Chapter 8: The Cage I Can't Escape

The world tilted and spun as I slammed into the cold floor, Dominic’s body crushing the air from my lungs. My mind screamed to run, to fight, to claw and tear and never stop until I was free but my body betrayed me. I was trembling, not just from fear, but from the fire that still burned on my lips from his kiss.

I hated him. I hated that he could do this to me. That he could make me feel this much.

“Get off me,” I hissed, my voice raw, shaking.

He didn’t move. His gaze bore down on me, unreadable, terrifying in its intensity. His chest rose and fell, the heat of him pressing into every inch of my body. I could feel his heartbeatnsteady, possessive, relentless.

“Stop pretending,” he whispered. “You want to fight? Then fight. But don’t lie to yourself.”

“I’m not lying!” I spat, shoving at his shoulders, pushing back against the weight of him, the power of him. “I would rather die than be yours!”

He flinched. Just for a second. A blink.

But I saw it. That tiny crack in the mask.

Good. Let him feel it.

He moved off me slowly, but his hand stayed around my wrist like a man holding onto the last piece of something he couldn't afford to lose.

I rolled away, breath heaving, skin crawling, and pressed my back against the wall. My knees pulled up to my chest as if I could shield myself from him, from this place, from the part of me that was starting to forget what it felt like to be untouched by him.

Silence fell.

Thick. Suffocating.

Then, his voice now and rough.

“You weren’t supposed to remember the tunnel.”

I stared at him. “I remember everything.”

His jaw tensed. “Then you should remember why I did what I did.”

I laughed bitterly. “You think kidnapping me, locking me away like some stolen thing, is something I could ever forgive?”

His expression didn’t change, but his eyes... his eyes flickered like a storm struggling to hold itself back. “You’re not a prisoner, Celeste.”

“Then what am I?” My voice cracked, louder than I intended. “Your pet? Your possession? Your favorite toy to break when the world gets too quiet?”

“No,” he said, barely above a whisper.

But he didn’t say what I was, either.

I looked away, blinking back the sting in my eyes. I refused to cry in front of him. Not again.

“I had a life,” I muttered. “Before you.”

He stood then, pacing the cramped space like a caged animal. “A life that would have gotten you killed. You have no idea the kind of enemies that were circling you, Celeste.”

“You made yourself one of them,” I snapped.

He turned to me sharply. “If I were your enemy, you’d already be dead.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Maybe I wish I was.”

His entire body went still.

For a moment, I thought he’d hit me. He looked like a man on the edge, straining to keep control.

But instead, he walked to the edge of the shaft and sat down, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. And for the first time, I saw something human beneath the monster. Something exhausted. Lost.

But I couldn’t afford to care. I couldn’t afford to feel anything for the man who stole my freedom.

Still, I asked, “Why me?”

He looked up, slowly. “Because you’re the only person I can’t walk away from.”

The silence that followed that confession felt like a new kind of prison.

I didn’t respond.

I didn’t have the strength.

But inside me, something shifted. I wasn’t sure if it was hope or horror. I just knew... I couldn’t run from him not because I physically couldn’t, but because some dark, twisted part of me didn’t want to.

And that terrified me more than anything else.

I should’ve hated him more after what he said.

Because he made it sound like a curse.

“Because you’re the only person I can’t walk away from.”

He didn’t say it with softness or longing. He said it like it haunted him. Like loving me was the very thing undoing him.

And I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to rip out the part of my soul that still flinched every time he said my name.

But instead, I sat there, in that goddamn shaft, staring at the man who had taken everything from me—and somehow still had the power to make my heart pound like I was the one chasing him.

We stayed in silence, the kind that didn’t stretch it strangled.

Finally, Dominic stood and turned toward the shaft opening. “It’s not safe to go back through the tunnel. The guards are on edge now.”

“Whose fault is that?” I muttered.

He didn’t flinch. “We’ll wait here until it’s clear.”

My stomach twisted. “You’re kidding.”

“There’s a storm outside. If you want to freeze to death on the roof, be my guest.” He gestured toward the vent she’d almost escaped through.

I bit back a curse. He wasn’t lying. The cold had already sunk into my bones.

He removed his coat and, without asking, tossed it at me.

It hit my shoulder.

I didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything from him.

But my body betrayed me again I clutched it to my chest and breathed in the scent I wished I didn’t recognize. Gunmetal, smoke, and that faint hint of something warm and dark that clung only to him.

He sat beside me.

Too close.

Always too close.

The shaft was too small. The air too tight. Every inhale I took brushed against his presence like a bruise.

“You’ve never told me why,” I said suddenly. “Why you took me. Why you didn’t just kill me like everyone else who crosses you.”

He looked straight ahead, voice low. “Because you make me hesitate.”

I blinked.

What kind of answer was that?

“That’s not love, Dominic,” I said softly. “That’s obsession. There’s a difference.”

“I know,” he said. “But the obsession is what’s keeping you alive.”

I looked at him. Really looked.

He looked tired. Not physically but like his soul was worn thin. His eyes, those storm-colored eyes, flicked toward me for just a second and then away again like he couldn’t bear to look too long.

“Were you always like this?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“Cold. Cruel. Controlled.”

His lips twitched. “No. There was a time I wanted to be the good guy.”

“And what happened?”

He turned to face me, eyes dark and honest.

“You did.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.

He meant it. I could see it written in the tension around his mouth, the guilt in the shadows under his eyes.

He blamed me for the part of himself he could no longer cage.

I hated him more for it.

And I hated myself for how much that hurt.

“Don’t put that on me,” I whispered. “You made your choices.”

“I did,” he admitted. “But I made them the moment I realized I couldn’t protect you without becoming the very thing I feared.”

I stood abruptly, needing distance that didn’t exist.

“This is hell,” I said. “Being stuck with you. Breathing the same air. Pretending like this connection means something when all it is... is trauma.”

His voice came behind me, quiet but sharp. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s the only truth we’ve got left.”

I didn’t respond.

I stared at the grate above me the one I nearly escaped through.

So close.

Now I was trapped in a space that reeked of metal, regret, and the unspoken things between us. My fingers tightened around his coat as I sank back to the ground and curled into the corner as far from him as I could manage.

Dominic didn’t touch me again.

But his silence did.

And when I finally fell asleep, I dreamt of him not as the monster chasing me…

But as the one standing behind me with his arms out, waiting to catch me if I fell.