16. Fae
FAE
It’s been a strange week.
When I first woke up here, I convinced myself it was just going to be another version of hell. Another room. Another cage. Another man standing over me deciding what my body was worth that day. Instead, it turned out to be something worse.
Purgatory.
Not hell and not heaven either. I am just suspended in a time where nothing is quite bad enough to justify screaming…
but nothing is safe enough to let your guard down for even a second.
I’m fed better than I have been in weeks, maybe even months.
Everything is organic and smells like someone cared about cooking it.
Longstaff has a pattern, one I’ve started using to count the days.
He comes in the morning with breakfast and lunch together, setting the tray down with quiet efficiency before leaving again.
After that, the house sinks into silence.
There are no footsteps on the stairs, no voices through the walls, just the occasional creak of the building settling and the faint sound of cars passing somewhere far below the windows.
By evening he returns with dinner, placing a hot meal carefully on the small table like this is some kind of twisted bed and breakfast instead of a prison.
Once he leaves, the quiet settles back in and stays like that until morning.
I sigh and glance down at the vitamins sitting beside my empty plate.
I pick them up one by one, swallowing them with long gulps of fresh water.
Longstaff brought new books this evening for me to read.
Part of me wants to throw them straight back at his head and refuse them out of sheer spite.
The other part of me is so painfully bored that I know I’ll open one the second I can.
The mattress beneath me is soft enough that my body has properly started to heal.
Everything here is just so comfortable. And yet, I’m still not allowed to leave.
The door locks every time he walks out, the chains around my ankle and wrist sit exactly where they were the day I woke up here, and the windows stay locked. So yes…
Purgatory.
In between the warm meals and the quiet hours spent staring at pages I can barely focus on, the nightmares still come.
Sometimes I dream that Roman bursts through the door, his face twisted in disgust as his voice cuts through the room and he shouts at me for what’s growing inside my body.
Other nights it’s Robyn. Her body folds to the floor again and again whilst I scream her name until my throat burns raw and my chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.
Every time I wake up, I reach for her before I remember she isn’t here.
I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know if she’s alive, and the not knowing gnaws at me in a way I can’t seem to escape.
Beneath all of that sits the quieter, heavier truth of the child growing inside me.
I still don’t know whose it is. I’m not sure I want to either.
I don’t know how to face it yet, so most of the time I don’t.
I push it somewhere deeper and force myself to focus on the only thing I can control… getting through the day in front of me.
One meal.
One book.
One hour at a time.
I’m halfway through another chapter when footsteps start climbing the stairs.
The sound drags me out of the book as my attention snaps toward the door.
My muscles tighten. He’s not meant to be here right now and the timing is wrong.
My pulse begins to pick up as the sound reaches the landing.
Something about it feels off. I listen harder.
The footsteps are lighter than usual. Quieter.
They are not the heavy, deliberate weight I’ve grown used to over the past week and unease spreads slowly through my chest as I stare at the door.
They stop just outside my room.
A knock lands softly against the wood and the breath in my lungs freeze.
I keep staring at the handle like it might move at any second.
Sweat begins to gather faintly at the back of my neck.
The pause on the other side of the door stretches longer than it should as I shift backwards across the mattress without taking my eyes off it.
The chain at my ankle gives a metallic rattle with the movement.
The knock comes again.
“Leave me alone!” I snap; the words crack through the quiet like a gunshot.
The silence that follows is so thick it presses in on my ears.
I count to ten as I wait for what the person will do next.
Another knock, a taunt, a nasty message spat out.
Instead, I hear the soft shift of footsteps moving away from the door.
They travel slowly down the hallway toward the staircase until the sound fades completely.
I let out a quiet breath as the tension begins to drain from my shoulders, leaving behind a faint tremor whilst my body slowly unclenches from the tight coil it had twisted itself into. I lean back against the headboard and close my eyes.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter under my breath when the footsteps return.
The sound hits the hallway faster this time.
Not the cautious pace from before but something almost frantic, the rhythm of it echoes off the walls as they rush back towards the room.
My entire body locks up again. The small relief I’d just felt vanishes instantly, replaced by a cold spike of dread that shoots straight through my chest. I force myself upright as I brace when the footsteps reach the doorframe and stop.
The mechanism shifts with a dull metallic scrape as something heavier moves inside the lock.
I stare at the handle. Are they trying to—
The lock clicks.
The door swings open.
A person steps into the room and we both freeze as we look at each other. Her brown eyes widen and her dark curly hair is pulled loosely away from her face as she steps fully into the room. A gasp escapes her as her expression flickers between disbelief and horror.
“Fae—” she cries as she stumbles toward the bed.
The sound of my name in that traitor’s mouth makes anger flare through my chest.
“Fuck off,” I bark instantly. I can tell my voice is sharp with panic as I shove myself further back against the headboard. “What are you doing here? Did he send you to do his dirty work now?”
She stops dead. The colour drains from her face so quickly it’s unsettling as her mouth parts like she’s struggling to make sense of what she’s seeing.
“What are you talking about?” she asks breathlessly.
“Oh please,” I snap bitterly, “like you didn’t know he’s got me locked in here!”
The confusion on her face deepens. It fractures across her features as her eyes move quickly around the room before snapping back to me again.
I won’t let her trick me. Men, I expect.
Men, I already know are capable of cruelty.
But Fiona… Fiona was softness. She was warmth.
She had the kind of quiet light that made a room feel safer the moment she walked into it.
She made me feel welcomed in a way I hadn’t realised I needed until it happened.
Which makes this different.
This isn’t just fear. It’s betrayal.
Monsters don’t scare you the same way as the people you trust. With monsters, at least you know what you’re looking at. You know what they’re capable of. But when someone kind turns on you, the ground shifts beneath your feet in a way that leaves you completely unsteady.
“Oh my God, Fae…” she takes another step towards me as I shrink backwards.
“Don’t touch me!” I scream.
She stops immediately. This time her eyes drop following the sound of metal as the chain at my ankle rattles.
I see the exact moment she notices it and her entire body goes still.
The room feels like it holds its breath with her as her eyes lock onto the cuff around my ankle.
Her expression changes so quickly it feels violent.
The shock is still there, but a darkness flashes beneath it.
Before I can react, she crosses the room in three fast steps.
She drops to her knees beside the bed in a sudden and decisive way and her hands hover just above the metal cuff like she’s afraid to touch it.
I flinch anyway.
“Sweetheart…” she whispers in a shaky voice. “I’m going to help you.”
Before I can respond she’s already on her feet again.
The movement is so sudden it makes me jump, and her shoes scrape harshly against the floor as she pushes away from the bed.
She storms out of the room without another word, moving so fast the door crashes against the wall behind her with a sharp bang.
I stare at the empty doorway as my brain struggles to catch up with what just happened. My heart is hammering so violently I can feel the pulse of it in my throat.
Is this real?
Or is this another trick?
The last week has been strange enough that reality itself feels unreliable.
Every new development has come with a catch, every moment of calm hides something else underneath it.
Nothing has been straightforward. Nothing has been safe.
So I sit there listening to the quiet of the house, trying to decide whether what just happened was genuine or just another layer of whatever game Longstaff has been playing with me this entire time.
Five minutes pass.
Then ten.
Just when I start to convince myself she isn’t coming back, the frantic footsteps return.
Fiona appears a second later, filling the frame as she steps back into the room with something heavy gripped tightly in her hands.
My entire body shivers when I see the bolt cutters.
The sight of them sends a wild feeling through my chest, and the possibility of freedom flashes so brightly it makes my vision blur.
Tears sting at the corners of my eyes before I can stop them, and my hands tighten in the sheets as I try to swallow the reaction down.
Hope is dangerous.
I’ve already learned that the hard way.