A lifetime ago. Before the study. Before the punishment. Before I'd learned what it meant to kneel.
I grabbed it with shaking hands, thumb hovering over the lock screen.
The clock read 9:47 AM.
I had eight hours and thirteen minutes.
He gave freedom in inches and leashed me in miles.
I stripped out of yesterday's clothes like shedding dead skin.
The jeans hit the floor first, denim pooling around my ankles. When I stepped free, I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror.
Stopped.
Stared.
My knees were mottled purple and yellow—ugly blooms spreading across bone. The rug had left its mark. Evidence I couldn't deny, couldn't hide, couldn't pretend away.
I grabbed fresh jeans from the drawer he'd filled without asking, yanking them on too fast. The fabric dragged across the bruises, and I hissed, jaw clenched against the sting.
A shirt next. Clean. Simple. High-necked.
My fingers fumbled with the collar, pulling it snug against my throat. The pressure made something inside me seize—his hand tangled in my hair, controlling everything, holding me exactly where he wanted.
I couldn't breathe right. Couldn't swallow without remembering.
"Stupid," I whispered. "So fucking stupid."
For letting him see me afraid. For signing the contract in the first place. For needing the money. For having a father too proud to save himself. For being too weak to save either of us.
I grabbed my keys and ran. The car roared to life. I drove fast, reckless, like speed could strip yesterday from my skin.
It couldn't.
The key turned in the lock with a familiar click.
I pushed the door open, stepping into the bookstore like crossing a threshold into safety. Into normalcy. Into the one corner of my life that Gideon's money hadn't touched, his hands hadn't claimed, his voice hadn't ruined.
Except.
The air felt wrong. Not stale—I'd only been gone two days. But different somehow. Displaced. Like the molecules had rearranged themselves in my absence, recognizing I didn't belong here anymore.
I stood in the doorway, hand still gripping the frame, waiting for the relief to come.
It didn't.
The shelves looked the same. Yellow lamps exactly where I'd left them. Staff recommendation cards in my handwriting, faded and curling at the edges. The slight mildew smell I could never quite eradicate mixing with old paper and coffee grounds from Monday's forgotten mug.
My bookstore.
My sanctuary.
My home.
It felt like a stranger's house when the owner just died.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself inside. The floorboards creaked under my weight—a sound that used to comfort, used to ground me. Now it felt accusatory. Like the building itself knew I'd abandoned it. Sold myself. Chosen my father's life over this place that had kept me alive after my mother's death.
