I pressed my palm flat to the door and felt it tremble with his breath.
Damien didn't knock. He didn't need to. He stood on the other side like the house itself had grown him — a vein in the wall, a nerve under the paint. When he finally spoke, his voice slid under the gap at the floorboards.
"You can lock yourself in all you want, Ayla," he murmured, soft as silk and twice as dangerous. "But this is my house. My rules. Sooner or later, you'll come out."
I folded into myself on the carpet, knees to my chest, counting my inhale… my exhale… trying to make them sound normal. The lamp threw a tired halo across the room. My water glass was empty. My stomach had started to gnaw at itself hours ago.
He tapped something against the door — slow, measured thuds. Thud… thud… thud. My name without letters. Then a pause so long I thought he'd left.
"Such a shame Leon won't hear from you for a while," he said, voice pitched like a secret. "Distractions make you forget who's in charge."
I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted iron and refused to answer. Silence is safer than truth.
His shadow shifted under the door. "Think about what's best for us," he added, and then his footsteps drifted down the hall — not away, just thinner. Damien never really left; he simply faded to the edges until you forgot how to breathe without listening for him.
I crawled to the window and cracked the curtain. Night leaned against the glass, all dark ribs and distant car lights. Somewhere out there, the world went on. In here, time bunched and snagged like a bad thread.
I slept in pieces — fifteen minutes at a time, heart sprinting when the pipes groaned, when the fridge coughed, when the floorboards sighed like someone was about to speak. I kept waiting for a knock that wasn't his. It never came.
—
By day seven, the air tasted stale, thick with my own breath. Hunger had become a dull stone I carried from morning to night; thirst, a whisper that got meaner by the hour. I sat with my back to the door and understood a simple math: if I wanted out, I had to stop resisting like a wall. Walls only get pushed.
I crawled to the mirror. A stranger looked back — sallow skin, sleep-bruised eyes, hair in a halo of knots. I wet my fingers and smoothed it back. Pinched color into my cheeks. Practiced the smallest smile until it didn't shake.
You're fine. You're happy. You love him. The lies felt like pebbles in my mouth, but I swallowed them one by one because strategy sometimes wears the face of surrender.
I stood, let my hand hover over the lock — and turned it.
The click sounded louder than thunder.
He was already there at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall like a patient hunter. His eyes skimmed me for cracks. I kept my smile small, soft. Not defiant — contrite.
"Can we talk?" I asked, voice low, careful. "I… I don't want to fight."
The change in his face was immediate — suspicion folding into satisfaction. He pushed off the wall and came closer, slow enough to make me feel every step.
"I knew you'd come around," he said, like he was blessing me.
"I was overwhelmed," I lied, dropping my gaze. "I shouldn't have shut you out. I just… needed time." Another swallow. "I'm hungry."
Permission. That was the currency here. I offered him the shape of it without the word.
His mouth curved. "Then eat," he said. "With me."
We walked to the kitchen side by side, my pulse loud in my ears. I kept the performance intact — shoulders loose, breath even, eyes soft. I thanked him when he set a plate down, and I meant it only in the way a drowning person thanks the wave that didn't pull them under.
He watched me more than he ate. "See?" he murmured, pleased with himself. "Much better when you listen."
I smiled around a forkful and nodded like agreement lived in my bones.
While he rinsed a glass, I made a quiet inventory: outlets, sightlines, the spare keys that used to sleep in the little ceramic bowl by the door (gone), the window latch over the sink (paint-stuck but not impossible), the coat rack with my scarf and nothing else (he'd moved the jackets). I mapped escape onto ordinary objects and folded the map behind my eyes.
"I'd like to shower," I said, gentle as a plea. "And… maybe charge my phone? I want to call my dad later. He worries."
A test. Two small freedoms dressed as obedience.
Damien dried his hands and studied me. Seconds stretched. "Shower," he allowed. "The phone—we'll see." His smile returned, slow and proud. "Good girls get good things."
I held the smile until my face hurt. "Okay."
He trailed me to the bedroom door and lingered there like smoke while I gathered clothes. "No more locking," he said lightly, which meant not light at all.
"I won't," I lied, and stepped into the bathroom where the fan's thin roar finally drowned him out.
Under the water, I let my face crumple for exactly five seconds. Then I rebuilt it. Cheeks calm. Eyes clear. Spine straight.
Play nice. Eat. Collect yeses like keys. Find a window that opens. Find a call I can make without echo.
When I came back out, he was still in the hall, pleased and certain — the king of an empire built on closed doors. I brushed past him with the practiced warmth of a woman who has forgiven things that cannot be forgiven.
Inside, I held the map tight. Tonight, I would be what he needed to see. Tomorrow, I would look for the crack.
And when the crack showed, I would run light, run far, run fast.