Actual toys.
A small truck sits near the couch, one wheel slightly bent. A stuffed animal is half tucked under the table like it was dropped mid-run. A toddler is yelling near the kitchen.Loud. Unapologetic.
“Mine!” he shouts, clutching something that looks like a piece of bread like it’s a life or death situation.
Another one is trying to climb onto a chair he has no business climbing.
Someone laughs. A woman says, “That is exactly his father’s attitude in tiny form, and I am not dealing with both of them tonight.”
It’s chaos. But it’s…contained. Structured. People move around each other without colliding. The noise doesn’t overwhelm. It layers. It doesn’t feel like a nightmare. That’s the problem. Because it should.
My brain doesn’t know what to do with that. I take another step. Then another. And then…everything stops.
Not the room.
Me.
He’s there.
I don’t see him move. One second the space ahead of me is open. The next, it isn’t. He stands in front of me, close enough that I can’t move past him without making a choice to push through. He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t reach. Doesn’t crowd. He just… exists there. Solid. Still. A wall.
My body reacts anyway. My breath catches. My muscles tighten. Fear spikes fast, sharp and instinctive, because everything about him says he could stop me if I tried to run.
He doesn’t. He just stands there.Looking at me. Not scanning. Not uncertain. Locked. “You’re not safe out there.” His voice is the same. Low. Certain. Like it doesn’t need to convince me.
I swallow. “I don’t know you.”
“Doesn’t change it.”
“I don’t know this place.”
“Doesn’t change it.”
“I don’t belong here.”
His gaze doesn’t shift. “Doesn’t change it.”
Frustration flares through me. Hot. Sharp. “Stop saying that,” I snap. “It absolutely changes things.”
“It doesn’t change what they tried to do.” That hits. Hard.
The van. The hands. The needle.
My stomach twists. I hate that he’s right. I hate that it lands. “I can go home,” I argue, even though the certainty in my voice isn’t as strong as it was a second ago. “I can lock my doors. I can call the police. I can—”
“They had a folder on you.” The words cut clean.
My chest tightens. “What?”
“They knew your name. Your routine. Where you work.”
The room fades slightly at the edges. That piece. That detail. That changes everything.
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means leaving puts you exactly where they expect you to be.”
My breathing shifts again. Not panic. Something else. Something colder.
