Chapter Eight
THE COMMON ROOM felt different without Ashen in it. I didn’t lie to myself, I trusted him, and was drawn to the man in a way I couldn’t explain.
The weight of his presence was gone, but the stares lingered. Less obvious now, dulled by Jewel’s glare and Warden’s order, but they were still there. Watching. Whispering.
I sat small on the end of the couch, back straight, hands folding paper. The drink Jewel had given me sat full on the table.
Across the room, one of the women’s laugh cut the air. Muted voices followed, the other two leaning close, words carrying just enough to reach me.
“What’s with the birds?”
“Is she deaf do you think?”
“You think Ashen’s really gonna keep a woman so strange?”
The words pressed hot into my chest. Shame flared sharp, ugly. My fingers dug into the hem of my shirt.
“Enough.”
Throttle’s voice snapped across the room, quiet but dangerous. The sweet butts froze, eyes darting to him. He leaned against the bar, his eyes watching them, his gaze was filled with anger.
“You got something to say about her, you say it to me. Otherwise shut your mouths.”
Silence fell. Holly looked away, Truly ducked her head, and Tabby just smirked, but none of them spoke again.
Throttle pushed off the bar and crossed the room, dropping into the chair beside me. Not too close. Just near enough that I could feel the heat of him. I trusted him too, not as much as Ashen, but it was there.
He didn’t look at me right away, just tapped ash into the tray, voice soft. “Don’t listen to them. They don’t know shit.”
My eyes flicked to him, wary. He caught it, and this time he did look his dark eyes, steady, not smirking. Curious, yes, but not cruel.
“Clubhouses are loud,” he went on, running his fingers through his black hair. “Full of people who think they know everything. You don’t have to answer any of it.”
My throat tightened. The words I didn’t have sat heavy there, burning. I wanted to tell him I remembered everything, that words weren’t gone from me, they were waiting, dangerous. But silence held.
Throttle leaned back, smoke drifting from his mouth. “Ashen’s solid. If he says you’re safe, you are. I’ll back his word.” He gave a small shrug, lips twitching like the ghost of his usual smirk. “Hell, I’ll back it even if he doesn’t ask me to.”
Something eased in my chest, just a fraction. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t push. He just sat there, letting me know without saying it that I wasn’t alone.
Jewel appeared then, hands on her hips. “That’s enough for tonight. You need rest.”
Throttle stubbed out his cigarette, stood, and gave me a nod. “See you around, little bird.” Then he walked off, shoulders loose, like he hadn’t just shifted something in me I couldn’t name. It wasn’t the same pull I felt with Ashen, but it was something.
Elara came to my side, hand brushing her belly, her smile soft. “Come on, honey. Let’s get you settled.”
I followed her down the hall. The quiet there felt heavy again, but different than the bathroom—less waiting, more unknown.
She opened a door and gestured me inside. A small room with a tiny bathroom. A bed made neat with clean sheets. A nightstand with a lamp. Curtains drawn over the window. Simple. Ordinary.
But to me, it looked alien.
I stepped in slow, my breath catching. The mattress loomed too big, too soft, too foreign. I hadn’t seen a bed in years, not one meant for me. My knees locked, my chest tightening with panic.
The floor was safer. The floor was known.
Elara’s voice broke through, gentle but firm. “It’s yours. No one’s gonna touch you here. No one’s will dare bother you.”
I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to. But my body shook with the memory of cold floors, of dirt, of nights curled in corners because corners meant safety.
I touched the bedspread with my fingertips. Soft. Clean. My throat closed, tears burning hot, unspilled.
I didn’t know how to lie down in it. Didn’t know how to rest in something that wasn’t a closet.
Elara stood in the doorway, patient as stone, worry in her features. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m in the fourth door on the right.” Then she softly closed the door, leaving me alone.
I stayed standing. Watching the bed. Trembling with the truth of it.
I didn’t remember what it was like to be normal.
***
THE DARK WAS endless at first.
When I woke after the truck door slammed, there were no windows. No sun. Only a single bulb that flickered above me, casting shadows long enough to swallow me whole.
Venom’s shadow was the worst of them.
He leaned in close, his breath sour, his hands always ready to cause pain. He didn’t have to shout. His whisper was worse. Silence or pain. That’s your choice. Open your mouth, and I’ll make you regret it.
At first, I screamed anyway. My throat tore until it was raw, until the walls vibrated with my voice. I thought someone would hear. Someone would come.
But no one did.
Venom came instead. His hand closed around my neck, squeezing until the scream died in my chest. He let go only when I gasped, desperate, silent. His smile was thin, cruel. “Better,” he said. “You’re learning.”
He barely fed me. Leftovers scraped into a dish. Always tossed like I was something lower than an animal.
The days blurred, unmarked, endless. Sometimes he left me in silence so deep it screamed louder than any noise. Other times he came with questions, with his obsessions. He wanted me pliant. Wanted me quiet. Wanted me only his.
When I cried, he laughed. When I begged, he tightened his grip until begging was impossible.
Over time, my voice slipped away from me. Not all at once, but piece by piece. Every punishment carved it smaller. Every threat sealed it tighter. Until one day I tried to scream, and nothing came. My throat locked. My chest burned. The sound stayed trapped inside me.
That was the day I stopped trying.
Better to fold paper birds in silence than risk his hands again. Better to watch. To remember.
Because Venom never stopped talking when he thought I wasn’t listening. His men whispered names, deals, shipments. He thought keeping me caged meant keeping me harmless. But silence isn’t empty—it listens.
And I listened to everything.
Venom’s shadow leaned closer in the dream now, his hand ghosting over my throat, fingers pressing until the phantom ache returned. His voice curled into my ear, low and poisonous.
“You’re mine, forever, little puppy. No voice means no escape. No one will ever hear you.”
The dark closed in tighter. My chest seized, lungs refusing air. The closet walls around me blurred into the crawlspace he kept me in, the air sour with rot and dust. My hands curled into fists, nails biting my palms, but I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t scream.
The silence wrapped around me like chains, heavy and unbreakable.
And Venom’s laughter filled the dark.
The dark carried me back.
Back to those first days when Venom kept me near like a pet. When I was still new, still raw, still foolish enough to believe someone might come looking.
He didn’t lock me away then. He paraded me like a dog on show.
I sat at his feet in rooms choked with smoke, men gathered around tables stained with blood and whiskey. His hand stayed heavy in my hair or hooked tight around my arm, reminding me with every squeeze that I wasn’t free.
“You sit quiet, puppy,” he’d murmur, his voice a knife’s edge.
And I watched. I watched as he laughed while men begged for their lives and women pleaded for them to stop. Watched the way he smiled while ordering their deaths. Watched knives flash, fists break bone, blood pooling across the floor.
He wanted me to see. Wanted me to understand that power meant cruelty, that silence meant survival.
But the dream shifted, sharper now, dragging me to one night that never left me.
A man was on his knees in front of Venom, face split open, one eye swollen shut. His hands shook where they clutched at his chest. “Please,” he rasped. “I’ll pay it back. I swear it.”
Venom’s laugh rolled out, cruel and easy. His arm curled around my shoulders, pulling me tighter against him, forcing my eyes up. “You hear that, puppy? Promises. Always promises.”
The man sobbed. Blood dripped down his chin. Venom pressed the barrel of a gun to the man’s forehead and stroked my hair with his other hand, as if both acts belonged together.
“Watch,” he whispered. “Feel it.”
I tried to look away. His fingers dug into my scalp, jerking me back. The gun went off. The man crumpled forward, blood spilling hot across the floorboards, seeping toward me.
It touched my bare knees, sticky, metallic, warm.
And Venom laughed. “Good puppy. You see it all.”
The smell of gunpowder and iron filled my lungs. The blood spread wider, faster, until I was drowning in it, until the man’s empty eyes stared into mine.
“Remember,” Venom hissed, his mouth at my ear. “Every name. Every scream. Every death. Be thankful I want you around. Now on all fours like the dog you are.”
And then he took me right there in the blood. I couldn’t breathe. The blood covered my legs, my chest, dragging me under—
And I screamed.
The sound ripped out of me, raw and broken, tearing my throat open in a way I hadn’t allowed in years. It was louder than the gun, louder than the laughter, louder than everything.
But the dream didn’t break. Venom’s shadow loomed larger, laughing harder, as he kept going pushing me deeper into the blood.