12. Keira
KEIRA
T here are more monsters in this world than fairy-tales like to admit.
There are the obvious ones—fangs bared, intentions loud as a snarl.
There are the hidden ones—claws tucked behind silk and smiles.
And there are the intimate ones—the ones who cradle you close, whisper they love you, and still leave bruises no one else can see. I’ve met all three.
Monsters weren’t under my bed; they sat at the head of the dinner table. “Home” was a gilded cage, and my father its temperamental warden. His power wasn’t the steady kind that shields and anchors; it was storm-power—thunderous, unpredictable, ice-cold once the wreckage settled.
Some rational corner of me always recognized the danger, but the child in me refused to believe the monster wore my father’s face.
So when Jayson Caluna’s bullets blossomed dark and final through my father’s body, it wasn’t shock that stole my breath. It was relief—sharp, silent, immediate. Every lie shattered at once, and truth flooded in.
Relief that the reckoning had arrived. Guilt that some savage part of me believed he’d earned it .
Now I sit on a rust-smelling bench, ankle throbbing from my failed dash through the pines. Those frantic minutes bought me a sprain, a locked door, and Jayson’s promise that the next window will be boarded shut.
Jayson isn’t my father—yet he’s no savior.
Where the mayor was fire, Jayson is ice; where the old man was thunder, Jayson is silence humming like a live current.
And inside that controlled stillness, I sense something fractured—something uncomfortably familiar.
Monsters, I’m learning, are not always threats; sometimes they’re mirrors of your own true self.
I can’t decide which ache is worse—the father I lost, or the father I never truly had. I left for college to rewrite my life, convinced distance would be salvation. Fate laughed: escape one monster, collide with another.
My name is already inked on the final page of this story; whether I end as victim, accomplice, or witness depends on what I do next. I haven’t cried. I haven’t begged. I watched my father die and felt nothing but a hollow, echoing relief.
What does that make me?
Perhaps redemption is a bedtime story for the guilty. Perhaps some of us are built for shadow, destined to linger on the edge of the light—where monsters lay down their weary bones. It looks like hell, yet feels disturbingly like home.
My ankle swells, my escape route’s sealed, and Jayson will count every breath I take. So I breathe. I plan. I wait. Survival is still mine to choose—whether I crawl out of this darkness, or learn to own every jagged edge I inherited.
I refuse to lie to myself again. Even if the truth is the blade that finally breaks what’s left of me.
When the hum of the basement fades, and the cold creeps into my bones just slow enough to make me feel alive, it happens. That’s when it comes. The memory I’ve buried so deep, I convinced myself it never happened. But it did .
FLASHBACK
I was thirteen the first time I understood the price tag on my life.
A stranger sat in our living room—immaculate suit, cuff links that caught the chandelier light.
He looked like he’d stepped out of another universe, one where men wore power the way others wore skin.
And when his eyes found me in the doorway, they lit with a quiet, covetous spark—as if I were the thing he’d spent years hunting.
My father poured the man a drink—always the same bottle of eighteen-year old scotch, always the same crystal tumblers. Ritual masquerading as hospitality. Their voices dropped to that low, dangerous register men use when they’re bartering something of value.
I should have walked away, but my name floated through the crack in the door and rooted me in place.
“She’s growing up fast,” the stranger murmured, voice smooth.
My heart stuttered.
Then came the sound I can’t scrape out of my skull: my father’s chuckle—soft, indulgent, almost proud.
“Give it a few more years,” he said, as casually as discussing a vintage. “Then we’ll see.”
Air deserted my lungs. I backed down the hallway, silent as a secret, clutching the banister until the wood bit crescents into my palms. I told no one. I did what I’d been taught: bury everything deep enough that even memory would struggle to exhume it.
Maybe that was the mistake. Maybe if I’d spoken, time might have buckled, the future bent a different way. But I stayed silent, because on some unlit level I already understood:
I wasn’t his daughter. I was inventory—an asset accruing value with every year I grew. And anyone who loved me was collateral, waiting for the ledger to come due.
The door unlocks with a slow, deliberate scrape—metal rasping metal like teeth being bared. I keep my posture rigid on the bench, foot propped on the folded towel Nina dropped off an hour ago. The swelling is ugly now, the skin stretched tight and mottled purple. It pulses with every heartbeat.
Jayson steps across the threshold, closing the door behind him with careful finality. He doesn’t speak. Just stands there, shoulders squared under the low bulb, the narrow room suddenly two sizes smaller for holding him.
His gaze flicks downward first—automatic, restless—landing on my elevated ankle. Something flickers in his eyes: irritation, regret, something that looks suspiciously like concern. Then he snatches it back, drags his stare up to my face, and locks on.
The silence hums between us, high-voltage, about to arc.
I break it. “Back to finish boarding windows?”
“Back to discuss your talent for bad ideas.” His voice is low, flat, but a vein in his neck thrums erratically. “Jumping two feet on a busted ankle? That’s not bravery, Keira—that’s suicide.”
“Funny,” I say, folding my arms. “You sound worried.”
He takes a slow step forward, boots scuffing the concrete. “Worried implies I expect you to make things easier. I don’t. I expect you to survive long enough to answer questions.”
“Oh, so I’m homework now?” I force a bitter smile. “Guess I should have stayed, asked you which chapter of captivity we’re on.”
His jaw ticks. “We’re on the chapter where you sit still, heal, and stop testing how far I can bend before I break you in a way that you can’t be fixed.”
Heat creeps up my throat. “The door was locked. The window was my only option.”
“And you proved exactly why you can’t be trusted to be left alone.”
I swallow a curse, shift my injured foot and wince. The pain is sharp, but not as sharp as the silence strangling us.
He comes closer, crowding the small room with static. “Why run, Keira? How far did you think you’d get before I caught up with you?”
“As far as I possibly could.” My voice cracks on the edge of frustration.
A muscle feathers in his cheek. His breath snags. For a moment, I think he’ll reach for me—shake sense into me, maybe—but he folds his arms instead, caging the tension against his ribs. Long seconds drag past, thick with unfinished sentences.
I drag the blanket tighter around my shin, feel the grime on my skin. “Speaking of staying where you can see me—another shower wouldn’t kill me.”
A dry scoff leaves him—closer to a laugh than anything I’ve heard. “Smart request from the girl who tried to Houdini herself through a window last time.”
“It was a calculated risk,” I say.
“You’re terrible at math.”
His mouth twitches—could be annoyance, could be something dangerously close to amusement. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket, produces a small bottle and two pills. He crouches, holds them out in his palm. The distance between us feels electric.
“Antibiotic and a painkiller,” he says quietly. “You keep the leg elevated. You stay off it. Shower is off the table until you can stand without screaming.”
I hesitate, then take the pills, feeling the brush of his calloused fingertips. A jolt shoots up my arm—a chemical spark I try to ignore.
He rises, towers. The anger in him is still there, but muted by something I can’t name.
“You heal.” His voice dips, soft but cut with steel. “Then we’ll talk again. And if you try to run before both happen?—”
“—you’ll break something that can’t be fixed,” I finish for him, the threat already memorised .
His eyes flicker, acknowledging the echo. Then he walks to the door, hand on the lock. Before he turns the key, he looks back—just a heartbeat too long.
“Ten foolish minutes nearly crippled you,” he says, voice low. “What do you think would have happened if you’d been out there for sixty?”
The lock slides into place with a heavy, deliberate click. His footsteps retreat, each one softer than the last until they dissolve into the hush of the corridor.
I tip the pills into my mouth and swallow them dry. They drag down like ground glass, lodging bitterness at the back of my throat. Then I ease onto the cot, foot propped on the rolled-up towel, and stare at the ceiling’s spider-veined plaster.
The pills leave a chemical aftertaste, and I close my eyes against it, tasting fear, defiance, and something sharper—possibility. Because if ten minutes could cost this much, then sixty—used well—might still be enough to rewrite the ending.