That night, the pain, the terror, the trauma intensified.
The dark wasn't empty. It was full of hands.
They ghosted over my skin, a memory etched into my nerves. The rough calluses of Tattoo-Arms, the cold, impersonal touch of Cold-Eyes. I could feel the bite of the zip-ties, the chill of the concrete seeping up through the soles of my feet, the tearing sound of my dress.
A scream lodged in my throat, a silent, suffocating thing.
My eyes flew open, scanning the room, wild and unseeing. It was dark, but not the pitch black of the warehouse. This was the soft, grey dark of a safe room, punctuated by the faint strip of light under the door. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, caged bird trying to beat its way out.
And then I saw him.
Kaelen. A silhouette in an armchair he'd pulled into the far corner of the room, as far from the bed as he could get without leaving. He wasn't sleeping. His eyes were open, fixed on me, reflecting what little light there was. He was a statue, perfectly still, but I could feel the tension radiating from him across the space, a live wire of contained fury and… fear.
For me.
The sight of him, there and not touching me, was the only anchor I had. I clung to it, dragging air into my burning lungs. The phantom sensations receded, just a little, leaving a bone-deep tremble in their wake.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the images away. But closing my eyes was worse. It was all there, playing on the backs of my eyelids in high-definition horror. The camera's red eye, winking. The leering smiles. The cold press of the knife against my skin.
Broken. They broke you.
The thought was a shard of ice in my gut. I felt contaminated. Dirty. The shower hadn't been enough. I could still smell their sweat, the stale odor of the warehouse, feel the grime they'd left on me. A sob hitched in my chest, but I choked it back, swallowing the salt and shame.
I was Elara Sterling. I had been reborn with a will of iron. I had faced down my murderers and won. But this… this felt like a different kind of death. They hadn't just threatened my life; they had tried to steal my sense of self, my sovereignty over my own body. And a part of them had succeeded.
I pulled the duvet tighter around me, a flimsy shield against the memories. The fine, expensive cotton felt like sandpaper against my oversensitive skin. Every nerve ending was raw, exposed. I was a live wire, sparking and dangerous to the touch.
A shiver wracked my body, so violent my teeth chattered. It was the cold from the warehouse floor, I was sure of it. It had followed me here, a permanent winter settled deep in my marrow.
Kaelen moved.
It was a slow, deliberate uncoiling. He didn't speak as he stood. He moved with a predator's grace, but muted, careful, as if the very air around me was fragile.
"You're cold," his voice was a low rasp, worn raw from the night's events. "I'm going to get another blanket from the closet. Is that alright?"
The question, so simple, so explicit, undid me. He was asking permission for this. For a blanket. The courtesy was a lance through the numbness, a painful reminder of a world where choices existed, where my 'yes' or 'no' mattered.
I managed a jerky nod, my throat too tight for words.
He crossed the room, his footsteps silent on the plush carpet. He didn't look at me, giving me the space to watch him without the intensity of his gaze. He opened the closet, pulled out a heavy, wool blanket, and turned back.
He didn't come to my side. He didn't try to tuck me in. He approached the foot of the bed and laid the blanket neatly across the end, within my reach but not on me. A offering. A choice.
Then, he retreated, back to his chair, back to his vigil.
The ache in my chest intensified. I wanted nothing more than to feel his arms around me, to be swallowed by his strength, to have him promise me that the world was still solid. But the thought of being held, of being trapped in an embrace, even his, sent a fresh spike of panic through my system. The war between need and terror was a physical pain.
I didn't reach for the blanket. I just lay there, shivering, watching him watch me, two wounded animals trapped in the same cage, separated by an ocean of things unsaid and unseen. I am tainted. Ruined. How can he look at me and not see the fingerprints they left behind?
Dawn arrives not with a sunrise, but with a slow, grey surrender of the night. The room gains shape and form, revealing the high walls, the locked door, the man who would burn the world for me, sitting broken in a chair because he didn't know what else he could do to help.
The night is over. We survived it.
But as the light exposes the utter devastation on Kaelen's face, and I feel the cold, hollowed-out space where my courage used to live, I understand with a chilling finality.
The kidnapping was only the beginning. This—this silent, internal unraveling—is the real war. And I have no idea how to fight it.
The day passed in fragments—light shifting across the floor, muted footsteps in the hall, the soft murmur of Flora's voice somewhere far away.
Kaelen never left the room. He was a statue in the armchair, a sentinel of silent grief. He didn't speak unless I did. Every hour or so, he'd rise to pour a glass of water, to check that I'd eaten the few bites Flora had brought. He moved with surgical care, as if one wrong word, one sudden motion, might shatter the fragile shell I had become.
I was trapped between the four walls of my own mind, the memories a riptide waiting to pull me under. The scent of the clean linen would suddenly smell of dust and oil. The soft hum of the air conditioner became the low buzz of the warehouse lights. I'd close my eyes and feel the cold edge of the knife. I was here, but a part of me was still tied to that chair, broken and waiting.
It wasn't until the sky turned a deep, bruised gold that he finally spoke again.
"Elara."
My name sounded foreign in his mouth—gentle, but bruised.
I turned my head slightly on the pillow, meeting his eyes. There was something unbearable in the way he looked at me. Not pity. Not even sorrow. It was guilt, raw and consuming, a fire that was burning him up from the inside.
"I should've found you sooner," he said. His hands were clasped in front of him, knuckles white. "If I'd stayed with you, if I hadn't let her diversion work—"
"Don't." My voice came out thin, a wisp of sound, but it stopped him. "Don't do that. Don't take her crime and make it your fault."
He swallowed hard, the muscle in his jaw feathering. "They hurt you."
I almost laughed, but it broke halfway through, a shattered, watery sound. "They tried to."
He went perfectly still at that, like I'd said something sacred. His gaze sharpened, searching my face, looking for the truth in my words.
Then, softly, the most devastating confession yet:
"I don't know what to do or how to help." He said it to his hands, to the floor, to the space between us. "I look at you, and all I want is to hold you. To make you feel safe. But I don't know what will hurt and what will help. I'm afraid my touch will feel like theirs. That you would despise it as much..."
The words cracked something open inside me. It wasn't that he was distant—it was that he wasn't. He was right here, trying to hold back his own world-ending violence, trying to be soft for me, and somehow that terrified me more than the memory of their hands. Because it meant the damage was real. It meant they had succeeded in putting a wall between us.
"Then don't think," I whispered, the words leaving me on a shaky exhale. "Just… stay. Just be here."
He didn't move closer. He didn't speak. He simply let out a breath he seemed to have been holding all day, and his silence wrapped around me like a shield, heavier and more real than any blanket.
And for the first time since the warehouse, I let my eyes close—and didn't see the camera's hellish red light. I only saw the fading gold of the evening against my eyelids, and felt the solid, breathing presence of the man who was learning a new way to love me.