MasukI didn’t sleep after that.I lay on my side, staring at the wall while the house breathed around me—soft hums, distant clicks, the low whirr of something mechanical settling into its routine. Every sound felt deliberate, like the place was alive and watching.The letter was still crumpled in my fist.I hadn’t realized I was holding it until my fingers cramped.Engaged.The word echoed repeatedly, each repetition hollowing me out a little more. Not asked. Not told. Decided.By my father.By a man I didn’t know.By a signature that wasn’t mine.I finally loosened my grip and let the paper fall onto the floor. It landed facedown, like it was ashamed of itself.The house stayed quiet.Too quiet.I hated that about it—the way it never rushed, never reacted. Like it knew time was on its side.I sat up slowly, my head stil
The word engaged still burned my throat.It echoed off the walls long after it left my mouth, bouncing through the sitting room like something alive. Damien didn’t flinch. He didn’t rush to defend himself or soften the blow. He simply straightened from the fireplace, dusting his hands together slowly, deliberately — like this was an interruption, not an accusation.“You shouldn’t shout,” he said calmly. “You’ll hurt your head.”I stared at him, chest heaving, hands clenched so tightly my nails bit into my palms. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to move, to run, to do something — but my feet stayed planted, heavy as stone.“You don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do,” I snapped. “Not after this.”My gaze flicked to the crumpled letter at his feet. Proof. Confirmation. A trap with my name signed somewhere I’d never seen.Damien followed my eyes, then looked back at me — not annoyed, not defensive. Just… measured.“You read it,” he said.It wasn’t a question.“You had no
The caress felt light and soft on my cheek; I leaned into it instinctively, half lost in sleep.For once, I felt free.No walls pressing in.No whispers leaking through locked doors.No man with calm eyes is watching my every move.I was at Zoey’s place. We were laughing—arguing, really, about something stupid. That was us, always sparring, always loud. She was teasing me for talking too much, tossing popcorn at my face.She stood up from the couch, still smirking.“You’re unusually loud today,” she said, voice half a laugh.“What do you mean? I’m always loud,” I shot back, raising my coffee cup to my lips.Zoey rolled her eyes and reached out to touch my cheek. Her fingers were warm, feather-light. “You look so beautiful when you’re quiet,” she whispered.I frowned. “What?”Her lips tilted into a smirk—a smirk I knew, but not hers.My stomach dropped. The warmth around me shifted.“You’re very beautiful,” the voice said again—deeper now, smoother, wrong.The sound yanked me awake.I
The morning came too slowly.I woke groggy, my head heavy, eyes stinging from the light bleeding through the cream curtains. My throat felt dry, as though I’d swallowed sand in my sleep. For one weightless moment, my mind was blank—no thoughts, no memories, only the ache of existing.Then it hit me.The sound.The whispers.That door.The memory flooded back like ice water down my spine. My chest tightened. I sat up too fast, the room spinning in pale yellow light. My heart thudded so loud it felt like the only real thing in the world.I clutched the blanket to my chest, as if the thin fabric could protect me from what I’d heard. It hadn’t been a dream—I knew that much. Dreams didn’t leave dread like this, coiled in your blood and refusing to leave.My eyes fell on the tray at the foot of my bed. Breakfast again. But this time, there was something else—a folded sheet of cream-colored paper, my name written neatly across the top in Damien’s precise hand.D-A-M-I-E-N.His name echoed in
The days began to melt into each other like softened wax.He stopped locking the door behind him. I stopped flinching every time he walked in. The rhythm of our strange coexistence began to settle — too quietly, too naturally.Food always came on a tray: warm, neatly arranged, and different each time. Yam and egg sauce one day, pancakes drowning in syrup the next. He never lingered. Just a light knock, a step inside, the clink of a tray on the table.“Eat something. You’re starting to look like a feather,” he’d say, voice steady, detached — almost brotherly. Then he’d leave before I could decide whether to thank him or scream.I never asked for the meals. I never said thank you.But I ate.Not because I wanted to — because I had to.One afternoon, he came in without a word and draped a blanket across my shoulders. Another time, he left a soft cotton robe folded neatly on the chair by the window.“You don’t have to act like a guest,” he told me once, watering a plant in the hallway whil
Damien's POVI watched her from the hallway, unseen. She didn’t know, of course. That was the point.Her hair was a tangled halo around her head, her hands gripping the blanket like a lifeline. I had anticipated she’d move fast, or try. But not like this. Not methodically, memorising the cameras, the creaks of the floor, like some tiny predator in a forest too vast for her.A smirk tugged at my lips. She thought she had control. She thought she could plan her little rebellion. That needs to be free—it’s intoxicating. Dangerous. But it made her… honest. Pure.I sipped my coffee, letting the bitter warmth spread through me. I didn’t rush in. Not yet. She needed to feel the walls, the locks, the space. She needed to think she could outrun me.She’ll thank me later. Maybe.She peeked around the corner, careful, quick. My presence made her pulse spike; I could see it in the twitch of her shoulders, the slight hitch in her breath when she realised I wasn’t gone. My attention was gentle, but







