fast, panicked, useless.
I imagined her in that flat. Sitting at her desk, laptop open, cursor blinking. Writing because the ghosts demanded it. Bleeding because they always made her bleed when she was distracted.
And she would be distracted. Waiting for me to call. Checking her phone every five minutes. Doubting. Spiraling.
What if she thought I regretted it?
What if she decided we'd crossed a line we couldn't uncross, that I'd realized she was too much—too haunted, too broken, too hard to love—and decided he was done being the shield for my monsters.
What if the ghosts came for her while I was locked here like a rat, unable to protect her, unable to even tell her I was thinking about her every fucking second?
The scratches. Jesus Christ, the scratches.
They'd be worse now. I knew they would. Without me there to anchor her, to pull her back from the edge when the whispers got too loud, the entities would feast. They'd carve her up, punish her for being alone, for not finishing fast enough, for daring to want something other than their stories.
And she'd take it. She always did. Bled and wrote and bled some more until the deadline passed and they left her in peace for a few precious days.
