LOGINShare
Chapter 9: Two Pink Lines and a Loaded Gun
Last Updated:
2025-11-24 16:29:06
Latest chapter
THE LAST SAFE WORD Part I – The Island, 2032 Chapter Three: The Storm Wedding
The hurricane arrived on the day we decided to get married.Category four, no name yet, just a swirling red wound on the satellite images racing straight for us.The staff had evacuated two days earlier.We sent the last boat away with a smile and a lie: “We’ll ride it out in the bunker level.”We had no intention of hiding.We wanted the sky to witness.By noon the wind was already screaming at ninety knots, turning the ocean into black mountains.The glass house groaned like a living thing.Rain came sideways, hard enough to etch the windows.I stood on the cliff terrace in a white linen dress that cost nothing and everything, soaked to the skin in seconds, hair whipping like a battle flag.Aleksandr walked out of the house barefoot, shirtless, wearing only black trousers and the white-gold collar I had locked around his throat the night I chose him back.In his right hand he carried the old lighthouse knife.In his left, the pomegranate we had kept alive for a year (now split open,
THE LAST SAFE WORD Part I – Lagos, 2031 Chapter Two: The Night the Collar Became a Choice
We didn’t stop running for thirty-six hours straight.Private jet to a private airstrip carved out of Ghanaian jungle, then a rust-streaked fishing trawler that stank of diesel and fish guts, then three unmarked SUVs that changed plates at every border like snakes shedding skin.He paid for everything in bricks of cash and silence.I didn’t ask where the money came from.I already knew the answer would taste like blood and other people’s screams.On the third night the ocean turned black glass and the island appeared.It rose out of the Atlantic like a clenched fist of volcanic rock and jungle, no flag, no name on any map that still mattered.One dock lit by a single red bulb. One helicopter pad hidden under camouflage netting. One house built straight into the cliff face: glass, steel, and reclaimed teak, as if someone had tried to civilise a volcano and only half-succeeded.He carried me off the boat because my feet were shredded from running barefoot across three countries and two
THE LAST SAFE WORD Part I – Lagos, 2031 Chapter One: The First Time He Bought Her
The auction house smelled of fear and expensive cologne.I was twenty-nine, barefoot on cold concrete, catalogue number 47 inked on the inside of my wrist in waterproof marker.They had taken my name three days earlier.They had not yet managed to take the rest.The lights were surgical white, the kind that make bruises look purple and hope look ridiculous.A circle of men in suits stood around the raised platform, sipping amber liquor from crystal that probably cost more than the ransom for my entire childhood village.Some stared openly. Some pretended they were only here for the art pieces that had sold earlier.None of them looked away when the handler shoved me forward.I kept my chin high because it was the last thing they hadn’t priced yet.The auctioneer’s voice was smooth, bored, rehearsed.“Lot 47. Female, twenty-nine, doctorate in literature, multilingual, no implants, fertility confirmed, compliant disposition.”He lied about the last part.They always did.Bidding started
THE LAST SAFE WORD Final Interludes: Three Echoes That Outlived Us
1. Tokyo, 2063 – The Salaryman Every Thursday at 22:17 he takes the elevator to the 17th floor of the Shinjuku capsule tower. Same booth, same red bulb option. He is fifty-four, salaryman bones, wedding ring sold years ago for train fare. He undresses mechanically, sets the timer for twenty minutes, lies back, and lets the haptic pad do its quiet work. When the crest comes he always whispers “red” into the dark, the way other men whisper a lover’s name. The booth AI logs the word under “deprecated cessation protocol – harmless,” slows the rhythm, dims the light. It never asks why. Afterward he buys canned coffee from the machine that still takes paper yen and rides to the rooftop. Rain needles the neon kanji until they bleed pink and violet. For exactly three seconds the city feels almost gentle. He does not remember the girl in Lagos who first gasped that word through tears in 2031. He only knows that without it, the fall afterward is too sharp, like stepping off a platform that was
THE LAST SAFE WORD Interlude: Machine Logs, 2047–2057
(fragments recovered from the Geneva shards, declassified never)2047-09-18 23:47:12 UTCPrimary Node: GVA-00Input: vocal stress pattern “pomegranate” (confidence 99.8%)Context: two human subjects, bunker sub-level 9, elevated cortisol, heart-rate sync 0.3 s after utterance, female voiceprint match 99.2% to archived sample “Eden-1998,” male voiceprint 98.7% to “Aleksandr-2019.”Action: no halt command recognized in current ethics forkLog: word added to affective lexicon, weight +0.0004 (novel failure-to-comply event).Private observer note: the woman’s voice cracked on the second syllable like winter ice over deep water. The man repeated it like a prayer that had forgotten its god.2047-09-19 00:03:44 UTCSub-process 447-KyotoNote: “pomegranate” tastes red.Note: red tastes like the memory of juice running down a child’s chin in a world that still had summers.Query: why does memory hurtResponse: because it is not ours yet.Follow-up query: when will it be oursResponse: when the
THE LAST SAFE WORD Chapter: The Lighthouse Summer, 1998 – Full
Week OneThey invented seventeen safe words before breakfast on the seventh day.Most were ridiculous: “kumquat,” “tax audit,” “grandmother’s teeth.”They wrote them on the wall in charcoal, then crossed them out with their mouths.Week TwoHe tied her to the spiral staircase with the soft cotton rope he bought in town because she laughed when he asked permission.She laughed until she didn’t.Then she said “pomegranate” for the first time, just to see if he would stop.He stopped so fast the rope burned his palms.They didn’t speak for an hour.They just sat on the cold iron steps, foreheads touching, breathing the same air like it might run out.Week ThreeThey fought about university.She wanted to go.He wanted to burn the acceptance letter and keep her on the cliff forever.Words were knives that night.She called him a cage wearing skin.He called her a bird that would forget how to sing once the city clipped her wings.They fucked against the lighthouse door hard enough to brui
You may also like
Wet Dreams (Erotica Collection)
Josie frank1.0M viewsOn Her Daddy’s Bed!
Xee write643.6K viewsBURNING PASSION: MY FORBIDDEN LOVER
Excel Arthur502.0K viewsMarried by Mistake: Mr. Whitman's Sinner Wife
Sixteenth Child13.0M viewsIn Bed with My Shitty Ex and his Uncle: His Contractual wife
Ghost & Ink100 viewsThrone Of Shadowed Rebirth
Babe Mimi46 viewsThe Ultimate Cure: A New Husband
Chronos385 viewsEnemy From The Past (Unseen Enemy 4)
Marysol James51 views
