Masuk🧚♀️🧚♀️🧚♀️
Nikolai didn’t look back. He didn’t spare the body another thought, didn’t grant the man who had dared touch his family even a final second of his attention. He turned and ran, his entire being pulled in a single direction by something stronger than adrenaline, the need to find them. His family... To see them. To make sure breathing wasn’t just something he was imagining. He ran through corridors that looked like endless tunnels, ignoring the pain in his hands, ignoring everything except the panic ripping through him. “Cassie! Little soldier!” he shouted as he burst outside into the open area beyond the final doorway, his voice raw and carrying through the darkness like a prayer and a command all at once. “Emily! Princess! Little dinosaur!” His voice echoed, hitting walls and coming back to him distorted, cracking with desperation that he didn’t bother to hide anymore. “Cassie! Emily! Answer me! Plea... please!” He searched everything, every corner, every room, every shadow
Nikolai didn’t scream. He didn’t beg. He didn’t plead. He just listened to Raymond rant angrily. He forced himself to sit there in that hard wooden chair, his back straight despite the biting pain radiating through his shoulders and down his spine. He just listened, because there was power in silence, power in stillness, power in letting your enemy believe you were broken when in reality you were watching everything, calculating everything, memorizing every detail of the room and every breath the other man took. The coarse rope scraped and burned violently against his wrists with every subtle movement he made, the fibers digging into skin already raw, but even the discomfort didn’t matter, pain was something he had learned to live with long before this moment. In front of him, Raymond paced back and forth like a caged animal who didn’t realize he had locked himself in with a predator, shouting, letting his anger spill everywhere, spitting hatred with every word, so consumed b
She reached the door where the voice was coming from and slammed her fists against it so hard that pain shot through her arms. “Emily!” Cassie cried, the name ripping from her throat. “Baby, are you there? Are you okay? Talk to Mommy!” From the other side... “Mommy?” A tiny, trembling voice broke apart on the second syllable. “Mommy... is that you?” Cassie nearly collapsed right there, her legs buckling. “Yes! Yes, sweetheart, it’s me!” she sobbed, tears spilling hot and uncontrollable. “Mommy’s here!” “I—I tried not to cry,” Emily whimpered, the sound so small Cassie wanted to tear the world apart for letting it exist. “I can’t cry… because the ghost said she’d come back…” Cassie’s hands shook violently as she grabbed the handle and twisted it as hard as she could. It wouldn’t budge. Locked. Barricaded. "Fuck this shit!" Cassie screamed. “Okay, baby, listen to me,” she said, forcing her voice into something calm and steady even while she was breaking inside. “I need you to
Cassie ran! She didn’t simply move or flee or escape, she ran, as if running were the only thing keeping the world from collapsing inward and crushing her entirely. Her chest burned, her lungs screaming for air they couldn’t seem to pull in fast enough, and her heart pounded so violently against her ribs. Rachael was dead. The thought felt like a flare in the middle of her mind, bright, undeniable, impossible to ignore, yet somehow it didn’t bring relief, didn’t bring triumph, didn’t bring the sharp satisfaction she had once imagined she would feel if she ever watched Rachael fall. Not yet! Not when the consequences were still unfolding like cracks running through glass. Because the moment Cassie crossed the threshold into the hallway and looked around with wide, frantic eyes, reality struck her with sudden, terrifying clarity that ripped the breath right back out of her lungs. This wasn’t the hotel where they had Emily’s birthday party. Everything in her recoiled at once w
ELSEWHERE In another room, far darker and far more dangerous, Cassie stared down the barrel of a gun. The metal gleamed under the harsh light, cold and unforgiving, aimed directly at her temple. Rachael stood before her, arm steady, finger resting against the trigger, her eyes glittering with madness and triumph. There was something unhinged in her smile, something broken beyond repair. Cassie’s hands were still bound behind her back. Her body ached, bruises blooming beneath her skin, exhaustion weighing heavily on her limbs. But her gaze never wavered. “I’ve been wanting to kill you for a very long time, Cassie,” Rachael said softly. “And now… I finally get to do it.” Cassie inhaled slowly and deeply. She wasn’t afraid of dying. That realization startled her. What terrified her was everything she would leave behind. Her husband and daughter. “If you kill me,” Cassie said calmly, her voice steady despite the chaos inside her, “is all your resentment against me going to va
In a room far away from the sirens, far away from the screaming, far away from the chaos that had swallowed the night whole, a little girl slowly opened her eyes. Emily blinked once...Then again. Her lashes fluttered, heavy, as though sleep was reluctant to let her go, as though the darkness wanted to keep her. The ceiling above her came into focus slowly, plain, flat, and unfamiliar. It wasn’t the soft pink ceiling of her bedroom. There were no glow-in-the-dark stars Daddy had stuck up himself. No fairy lights Mommy turned on every night before bed. No balloons drifting lazily near the corners from her birthday celebration. It was too quiet and too empty. Emily frowned, confusion knitting her tiny brows together. “Mommy…?” she whispered. Her voice sounded too small in the room, like it didn’t belong there. The sound echoed faintly, bouncing off walls that didn’t answer back. Emily pushed herself upright, her fingers clutching the edge of the bed for balance. The mattres







