Chapter 05

Madeleine POV

The wind kept tearing at my face, flinging grit and dust against my skin until my cheeks burned raw. Every gust felt intentional, like the night itself was trying to keep me awake, trying to make sure I did not escape into darkness. I did not fight it. I refused to close my eyes. If I blinked, even for a second, I was certain I would wake up back in that room. The concrete walls, with damp rot in the air and the slow, deliberate footsteps of Stone Ridge guards pacing just beyond the door, boots scuffing, keys clinking, reminding me I was just a property to be owned.

I could still hear them in my head.

I did not know who this man was. I did not know his name, his face, or the reason he had reached for me when the flares split the sky and chaos tore through the yard. I did not know why he had decided my life was worth risking his own. None of it made sense. But his leather jacket was warm beneath my hands, real and solid, and his back was broad and unyielding, a wall moving through the dark. I pressed against him like he was the only thing keeping the world from tearing me apart.

I was breathing. Deep breaths. Full breaths. Breaths I had forgotten how to take.

“Are we far?” I shouted, my voice ripping out of me, raw and desperate. The engine swallowed the words.

He did not respond. Not even a shift of his shoulders. We cut along the edge of the woods, the trees blurring into long black streaks, the sky above them low and heavy. The farther we rode, the more something inside my chest loosened. The invisible fist that had wrapped itself around my heart in Stone Ridge, squeezing until thinking hurt and hope felt like a joke, finally began to unclench.

It was not gone. But it was weaker.

Exhaustion dragged at me, deep and brutal, the kind that lived in the bones and hollowed them out from the inside. My body wanted to collapse, to fold in on itself and stop. But my mind refused. Every sense was painfully sharp. I memorized the sound of the engine, the way it dipped and surged. I felt how he leaned into each curve, steady and practiced. I breathed in gasoline, rain, leather. My cheek rested against the small of his back, and for one dangerous, forbidden moment, peace brushed against me.

It hurt worse than fear.

I leaned closer without thinking, my lips barely touching the fabric of his jacket. My voice came out small, almost embarrassed by its own hope. “You don’t have to keep going,” I whispered. “You can drop me anywhere. I’ll make it.”

His body locked. The bike jolted, speed dropping just enough to steal my breath before he corrected. He reached back with one gloved hand and pressed it hard against my forearm. The touch was firm, grounding, undeniable. It was not reassurance. It was instruction. Stay. Do not move. Do not let go.

I wrapped my arms tighter around him, fingers digging into his sides. My knuckles ached. I welcomed the pain. Pain meant I was still here. I did not need to know where we were going. I just needed distance between me and that place.

Then something shifted.

The edges of the world softened. My vision shimmered, the bike’s headlamp stretching into pale white lines. The wind stopped hurting. The engine still vibrated beneath me, but it felt far away, like a memory instead of something happening now. I tried to inhale, but the air did not feel like it belonged to me. Gravity tilted. The night pulled.

I was sinking.

Black swallowed everything.

When I came back, it was slowly, reluctantly, like surfacing through thick water. Pine needles. Wet earth. Cold air. My head throbbed with a deep, pulsing ache that made every thought feel sharp. I was still on the bike. Still clinging to him. But the ride was different. Slower. Careful. Each movement measured.

The forest had closed in. The road had narrowed into a dirt path, twisting between ancient trees and twisted scrub. Branches loomed close enough to scrape. The silence pressed in, heavy and watchful.

“Where are we?” I croaked. My throat burned. My voice sounded ruined.

He did not answer. His posture was tight beneath me, coiled like a spring wound too far. The bike rounded a sharp bend, and my heart slammed violently against my ribs.

Lights.

Bright, white, unforgiving lights pierced the forest ahead. They were wrong here. Too clean. Too deliberate. They carved the darkness apart, revealing fencing, metal, order.

Panic exploded through me.

“Wait,” I gasped, trying to push back, my hands slipping. “Stop. Turn back.”

He ignored me. The engine whined as he shifted gears, pulling us forward. Barbed wire glinted along the perimeter fence, threading through the brush like teeth. Compound lights. I knew them. I knew what lived behind them. Places that hid themselves for a reason. Places that locked doors and threw away keys.

“Let me off!” I screamed, grabbing his jacket, his shoulder, anywhere. “Stop!”

He did not wobble. He did not slow.

“You promised,” I cried, the words tearing out of me. “Who are you? Where are you taking me?”

The path narrowed further, metal posts scraping close. He focused only on the gate ahead, steering us through with brutal precision. My hands shook violently. Sweat chilled against his back. My breath came in broken pulls.

“I can’t go through there,” I screamed. The truth hit me so hard I felt dizzy. “If this is another cage, I swear I’ll kill you first. Do you hear me?”

He leaned forward and accelerated.

Floodlights swallowed us. Shadows jumped and twisted, monstrous and warped. The gate loomed ahead, massive and hungry. I tried to swing my leg over, tried to jump, tried to save myself, but darkness crept back in, thick and suffocating. I clawed at him, nails snagging fabric, desperate to stay awake, to stay here.

“No,” I whispered, already losing the sound.

The bike jolted over a bump. Light exploded into white nothingness. Sound vanished. Cold rushed in. My hands slid from his jacket, empty and weak, and the world slipped away.

I was gone.