Chapter Two
THE DARK WAS safer.
That was the first lesson I learned after Venom locked me away.
If I stayed still, stayed quiet, I wasn’t worth notice. If I didn’t speak, maybe he’d forget I was there. And being forgotten was always better than being remembered.
So I folded paper instead.
Torn scraps from magazines, food wrappers, the corner of a receipt, whatever I could find.
Crease, smooth, fold. The sound was small, soft, mine.
It gave me something to count besides the endless days, something to control when everything else had been taken.
My flock of silent birds was the only proof I still existed.
I was folding one when the noise began.
At first, I thought it was only in my head. The walls always whispered if I pressed my ear close enough. But this was louder. Real.
Shouting. Boots pounding the floors above. A man’s voice I didn’t recognize barked orders, fast and furious.
Then the gunfire started.
It cracked like thunder, rattling through the boards, each shot a jagged punch of sound.
My stomach dropped. My ears rang. I curled tighter in the corner of the crawlspace, hands pressed hard over my ears.
The paper slipped from my fingers. Dust rained down as the house shook with rage and violence.
I knew that sound. Knew what it meant when men shouted and bullets sang.
Venom’s voice rose above it all—raw, furious. I couldn’t hear the words, but I knew the tone. The world was ending for someone. Hopefully him.
Another gunshot. Then another. Screams, curses, the pounding of boots, until suddenly, nothing.
The silence that followed was worse than the fight.
Because silence meant it was over, and I didn’t know if “over” meant freedom or death.
I didn’t know how long I stayed like that. Time didn’t matter when you had no sun, no clock. Hunger gnawed at me, thirst heavier than the air. I licked condensation from the vent when the desert cooled at night. I pressed my ear to the wall, desperate for footsteps, for anything.
But no one came.
I thought I’d die there. Buried alive with my paper birds. A ghost no one would ever find.
So when the scrape came, the sound of metal twisting, a lock breaking, I didn’t scream. I never screamed. Screaming had only ever made things worse.
The panel shifted. Light poured in, stabbing into my eyes.
Two men stood there, flashlights cutting through the dark like knives.
One had broad shoulders, a grim set to his jaw. The other—taller, rougher—both wore leather stitched with patches. Their cuts creaked when they crouched, faces shadowed by the light.
But it was the one man’s eyes—his eyes undid me.
Emerald green. Dark, deep, alive.
Not hungry. Not cruel. Not Venom.
Something else.
Something that made my chest ache.
My hands faltered, the paper bird slipping in my lap, but I caught it, pressing the crease sharp. If I kept folding, maybe they wouldn’t touch me. Maybe they’d decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.
The green-eyed one spoke. Soft. Grounded. His voice was rough, but not harsh, not cruel.
“You’re coming with me.”
The words struck something deep, a place Venom hadn’t managed to burn hollow.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My throat locked the way it always did when I thought of speaking. Venom had taught me silence was safer. Every time I’d tried to scream, his hands had made sure I remembered.
But I looked at this man, and for the first time in years, I thought maybe there was a man who didn’t want to hurt me.
They pulled me from the hole. Step by step, I followed. My bare feet hit splintered boards, jagged against skin too soft from years without shoes. My fingers brushed the doorframe one last time, a goodbye to the cage that had nearly become my coffin.
The house groaned around us, as if it hated letting me go. I could still feel Venom in the stains on the floor, in the sour taste of the air.
My prayer was answered, he was gone. I’d heard it, the final gunshot, the silence after. But his shadow clung. His obsession. The way he looked at me like silence made me his.
But I remembered.
Too many names. Too many faces. Too many secrets whispered in rooms where they forgot I was listening.
That was why he’d locked me away. Not just because he was obsessed with hurting me. But because I knew too much. Because I was dangerous if I ever spoke.
Outside, the light stabbed my eyes.
Not the blaze of noon, but the low, dying sun. Gold stretched across the desert, shadows long and sharp. Twilight. I lifted my hand to shield my face, my skin prickling from the sudden exposure.
The green-eyed man—Ashen—pressed dark glasses into my palm. Too big, but when I slid them on, the knot in my chest loosened. The world dimmed. Manageable.
Two motorcycles waited, engines I knew only from echoes through walls. They had always meant danger before. Now, one waited for me.
Ashen stopped and looked at me closely. “You okay with going back to our clubhouse?” he asked, his voice careful, his eyes worried as he ran his hand through his dark brown hair. “We only want to help you.”
What he didn’t say, I saw it in his eyes, was that there was no going to the cops. Not for me. Not for them.
I didn’t hesitate. Just gave the smallest nod. Because I understood. It was the only option.
He dug through his saddlebags, pulled out a jacket and helmet, and held them out. “You’ll ride with me. Put these on.”
My fingers twitched before curling around the weight of the leather and steel.
The jacket swallowed me whole when I slid into it.
The helmet settled heavy on my head, my hands clumsy at the strap until Ashen crouched in front of me.
His fingers brushed mine away, steady and sure, clipping it into place.
His knuckles grazed my skin. Warm. Real. And I didn’t flinch.
“Good,” he murmured.
He offered his hand. Large. Calloused. Waiting.
Venom had taken everything, my voice, my freedom, years I’d never get back. He thought silence made me powerless.
But when I placed my hand in Ashen’s, it wasn’t obedience. It was choice.
He pulled me onto the saddle. The seat vibrated beneath me, heat seeping through my legs. My arms hovered, frozen with uncertainty, until the other man—Warden—spoke from his bike.
“’Round his waist, sweetheart, or the road’ll take you.”
So I wrapped my arms around Ashen. Careful. Hesitant. But when the engine roared and the ground shook, I clung tighter.
The desert wind hit me like a slap. Dry, biting, dragging at my shirt and tangled hair. The sky stretched endless above, gold bleeding to violet, stars just beginning to spark awake.
I pressed closer to him, forehead brushing the leather of his cut. My silence held, but inside, something cracked.
Not fear. Not yet trust. But something.
I’d thought I would die in that hidden space, buried alive with my flock of folded paper birds.
But now, with the thunder of the bike beneath me and the steady strength of Ashen carrying me into the night, I thought—maybe—I had a chance to live again.