Nova
I wake up and don’t know where I am.
Ceiling. Why is there a ceiling. Why is it so dark. And the smell. It’s wrong—clean, not damp, not concrete, not the alley.
Then it comes back. The house. The men. The way I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t stand straight, couldn’t do anything except retreat to this room and press my back against the door until my hands stopped shaking.
I don’t remember falling asleep.
That bothers me. I don’t sleep like that. Not in new places, not around strangers, not when I don’t know the exits or the locks or who might be listening. I lie awake for hours, days sometimes, until exhaustion drags me under against my will.
But I closed my eyes and then it was dark and now I’m awake and I don’t know how much time I lost.
The clock on the dresser says 3:17.
The house is quiet. Not silent—there’s the hum of something electrical, the faint tick of pipes cooling, the weight of a building settling into itself. But no footsteps. No voices. No movement.
My stomach cramps.
Four days. Almost five now. The smell from the kitchen earlier nearly dropped me, and I stood there refusing water like it was poison while my body screamed at me to take it, take anything, stop being so fucking stubborn—
Whenever you want it, there’s always food in the fridge.
That’s what he said. Rane. The one who called me beautiful and then turned red and told everyone else to shut up.
I lie there and listen to the house breathe.
They said I could. They said any time. That’s not stealing. That’s not owing anyone anything. They offered and I’m just… taking them up on it. Late. When no one’s watching.
That’s not weird.
That’s fine.
I sit up slowly. My feet find the floor without sound. I’m still in the gray clothes they gave me at processing—I never changed, never even looked at the dresser to see if there was anything else. Why would there be, I don’t belong no matter what their system says.
The door doesn’t creak when I open it. I checked earlier, before I—before I fell asleep. Old habit. Know your exits, know your sounds, know what gives you away.
The hallway is dark. I keep one hand on the wall and move slowly, placing each foot before I shift my weight. The kitchen is at the end,past the living room where they were all sitting, watching me like I was something fragile and dangerous at the same time.
The living room is empty now. Just shapes in the dark—couch, chairs, the window where Kyron with those blue eyes stood and smirked when I couldn’t stop staring.
I don’t think about that.
The kitchen is darker than the hallway, but there’s a light over the stove that someone left on, dim and orange. Enough to see by. I stop just inside the doorway and listen again.
Nothing.
The refrigerator is large and silver and hums quietly in the corner. I cross to it. Wrap my fingers around the handle. Hesitate.
This is fine. They said I could.
I open it.
The light inside is bright enough to make me squint. Shelves of food—real food, more than I’ve seen in one place in months. Containers and bottles and things wrapped in foil and—
My name.
There’s a plate covered in foil with a piece of tape on top, and someone wrote my name on it in black marker.
