Chapter 3

I didn't stop running until I was inside my room.

​I slammed the door shut and twisted the lock. Click.

​It wasn't enough. It was never enough.

​I grabbed the heavy oak chair from my desk and jammed it under the doorknob, wedging the legs against the floorboards. My hands shook so violently I almost dropped it, but muscle memory took over. I had done this a thousand times before. I was twenty-two years old, yet in a heartbeat, I had reverted to the terrified sixteen-year-old girl who used to build a fortress to keep the monster out.

​Only then did I allow myself to breathe.

​I collapsed against the wood, sliding down until I hit the floor. My lungs burned. My vision blurred with hot, angry tears that I couldn't stop.

​Downstairs, the house was silent. No one had chased me. They were probably still sitting there, eating roast chicken, drinking wine, and acting like I was the crazy one.

​A moment later, a soft, pathetic knock sounded on the wood right behind my head.

​I flinched, curling my knees to my chest.

​"Sephina?" My mother’s voice. Weak. Trembling. "Please, honey. Open the door. You’re ruining the evening."

​Ruining the evening.

​Not 'Are you okay?' Not 'I'm sorry we trapped you.'

​Fresh anger boiled up in my chest, hot enough to choke me.

​“Are you for real right now?” I asked her, my voice cracking into a broken sob. “I am ruining the evening? Me? Not the degenerate downstairs who assaulted me?”

​There was a pause. Then a heavy sigh through the wood.

​“You are overreacting, Sephina,” she said, her tone shifting to that dismissive, patronizing pitch she always used when I tried to tell the truth. “Your mind must be playing games with you again. You're acting like a child throwing a tantrum.”

​“You know what he did to me, Mom!” I shouted, pushing myself up to face the door, screaming at the wood. “You know everything!”

​“Lower your voice,” she hissed. “Sephina, you need to apologize to your brother for these false accusations. It has been six years. He has changed. Why can't you?”

​False accusations.

​The words hit me harder than a slap. 

My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold iron fist. She chose him. She always chose him.

​“Go away,” I whispered, my energy suddenly draining out of me. “Just go away.”

​She lingered for a moment longer, muttering something about me being "difficult," before I heard her footsteps retreating down the hall.

My eyes drifted to the scar on my left wrist, a thin, jagged white line that had faded with time but never truly disappeared.

​I remembered the day I got it. I was sixteen. I had forgotten to fold Tyler's laundry—a simple mistake. I had been studying for a chemistry final. When he came home and found the clothes in the basket, he didn’t yell. Tyler never yelled when he wanted to hurt you. He got quiet.

​He had cornered me in the laundry room. I remembered the smell of the detergent, the hum of the dryer, and the cold, metallic glint of the scissors he had been holding to cut a loose thread.

​"You need to learn to pay attention, Seraphina," he had whispered, pressing the cold blade against my skin. "If you can't focus, maybe you need a reminder."

​He hadn't cut deep—just enough to draw blood, just enough to make me scream. And when my parents ran in, he had dropped the scissors and looked at them with wide, innocent eyes. "She tripped," he had said. "I tried to catch her."

​They believed him. They bandaged my wrist and told me to be less clumsy next time. They never asked why I flinched every time Tyler walked into a room after that.

​I rubbed the scar now, feeling the phantom burn of the metal. That was the boy my mother wanted me to apologize to. That was the man they wanted me to bake a cake for.

​I didn't move. I couldn't. I stayed there on the floor in the dark, listening to the murmurs downstairs, knowing with a terrifying certainty that my sanctuary was gone.

​Hours passed. The house eventually fell silent.

​I managed to crawl into bed, but I didn't change out of my clothes. I pulled the duvet up to my chin, shivering despite the heat. I was exhausted, mentally and physically drained, my eyes heavy with sleep.

​I was just drifting off when I heard it.

​Thump. Thump.

​Heavy footsteps. Not my father’s shuffling gait. Not my mother’s light tread.

​These were deliberate. Predatory.

​They moved down the hallway and stopped right outside my door.

​My breath trapped in my throat. I lay paralyzed, staring at the doorknob in the darkness, praying to a God I wasn't sure was listening. Please just leave. 

Please just leave.

​The doorknob rattled.

​Slowly, deliberately, it turned left, then right. It hit the lock. It hit the chair.

​He knew I was in there. He knew I was awake.

​"Seraphina..."

​His voice was low, muffled by the door, but it carried that same mocking lilt.

​"I know you're in there. You can't hide forever."

​I squeezed my eyes shut, tears leaking out, biting my lip to keep from screaming.

​He stood there for what felt like an eternity. I could hear his breathing on the other side. Waiting. Taunting. Reminding me that he could get in if he really wanted to.

​Finally, after a lifetime of silence, the footsteps turned and faded down the hall.

​I didn't sleep. I couldn't.

​The monster wasn't just under my bed anymore. He was in the hallway. He was in the dining room.

​And he wasn't leaving.