Chapter 7 Voice in the Dark
VOICE IN THE DARK
RONAN
Fixing a drawer shouldn't be this hard.
I knelt on the apartment floor with a screwdriver in one hand and wood glue in the other, staring at the broken track like it held answers instead of just being another thing in my life that didn't work right.
The drawer had been sticking for weeks. Kept jamming when I tried to open it, kept refusing to close properly, kept existing as one more small failure I couldn't ignore.
So I was fixing it. Because my hands needed work. Because if I stayed still too long my brain started eating me alive, chewing through memories I didn't trust and filling gaps with terror that tasted like copper.
The screwdriver felt good in my palm. Solid. Real. Something I could control when everything else kept slipping sideways.
I tightened the first screw. Watched wood compress under pressure. Moved to the second.
Then my vision blurred at the edges.
What the hell?
Sound got muffled, like someone had wrapped cotton around my ears and kept pushing it deeper. The apartment was still there—I could see the walls, the furniture, the broken drawer in front of me—but everything felt distant. Wrong.
Move. Get up. Something's wrong.
I tried to stand. Tried to move toward the door, toward air, toward anything that made sense.
My legs didn't respond.
The screwdriver fell from my grip. Clattered across the floor loud enough that I should have jumped.
I didn't move at all.
Move. MOVE. What the fuck is happening?
My body stayed perfectly still. Knees locked against the floor. Hands frozen mid-motion. Muscles rigid in ways that had nothing to do with cramps or exhaustion.
Then certainty flooded through me—standing up was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, and I wanted it so badly I could taste it.
Except I didn't want it. Didn't want any of this.
No. This isn't me. I didn't decide this.
My body stood anyway.
Smooth and calm, like it was my idea. Like my legs hadn't just moved without asking permission first.
Stop. Sit back down. What's happening to me? I don't want this. I don't—
I walked. Three steps. Four. Until I was standing in the middle of the apartment with nowhere to run and no way to stop whatever was hijacking my body.
Then reality slid sideways.
The apartment was still there at the edges—walls and furniture fading to grey—but darkness closed around me like water I couldn't surface from. Sound dropped out completely. No traffic outside. No neighbors through walls. No heartbeat in my ears even though my chest was tight with terror.
Just silence so complete it felt hostile.
Where am I? What the fuck is this?
I tried to move. Tried to lift my hand, turn my head, do anything that would prove I still existed as more than consciousness trapped in a body I couldn't control.
Nothing happened.
This isn't real. Can't be real. I'm still in the apartment. I have to be.
But the darkness felt real. The silence felt real. The way my skin prickled with awareness that something was watching me felt so real it made my stomach turn.
Then I saw it.
Light. Faint and wrong, glowing from somewhere ahead in colors that didn't belong in nature. Not fire-warm or moon-cold. Something in between. Sickly pale like diseased flesh, pulsing with rhythm that matched no heartbeat I'd ever felt.
The light moved closer.
And with each pulse I saw threads.
Thin as spider silk. Glowing with that same wrong-colored light. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, weaving through the darkness in patterns that hurt to look at. They moved like they were alive, curling and twisting, building something I couldn't see but could feel pressing against reality.
What is that? What the fuck is that?
The threads converged. Drew together into a shape that was almost human, wrapping around a silhouette that refused to resolve into details no matter how hard I tried to focus.
A man was standing ten feet away. Built from magic and darkness.
The threads kept weaving. Glowing lines traced across what might have been shoulders, might have been arms, spiraling down to hands that ended in fingers too long to be natural.
And with every thread that locked into place, I felt pressure tighten around me.
No. Get away. Whatever you are, get the fuck away from me.
My mouth didn't move. My body didn't run. I just stood there frozen while magic I couldn't fight wove tighter.
“There you are.” His voice came from everywhere at once. Soft. Almost warm. “I was wondering when you'd answer.”
I didn't answer anything. Let me go. LET ME GO.
But my mouth moved anyway.
“I'm here,” I heard myself say. Calm. Steady. Like those words belonged to me instead of being spoken through me by something wearing my voice like a mask.
Terror spiked so hard my vision greyed.
That wasn't me. I didn't say that. Why the fuck did I say that?
“Good.” Pride threaded through his voice. “You're learning. Getting better at this every time. Soon you won't even fight it.”
Fight what? What's happening to me?
More threads appeared. Glowing brighter as they spun out from the man's hands—if they were hands, if any of this was real.
The threads reached for me.
No. Move. Run. Do anything except stand here.
My body didn't respond. Didn't flinch. Didn't even tense.
Just stood there while glowing threads wound around my wrists like shackles I couldn't see.
No no no no no—
“You were magnificent at the garage,” the man said. Satisfaction bleeding through every syllable. “So brave. So beautiful. Everything I knew you could be.”
More threads spun from his fingers. These ones darker, carrying colors that made my eyes water. They didn't wrap around me. They sank in. Through skin that should have been solid, through muscle and bone until they found places deeper.
Stop. Please. Whatever you're doing, stop.
“Those constructs,” he continued, conversational like we were discussing weather. His hands moved through the air, weaving patterns that left glowing symbols hanging in the darkness. “I sent them specifically to test you.”
The symbols pulsed. Each pulse sent another thread diving into me, burrowing deeper.
Test me for what? I don't understand—
“The mechanic and his friend,” the man said, and I heard him smile even though I couldn't see his face clearly. “Cal and Mason. Such ordinary names.”
His hands traced a new pattern. Complex. Layered. Symbols building on symbols until they formed a cage woven from light and darkness twisted together.
The cage settled around me. I felt it pressing against consciousness that wanted to run but couldn't find the exit.
“I wanted them dead,” he said simply. “No reason. Just sport. Just to see if my shadows could do what I built them for.”
You sent those things to kill them? For sport? What the fuck is wrong with you?
But my mouth said, “I understand.”
NO. I don't understand. I don't agree. Those words aren't mine.
The man stepped closer. The threads connecting us pulled taut, and I realized with sick certainty that every glowing line was a leash, a way to make me move how he wanted.
“You fought so well,” he murmured. More threads spun from his fingers, wrapping around the ones already embedded in me. “Even split between what you wanted and what I needed, you still defended them. That's what makes you special.”
New symbols appeared. Brighter. Older. They drifted toward me like living things, and when they touched my chest they sank through without resistance.
I felt them settle inside. Felt them pulse with rhythm that wasn't my heartbeat. Felt them start to rewrite how my body responded to the world.
What are you doing to me? Stop. Please stop.
His hand touched my jaw.
I could see threads flowing from his hand into my face, mapping nerves and muscle.
Get off. Don't touch me. Don't—
My body didn't pull away. Didn't flinch. Just stood there accepting the touch like it had every right to be there.
“You're wondering why you can't move,” he said softly. His thumb brushed across my lower lip. More magic pulsed. Sank in. Found the parts of me that controlled speech and wrapped around them. “Why your body obeys even when your mind screams. Would you like to know?”
Yes. No. I don't know. Just let me go.
“Because this is what you are.” His fingers slid from my jaw to my neck, resting against my pulse. Symbols flared to life under his palm. I could see them through my own skin—glowing marks branded into flesh by magic I couldn't fight. “What you've always been. What I made you thirty years ago.”
More threads spun from his other hand. Darker. Heavier. They wrapped around the existing network, building layers of control so complex I couldn't track where one thread ended and another began.
I was covered in them now. Glowing lines everywhere—wrapped around my arms, my legs, my chest, my throat. Sinking into my head. Pulsing with magic that rewrote my body's understanding of who gave the orders.
“You're perfect,” he said. His hand moved from my neck to my shoulder. Squeezed. More symbols burned to life under his palm. “Everything I needed. Everything I've been waiting for.”
I'm not yours. I'm not perfect. I'm just trying to survive.
But my hands hung loose at my sides. Relaxed. Like standing here being touched and marked and controlled was exactly what I wanted.
The man's other hand joined the first. Both palms flat against my shoulders now, and I could feel magic pouring from them in waves. Threading through me. Rewriting me.
“Still fighting,” he murmured, pleasure coloring his voice. “I can feel it. Your mind clawing at the edges. That's good. That fire is what makes you useful.”
His hands slid down my arms. Slow. Deliberate. Leaving glowing trails of symbols in their wake, each one burning into my skin.
When he reached my wrists his fingers wrapped around them, and I felt threads pull tighter. Felt the cage around my consciousness shrink.
Please. I don't want this. Whatever you're doing, I don't want it.