Chapter 13 Willow
WILLOW
My ears ring. A low, relentless buzz, like bees trapped behind my eyes. The room tilts when I move, light cutting through the darkness in thin, merciless lines. My head’s heavy, my mouth tastes like smoke and sleep. I drag myself upright, sweat cooling on my skin, muscles aching.
The world steadies by degrees, shapes congealing out of blur: the ceiling low and sweating, the air thick with damp and something metallic.
My wrists don’t want to move. That’s when the realization catches up—coarse rope bites into my skin, sticky with half-dried blood.
My hands are bound behind me. My ankles too.
I blink hard. It’s dark, but not completely. A single bulb dangles from a chain above, its light jaundiced and trembling. It sways, throwing shadows across the concrete—shapes that crawl and stretch like they’re alive. The floor is stained in places. Brown. Rust, or blood.
There’s a drain in the middle of the room. Rust circles the edges, dried and dark, like something old has seeped into the concrete. My stomach turns over hard.
This isn’t the hospital. It isn’t anywhere I’ve ever seen.
The air hangs heavy, thick with the sting of turpentine and the metallic bite of iron. It smells too familiar—like my studio, but spoiled, as if someone took the comfort out of it and left only the fumes.
Shapes come into focus as my eyes adjust. An easel sits in the corner.
A stool. Blank canvases stacked against the wall, a jar of brushes lined up on the table.
Mine. The tips are worn in the same uneven way, the wood stained with years of paint.
A rag is draped over the side of the sink, streaked a deep red that’s too dark to tell if it’s pigment or blood.
A slow scrape drags through the air. Wet. Rhythmic. Paint thick enough to stick before it spreads.
A man stands behind the easel. His back shifts with each motion—shoulders rising, arm flexing, the brush arcing across canvas in small, careful sweeps. The sound fills the space, louder than my own breath.
The light catches the edge of his jaw, the smear of red along his sleeve. His humming keeps time with the brush—low, tuneless, almost gentle. The kind of sound people make to soothe themselves when no one’s watching.
He pauses. The brush stills mid-stroke.
A second of silence stretches too long. Then he lowers his arm and sets the brush in a jar. The handle clinks against glass.
When he turns, the light catches his face.
The smile starts small, pulling slowly at one corner like it hasn’t been used in a while. His eyes shine too much, pupils blown wide, rims red as if he’s been awake for days.
He wipes his palms on a rag, streaking the fabric with dark red. “Good,” he says, voice light, almost cheerful. “You’re finally awake.”
He studies me, head tilted, hands still moving against the cloth. The sound of fabric against skin is quiet but steady. “You know,” he adds, “I was starting to think you’d sleep forever.”
The tone hits wrong—too calm for the words. My pulse jumps anyway.
He steps out from behind the easel, the rag still twisted between his fingers. The paint on his palms looks darker now, tacky under the light.
“I can never get the stroke right,” he says, glancing back at the canvas. “Not like you.”
His mouth twitches into a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You passed out on me. Not very polite, considering the trouble I went through to bring you here.”
The ropes rasp when I shift, rough against the skin at my wrists. The chair legs scrape concrete. I can feel my heartbeat in the raw lines where the fibers cut.
“Where…” My voice cracks. “Where am I?”
He smiles wider, glancing back at the canvas like it’s safer to look at that than at me. “You know I can never get the stroke right. Not like you.”
“Justin—”
“Shh.” He presses a paint-streaked finger to his lips, the gesture too gentle for the situation. “Don’t make this ugly.”
The rope bites deeper when I try to move. The chair creaks under the strain, echoing in the silence. My pulse hammers against the knots, wrists slick with sweat.
“What do you want from me?” My voice comes out thinner than I mean it to, the words catching halfway up my throat.
He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks at me, head tilted, studying every twitch of my face like he’s memorizing it. The corner of his mouth curls again.
“Isn’t it obvious?” His tone is light, easy, almost friendly. “I want you to paint.”
My stomach tightens. “You’re sick.”
That makes him laugh—too loud, too sudden, the sound ricocheting off concrete until it fills the whole room. He drags a hand through his hair, still laughing when he looks back at me.
“Sick?” he repeats. “No. That’s what people say when they don’t understand. I’m not sick, Willow.” His voice drops, quieter now, but there’s a tremor in it that makes it worse. “I’m devoted.”
He drifts closer, pacing in a slow circle around me, dragging his fingertips along the back of my chair. “I’ve watched you for months. The way you work. The way you breathe when you’re lost in it. You disappear—like a candle drowning in its own wax. It’s beautiful. You are a beautiful artist.”
He stops behind me. I feel the warmth of him at my neck, the tremor in his breath.
“You’ve forgotten who you are,” he whispers. “They took it from you. Your fire. Your edge. You used to paint pain, and now you paint peace. You think that’s progress? No. It’s not. You’re fading. You’re losing yourself.”
“I haven’t—”
“Oh, you have.” His voice sharpens. “It’s him.
Vincent Beaumont.” He spits the name like it burns.
“The parasite. He’s been sucking the truth out of you since the day you met him.
You used to paint like someone starving.
Now you paint like someone sedated. And you call that love?
” He laughs softly, shaking his head. “He doesn’t love you.
He loves what your name does for him. For his walls.
For his reputation. He’s made you forget that you were once like me. ”
“Like you?” My voice breaks.
“Yes.” His eyes glint, fever-bright. “Hungry. Humble. Real. You came from the dirt, from nothing, and you made beauty out of it. And now look at you—Farrow & Ball paints, glass studios, critics writing about your brushwork like it’s some miracle when it used to just be you and the ache and the truth. He’s ruined that. He’s ruined you.”
“Justin, stop—”
He crouches in front of me, the rag falling from his hand. His voice softens to a near whisper. “He doesn’t deserve you, Willow. He’s a fraud who feeds on people like us. You think he understands creation? He only knows consumption. He consumes you. He’s made you weak.”
My throat tightens, panic rising with the heat behind my eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m talking about.” His tone turns almost tender. “You were extraordinary before him. And you can be again.”
He stands and gestures toward the easel. “You’ll see. I’ve made space for you. You’ll paint here. You’ll thank me one day.”
“I’ll never—”
He slams his fist against the metal table. The sound rings out, making the bulb sway wildly. My breath catches.
“Don’t lie to me!” he snarls. “You need this. You need to hurt to make something real again. I’m giving you that.”
Then, just as fast, his expression softens, the anger bleeding out. He runs a hand through his hair and forces a smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. You don’t have to be afraid. I just get… excited.”
He crouches again, his tone coaxing, gentle. “Listen. You’re free to make whatever you want. Anything. I even brought your paints.” He gestures toward the shelves, pride shining in his eyes. “I found your brand. Hard to get, but I wanted it to be perfect.”
I swallow dryly, my mouth feeling like sand, as I look at the Farrow & Ball brand logo that Vincent insists on buying me even though I tell him the cheaper version works just as well.
He crouches beside me and works the knot loose, the rope rasping against itself before it falls slack around my right wrist. The skin underneath is raw, ringed in angry red, a faint trace of dried blood where I’ve fought it before.
For a second, I think about hitting him. My hand even twitches. But he’s watching me too closely—chin tilted, smile faint, eyes unblinking. Waiting. The air between us feels like a test. Every inch of his calm is rehearsed control, a leash he’s holding tight. He wants me to break first.
“There,” he says, voice low, soft enough to make my stomach turn. “Better, right? You can use that hand. That’s all you need to start.”
He reaches for the table and picks up one of my brushes. I recognize it instantly—the chipped lacquer on the handle, the faint stain of ultramarine under the ferrule. It’s mine. He must have taken it from the gallery.
The wood is warm when he presses it into my palm, still damp from where his fingers touched it. “Go on,” he murmurs. “You’ll feel better once you start.”
I stare at the brush. My fingers barely close around it. The weight of it feels wrong here—too familiar in a place that isn’t mine.
“I’m not painting for you,” I manage, voice rasping from disuse.
He leans closer, breath sour with coffee and turpentine. “Yes, you are.” His mouth curves into something too bright. “You’ve been starving without it. You want this more than food. You want to go back to your roots.”
He moves to the worktable again, humming under his breath as he lines up the materials.
Every motion is precise, methodical. Tubes of paint click open one by one.
Thick ribbons of color spill onto the palette—alizarin first, deep and wet, followed by ochre, then Payne’s gray.
The smells hit in waves: oil, metal, the faint sweetness of linseed.
He mixes the colors with the edge of a knife, slow and steady, scraping the blade until each hue bleeds into the next. “Start with red,” he says, without looking at me. “Always red first. Blood before beauty.”
He steps back, folding his arms across his chest. The bulb above us hums and sways, throwing slices of yellow light across the room. The drain glints at my feet.
My fingers tighten around the brush until my knuckles ache. The canvas looms in front of me, white and blank and waiting. My chest rises too fast, breath stuttering like a broken engine.
He watches me like he’s watching a ceremony.
Every part of me wants to scream.
But I lift the brush instead. The bristles drag across the surface, leaving a thin, trembling line of red.
He exhales through his teeth, a sound too close to relief. “Yes,” he whispers. “That’s it. That’s the beginning.”
The paint glistens wetly in the light. Something in me snaps.
I move again—harder this time. The brush slices another line, then another, faster, the strokes losing shape. Color spreads over color until there’s no pattern left, just chaos, just noise. The sound of it—the scrape, the breath, the wet slap of pigment—fills the room.
Behind me, Justin’s breath hitches. His delight falters, confusion edging in. “No,” he says, a nervous laugh bubbling under the word. “No, no, you’re doing it wrong—”
“I’m doing it my way,” I bite out, paint splattering across my wrist.
He crosses the space in two steps and grabs my arm. His fingers clamp down hard, grinding bone against tendon. The brush jerks sideways.
“Don’t ruin it,” he snaps. The grin is gone now. “Don’t ruin what we’re making.”
The pressure burns now, the rope grinding against my wrist until I feel the skin start to tear.
I twist again, teeth clenched, the fibers biting deeper.
“You wanted me to paint, right?” I snap, my voice raw and shaking.
“Then I’m fucking painting. Or do you want to control that too?
I thought you cared about my artistic truth—about freedom. ”
The slap cracks through the room. My head jerks to the side, cheek blazing, the metallic taste of blood blooming where my teeth catch my lip. The sound rings in my skull long after his hand drops back to his side.
He steps closer, the heat of him crowding the space between us, breath brushing my ear. “Don’t test me,” he whispers, low enough to make the words crawl down my spine. “You’re alive because I love your work.”
His fingers unclench, releasing my arm. Blood rushes back in a dull throb, and the silence that follows is louder than the hit.
Justin turns, chest rising too fast, his breath sawing through the space like a blade.
He paces once toward the stairs, the boards creaking beneath his boots.
“We’ll try again later,” he says, voice smoothed back into something calm, careful—like he’s talking to a frightened animal.
“You’ll be better once you’ve settled. The first session’s always rough. ”
He pauses at the top of the stairs and glances back. The light slices his face in half—one side washed in gold, the other swallowed in black. His eyes glint in the dark. “You’ll see, Willow,” he murmurs, that smile pulling too wide. “We’ll make something eternal together.”
The door slams. The lock clicks—a sharp, final sound that lands in my gut like a punch.
Silence blooms. Thick. Buzzing. It hums in my ears until all I can hear is the rush of my own heartbeat. The brush slips from my fingers, hits the floor with a wet slap. Red spreads across the concrete, a slow pulse of color dripping down my wrist.
For a second, I just stare. The rope bites at my skin, rough and raw, the knot dark with dried paint and blood. Then I move—slow, steady—testing the tension, searching for weakness. The frayed edge gives just enough to spark hope.
My pulse kicks faster. I keep working, twisting my wrist against the fibers until pain blurs into focus. “I’m getting out,” I whisper, barely breathing the words. “For Penny. For Rose. For the baby.”
The pipes above groan, water dripping steady through the silence like a heartbeat that refuses to die. I time my movements to it—one drip, one pull, one breath closer to freedom.