Falling for my Saviour

Damien wolfe The first thing I heard was wood breaking, a satisfying sound that surprised me because for a second I didn’t realize it was me making it. The desk split under my hands with a violence that felt satisfying in the moment, the grain snapping like an animal caught and the top collapsing into a scatter of paper and pens. A mug slid off the edge and hit the floor, the ceramic cracking sharp and final. Ethan stood by the door the way he always did when I lost it still, careful to look invisible because he’d learned that motionlessness sometimes protected men from what came next. “Say it again,” I told him, voice low and too steady. He swallowed and said it, the words pushed out like they were moving through mud. “We checked all the girls. None matched Elma’s record. We pulled prints, cross-checked files, ran databases…” “Check them again,” I ordered, and it wasn’t a question. He opened his mouth to answer and closed it when the chair launched across the room. It slam

Aria Blake Something ripped me out of sleep. Not gently hard, sudden, like being yanked out of water before you could breathe. My heart slammed so fast I thought it would burst. For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Everything around me was dark and still, but my body was shaking like it hadn’t gotten the message that the nightmare was over. My pulse beat everywhere at oncethroat, wrists, behind my eyes like my blood couldn’t decide where to hide. The dream was the same as always. The slam of a metal door. Boots slapping concrete. The sour smell of sweat and bleach mixed with fear that had lived too long in the air. A man’s laugh, low and close enough that I could feel it vibrate against my spine. Then the blindfold rough fabric, hands that didn’t care if they bruised. After that there was only breathing, steady and wrong, too near to ever forget. I shoved myself upright, lungs burning, the room spinning. Sweat slicked my skin and turned cold as it cooled, crawling down my bac

Damien Wolfe “What did you do?” The words came out harder again this time than I meant them to, rough and low, already echoing off the walls before the door even finished closing behind me. The smell of blood still hung thick in the air, mixed with smoke and sweat and something faintly metallic that clung to the back of my throat. Shattered glass glimmered under the red emergency light that still flickered weakly from the ceiling, refusing to die even when everything else had gone quiet. She was still on the floor where they had left her, her back pressed tight against the bed frame, her knees drawn up close to her chest like she was trying to make herself smaller, invisible maybe, as if she could still hide from what had already happened. Her right hand was wrapped in a strip of white bandage, but I could see where it had already turned dark at the center, the red bleeding through. Every breath she took was fast and shallow, the kind that never quite fills the lungs. I stepped

Damien It’s been three weeks since the raid, and she’s still here. I told myself I kept her for safety, but I stopped believing that somewhere around week two, the first night I stayed awake just to hear her breathing through the walls. Every night I promise myself I’ll stop watching her. Every morning I break that promise before I even pour a drink. I watch her more than I sleep, more thank I even work and most nights she doesn’t know, but tonight she does, because she’s in the mirror, one bare foot resting on the cold marble tile, one hand braced against the bathroom counter, my shirt sliding off one shoulder. She pretends she isn’t looking at the camera in the corner, but I know she’s aware, I know she feels the lens on her the way my hands have, I know she’s giving me the show on purpose, because she’s not the same girl they dragged off that floor that night , and she’s learning what it means to have my eyes on her every second. That’s the difference now she wants me to s

Damien I went looking for her because something felt off a small thread of wrong that’s hard to ignore once it’s there. The guest room was empty when I pushed the door. Her blanket lay twisted where she’d been. A cup on the bedside table was cold. The unease pulled at me, slow and steady, and I moved through the rooms until I reached the study. Before I opened the door I heard it a small, soft noise, like someone breathing too loud, moving around the drawers and then the sharper sound of a thumb moving over a screen. I froze for a second, because I hate surprises in my house. Whoever was in there ought to have knocked. Whoever it was had already crossed a line. I stepped inside. She was in the corner by the desk, phone cupped between both hands, the screen bright against her face. Her shoulders were high and tight one knee was tucked under her like she’d been holding herself together. For a second she didn’t even see me. Then she looked up, and the moment our eyes met she hit t