Catching Pretty (Lovely Broken Doll #2)

7. Ava

AVA

I was going to escape. Or die trying.

My attempts to bring Scáth out of Ty had failed and I would not—could not—stick around to find out exactly how he planned to break my will.

I just had to hope I would succeed.

But I knew I couldn’t be too obvious.

I had to assume he was watching me from behind the mirror. So I had to bide my time and wait patiently in my gilded prison until he returned.

I lay in the familiar softness of my childhood bed, staring up at the pale-pink canopy that draped above me like a delicate veil, straining my ears for the sound of his footsteps approaching, the creak of the door, anything to signal his return.

But the room was still and quiet, so quiet that every faint sound seemed amplified—the soft ticking of the antique clock on the mantle and the distant creak of the house settling around me .

The sheets beneath me were luxurious, cool against my skin, smelling fresh with a hint of jasmine, but no amount of comfort could ease the tight knot in my chest.

My body was tense, every muscle coiled tight, ready to spring into action when the moment came.

My wrists still ached, the dull soreness a constant reminder of the ropes that had bound me. I could still feel the phantom sensation of being tied, of being trapped, and the lingering panic that I was once again a prisoner.

Every shadow in the room seemed to creep closer, closing in around me as I waited for him— Ty —to return. My heart thudded in my chest, not from fear, but from the anticipation of what I had to do.

I had one chance.

He would not be fooled again.

At last, I heard his footsteps approaching from down the hall. I had to move swiftly.

I slipped out of the bed and stuffed my pillows beneath the comforter, creating a mound like I was still lying there. It wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, but I didn’t need it to.

I tiptoed behind the door, just in time to hear the first dead bolt shift open.

I didn’t have any time to consider whether this was, in fact, a horrible idea.

He was here.

The reverberations of the second and third dead bolts were indistinguishable from the painful thudding of my heart.

I had just the tiniest moment to gasp one last final deep breath as the door swung open, concealing me behind it .

I heard his confident steps into the room before his back came into view.

He slowed as he reached the bed. “Ava? Wake up.”

He was holding a tray in his arms, my dinner, I guessed.

Although whether it’d be drugged again or not, I wasn’t waiting around to find out.

This was my one shot. It had to be perfect.

I didn’t bother with stealth. I just moved as fast as I could.

I sprinted out from around the door and ran out.

“Ava?” His stern voice chastised me as if I were a child.

I grabbed the handle from the outside and yanked it shut behind me.

I was shaking like a leaf as I tugged a heavy, utility grade dead bolt into place. What he shifted back and forth like a switch, I had to grunt and heave at, muscles quivering.

But I managed it in the end.

For a brief moment, I stared at the bar crossing the door, a trembling hand over my mouth.

I’d done it.

I’d trapped him .

I didn’t bother with the other two locks. I ignored the door handle turning as he attempted to get out and turned.

I found myself in a long hallway with closed doors and glowing wall sconces lining each side. There was a single window at the very end, the soft dove-gray light filtering in illuminating thick motes of dust. Trepidation lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck.

None of these identical doors looked like an exit. And I saw no stairway .

The hallway looked strange. It looked… staged .

And what chilled me more was the fact that Ty wasn’t even banging on the door behind me like I expected him to.

But I didn’t stop to consider it any further.

I ran to the first door, but I found it locked. Yanking on the next one’s brass knob, I discovered it was no different.

Zigzagging down the hallway, I grew more and more desperate; they were all locked.

I was trapped.

Had he known I’d try and escape?

Panic gripped my chest, making it difficult to breathe, as I found door after door… locked.

As I came to the end of the hallway, I could see it branched off left and right in a T. But all I could focus on was the window.

Closer, I could now see that the window was barred and all I could see at the moment was a sheet of uninterrupted white sky. What more was out there?

I moved to the window, hardly feeling my footsteps on the well-worn oriental runner as if I were in a dream.

Despite their ice-cold bite, I wrapped my fingers around the icy bars and I pressed my nose between them. I needed something to steady me as I gazed out.

There was nothing around for miles.

Nothing but thick woods and empty green hills. No road, no path—nowhere to flag down a helpful passerby.

Oh God. We were completely isolated.

The elation of freedom was gone, leaving me feeling empty.

Peering down, a sprawling, meticulously manicured garden stretched out below .

Dark hedges carved into winding patterns framed flower beds bursting with crimson roses and other dark-petaled blooms.

Gravel paths wove between the beds, the garden’s symmetry precise, almost unnervingly so, each shrub and blossom too perfect, as if tended with an obsessive hand.

My gaze traced the length of the garden until it came to a dark corner where stood an all-too familiar greenhouse.

Memories slammed into me.

“Ready or not…”

I could hear Ty’s footsteps pounding behind me, the crunch of black pebbles under his boots as he chased me through the manicured gardens.

The air was thick with the scent of roses and lilies, mingling with the faint smell of wet moss that always seemed to hover around the estate.

I glanced back, heart racing, catching a glimpse of his pale-blue eyes through the towering bushes. He was close—too close—but I wasn’t about to let him catch me. Not yet.

I darted down one of the narrow paths, my skirt flaring out as I weaved between the flower beds, dodging the roses with their bright petals and thorny stems.

Even though it was still daytime, the sun never seemed to break through the thick trees, casting dark shadows across the paths.

His footsteps seemed to fade behind me, swallowed by the sounds of the garden.

For a moment, I thought I’d lost him.

But ahead he stepped out from behind a thick bush, smirking like he’d known all along where I’d go. Like this was all just a game .

“…here I come.”

I yelped and skidded to a stop, barely managing to spin away before he could catch me, his fingers grazing the hem of my skirt.

Without thinking, I veered off the path, sprinting toward the old greenhouse at the edge of the garden. I slammed against the glass door, the entire lower level of the greenhouse covered as always with a dark curtain, and I grabbed for the handle.

Behind me, Ty’s voice shifted, panic creeping into his usually steady tone.

“No, Ava! Don’t go in there!” he shouted, his words chased by the sound of his footsteps getting closer again.

I pushed open the creaky ivy-covered door and took a small step inside.

The air inside was warmer, thicker, with a strange, sweet smell that hung in the air, mixing with the scent of damp earth and leaves.

“Ava, get out. He’ll get so mad if he finds you!”

I glanced over my shoulder.

Ty wasn’t laughing anymore—his face was serious, almost scared.

My pulse quickened, but not from fear. Why did it matter if I went inside? What was so terrible about this place?

“Ava, stop!”

But I didn’t stop. His words only fueled the curiosity that had been bubbling inside me for months.

So I stepped farther in, my eyes adjusting to the dim light, taking in the strange shapes around me as the door shut behind me.

I gasped, my fingers gripping the cold bars of the window so tightly that my knuckles blanched, trembling with the force of my desperation .

I willed myself to remember more— please, remember.

But with each flicker of memory, with each flash of twisting vines and strange looming shapes in that forbidden place, came an equal wave of dread, tightening in my chest.

The terror of what I might recall was almost as suffocating as the blank spaces themselves.

What had been in the greenhouse? What had I found?

And the professor… Had he caught me?

My pulse quickened, a cold sweat breaking across my skin as fragments of fear whispered through my mind. If he had caught me—how had he punished me?

A dark, sinking feeling twisted in my stomach. The answers hovered just out of reach, but with them loomed something far worse than anything I could prepare myself for.

“You are really testing me, Ava.”

Ty’s deep voice from behind me made me jolt, the aching familiarity chilling my bones.

I spun around, my heart lodging itself in my throat as fear clawed its way up my spine.

Down at the end of the hallway, Ty stepped out from the locked room, his dangerous eyes locking on mine.

No. My breath hitched. How did he get out of that bedroom?

I’d dead bolted it—I was sure of it. The click of the lock had echoed in my mind, a promise that he couldn’t follow me.

But there he was, standing tall, unhurried, as if the lock had never mattered.

He must have had some kind of failsafe way of getting out. A key to unlock it from the inside.

A horrible thought entered my mind .

He’d prepared for everything, including my escape.

Panic gripped me tighter. My only hope now was to find a way out before he caught me.

My mind raced, scrambling for memories of this place—somewhere deep down I knew there had to be an escape. I just had to remember. Remember.

But the harder I tried, the more the memories slipped through my fingers like smoke.

Instinct took over, and I bolted down another hallway, my feet pounding against the floor. But dread already coiled in my gut, a sinking realization that I’d made the wrong choice.

At the end of the hall was a single door. Just one door. My only hope for freedom.

Behind me, I could hear Ty’s steady footsteps.

He wasn’t even running, each slow, deliberate step sending a chill down my spine. He didn’t need to rush. He knew there was no way out for me.

I slammed against the door, my whole body shaking with the force, the wood rattling in its frame. My hands fumbled for the handle— please, please be unlocked.

To my surprise, it turned.

The door swung open, and I stumbled inside, breathless and frantic.

The room was enormous, a master bedroom bigger than I remembered, with a grand four-poster bed, heavy curtains framing the windows, and bookshelves lining the walls like a library. There was even a small sitting area, plush chairs and a fireplace that flickered with low flames.

But my eyes were drawn to one thing—the red velvet couch .

I froze, my breath hitching as recognition slammed into me like a tidal wave.

The couch from my nightmares.

The very one I’d tried so hard to forget. The place where I’d experienced things I never should have, felt things I’d buried deep. And now, standing here again, the memories threatened to break free, clawing at the edges of my mind.

Behind me, I could hear Ty’s footsteps growing closer, his presence like a shadow creeping over me.

My pulse raced, my body screaming for me to run, but my feet were rooted to the spot, my gaze locked on that cursed couch.

I wasn’t just running from him anymore. I was running from the past. From what I couldn’t afford to remember.

Ty caught me before I could even think to scream. His hands clamped down on my arms, and no matter how hard I struggled, his strength easily overpowered me. He threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.

“No, no!” I shouted, my voice breaking as I beat my fists against his back, but it was like pounding on solid rock.

He barely flinched.

“Let me go!” I screamed, twisting against him as he carried me through the house, back to my prison.

His heat seared through me, so much like Scáth’s warmth, his nearness making my body betray me in the worst way.

My heart raced, not just from fear, but from a deep, twisted ache that I hated myself for feeling.

I kicked and pushed, hammering my fists into him with every ounce of strength I had, but it was useless .

He was too strong, his body rigid, unmoved by my resistance.

There was almost a hint of regret in his voice, a softness beneath the steel as he said, “I’m sorry, Ava. But this is how it has to be.”

His words made me falter for a heartbeat, but the fury and panic surged back in an instant.

How it has to be? I would never accept that.

I tried grabbing for the doorframe as he walked back into my prison, but he was too strong, his step unfaltering and my fingers lost their grip.

He threw me onto the bed and I scrambled back until my back hit the headboard.

He nodded toward the tray sitting by my bedside. “Eat.”

His command was firm, and I could see the finality in his gaze as if my choice didn’t matter.

Fuck him. FUCK HIM.

Without thinking, I snatched up the closest thing on the tray to me—a soft bread roll still warm and smelling like heaven—and hurled it at him with every bit of force I could muster.

“You bastard!” I screamed, my chest heaving with anger.

The roll bounced off him, uselessly falling to the floor as if my anger had no effect on him at all.

Ty didn’t react.

He simply turned, his shoulders tense as he walked out, the door slamming shut behind him with a brutal finality.

I heard the locks closing, trapping me again.

“No!” I screamed, my voice breaking.

I pounded my fists into the mattress as helplessness threatened to consume me. Tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall, the fury fueling me as I kept beating at the bed, as if that would somehow shatter the walls closing in around me.

A crackling sound cut through the room, and I realized it was coming from speakers in the ceiling.

“Eat,” his voice echoed, the command distant yet inescapable.

“Make me,” I yelled back to the ceiling, my stomach growling with disgust and anger.

And hunger.

A part of me—shamefully, pathetically—half hoped my defiance would bring him storming through the door again, just so I wouldn’t be left alone.

The silence gnawed at me, twisting the fear into something darker, more suffocating.

Because as much as I hated him, as much as I wanted to escape, the loneliness was worse.

I crossed my arms, sitting on the bed defiantly. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I wouldn’t eat.

He’d have to tie me down and force-feed me.

The memory of him fucking my mouth with his fingers sent a wave of heat through my body, and my previous unsated need rose up like a tide.

My clit throbbed and my pussy ached. From the memory of being tied in the chair at Ty’s command, at the forceful way he invaded my mouth with his fingers, at the nearness of him, at his frustratingly stubborn dominance over me.

At everything .

And I knew I was so fucked.

Because despite how much I hated my captor, hated this version of Scáth—hated Ty— I wanted him. Wanted him with an ache that burned like poison.

I refused to give in. Refused to want it. Want him .

But I wasn’t sure how long I could hold out.