I Still Hear Her

I rested against the cold cot, bones pressing into steel. My body was weak.

I hadn’t eaten in days.

Maybe a week.

Or two.

I stared at the dim light above me. It barely let me see anything, just enough to remind me I wasn’t blind.

Time didn’t move here.

It just… stretched.

BANG.

Metal against metal. The sound tore through the cell, sharp enough to make my ears sting.

The hatch screeched open. A thin square of corridor light sliced across the floor.

A bottle of water flew in.

The hatch slammed shut immediately.

The bottle rolled across the concrete and settled beside the others.

I turned my head slowly.

Counted.

One. Two.

…

Fifteen.

All fifteen bottles lay scattered along the wall.

That’s how long I’d been here.

Fifteen days.

No clock. No food. No window. No release.

Just water.

And messages.

Silent ones.

From Aaron.

A reminder.

You will break.

Sooner or later.

My stomach had stopped growling. It didn’t have the strength anymore. My limbs felt heavy. Slower.

When I lifted my hand, it trembled.

My ribs felt numb — pain blurred into the cold.

I couldn’t see my reflection.

But I could feel it.

The hollowing.

The thinning.

That was what he wanted.

Hunger weakens you. Isolation hollows you out. Rearranges your thoughts until they don’t sit right anymore.

But sometimes clarity comes with emptiness.

When there’s nothing left to distract you, you start seeing things for what they are.

Or what they’re meant to be.

Day nineteen.

The light never changed. It hummed constantly, indifferent.

My body couldn’t tell the difference between sleep and waking anymore. Dreams bled into consciousness. Reality slipped at the edges.

By day twenty, the hallucinations came.

Subtle at first.

Footsteps that never stopped at my door.

Whispers with no source.

Laughter.

Sweet sometimes.

Other times…

Crooked.

Then I felt her.

I heard her.

Her soft voice waking me up for breakfast.

Her quiet laugh.

The way she told stories that went nowhere but still made me smile.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I didn’t do it,” I muttered, chewing at my nails until the skin split.

“I didn’t do it. I swear.”

Her voice didn’t answer.

“I didn’t fucking do it!” I shouted.

Something warm ran over my fingers.

I looked down.

Blood.

From my bitten hands. From my cracked lips.

I tasted it.

Cold. Metallic. Real.

“Sir,” a voice said from the other side of the door. “He’s doing it again. He’s going nuts.”

Again.

I dragged myself to the door and started pounding against it.

“I didn’t do it!” I yelled, over and over, my fists slamming against metal. “I didn’t do it!”

Footsteps approached. Faster.

My vision blurred at the edges.

The hatch opened.

And then I heard him.

Aaron.

Disgust threaded through his voice.

“Open it.”

Darkness rushed in before they did.

_

I opened my eyes to the blinding light of a hospital room. The smell of antiseptic attacked my nostrils.

My body felt heavy. The pain was lighter now. Duller.

I tried to lift my hand, but I couldn’t. The clang of metal against iron told me everything I needed to know.

I was cuffed. Fucking hell.

“Don’t stress it, Prescott,” someone grunted from the side.

My eyes found the figure leaning against the wall. That smug face clouded with hatred.

Gabriel.

Of course it had to be him.

Better him than Aaron, though.

Pain shot through my body as I tried to sit up straight.

I bit down on the low growl forming in my throat.

“My man.” I grinned despite myself.

“Let’s skip the pleasantries. What did you do to annoy Greyman so much?” he asked, hovering over me.

“The usual,” I smirked.

He hummed, nodding slowly. “Defiant as usual.” He sucked his teeth.

“It takes one man to start a revolution, you know,” I shot back.

He stopped mid-step.

He turned slowly, eyes fixated on me. “Yeah, you’re gonna get yourself killed, Prescott. And I would love to do the honors.”

He turned back, retreating toward the door.

“I sure hope you get the chance, Gabriel,” I called after him.

As he opened the door, a heavier presence met him.

Aaron.

They glared at each other for a moment, boring holes into one another before stepping past each other without a word.

His eyes met mine as he shut the door. Locked it.

Yeah. Right. Just what I needed after opening my eyes.

“Cole Prescott,” he called. His voice cold. Calm. Calculated.

I watched him carefully. Every step. Every twitch. Every movement.

Aaron was a man with a fragile ego. He hated defiance, but he loved fear.

He loved it when his subordinates dripped with it.

But me—

I was different.

I never showed fear. Not even in the face of death. And I wouldn’t start now.

He stopped by the bedside.

His face filled with disdain as he looked me over, from my face down to my legs.

“Cole. Cole.” He exhaled.

“Sir,” I said quietly.

For a split second, something flashed across his face.

Surprise.

“That’s good. Submissive already.”

I bit back a laugh, keeping my face as steady as I could. “There can only be one captain on a ship. And on this ship… you’re the captain.”

“Huh.” He took two steps back from the bed.

Another thing Aaron hated was surprises.

He hated being caught off guard. Being unaware meant weakness.

He smiled, less crooked this time. “You should be like this more often, you know.”

“Like what, sir?” I asked.

He stepped closer. So close our faces were only inches apart.

His breath was hot against my skin. I could feel it when I inhaled.

He leaned in, his lips almost brushing mine.

“Submissive.”

I smirked.

Then laughed.

Hard. Rib-cracking hard.

He pulled back, surprise flashing across his face.

Almost immediately, my expression settled back into calm.

“Your slave, you mean.”

He laughed. Loud and sharp. “You’re smart.”

“You’re not the first to tell me.”

“But not smart enough.”

In a split second, his fist slammed into my face.

Another sting. Another burn.

He grabbed my hair, yanking my head to the side, exposing my pulse.

“Your defiance will be the death of you, Cole,” he spat.

Pain flared sharply at my neck.

He bit down—not gentle, not entirely brutal either. Controlled.

When he pulled back, my neck burned.

I lifted my cuffed hand as far as it would go and touched the spot.

Wet.

Stinging.

And bleeding.

The burn at my neck throbbed where he’d bitten me.

I didn’t let him see me react.

He stepped back slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as if he had just finished a meal.

I kept my breathing steady. Controlled. Measured.

He watched me—not like a warden, not like a disciplinarian. Something different.

Something he hadn’t figured out yet.

And that was good.

“This is no game, Cole,” he said quietly.

My neck stung from the bite. My cheek throbbed from the punch. The cuffs tightened around my wrists each time I moved.

“What I think, sir,” I said, voice steady, “is that you don’t like losing control.”

His jaw tightened, though he grinned.

He leaned closer again, but this time there was no mocking intimacy. Just cold scrutiny.

“You mistake tolerance for loss of control, Cole,” he replied. “I allow you to exist.”

I forced a faint smile. “How generous of you, Aaron.”

His hand shot up as if to strike.

I lifted my chin, firm, letting him know I wasn’t backing down.

But nothing happened.

He dropped his hand.

“Stubborn. But stupid,” he said. “I like your defiance. It says a lot about your personality.”

I nodded.

Silence stretched between us.

The hospital room hummed—machines beeping softly, air circulating, that faint, disturbing scent of disinfectant clinging to everything.

“Something happened in there,” he said, his expression shifting into something almost unreadable.

“You screamed. Banged. Begged.”

“I didn’t beg,” I shot back.

His eyes narrowed.

“You said you didn’t do it.”

The words hung in the air.

My expression flickered, just for a second.

He saw it. I know he did.

“What was that? What didn’t you do?”

I remained silent.

Not because I didn’t have an answer.

But because it wasn’t his to hear.

He circled the bed slowly, like a hunter before devouring its prey.

“Solitary affects everyone. Some break loudly. Some quietly. But they all break eventually.”

He stopped in front of me again.

“What makes you think you’re different? Special?”

I held his gaze.

“No,” I said. “I’m not different. But I’m not yours either.”

Something dark flickered behind his eyes.

He moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the handle.

“You’ll be returned to your cell tomorrow,” he said. “General population.”

That was fine, I guess.

He glanced back over his shoulder.

“Let’s see how long your revolution lasts.”

The door opened, then closed. The lock clicked from the other side.

I exhaled slowly.

My wrists ached. My neck burned. My face still stung. My body felt like it had been hollowed out and stitched back together wrong.

But he was shaken.

And that mattered.

It meant progress.

The rules were about to change. I could feel it.

Solitary hadn’t broken me like he thought it would.

And whatever was coming next—

I was fucking ready for it.