Chapter Fifteen
~ Iren ~
I woke up fighting.
That’s not a metaphor. My entire nervous system detonated before my brain caught up, and I jolted so hard the cheap mattress on my back nearly took the metal frame with it.
The scream died in my throat because, by the time I’d inhaled enough to voice it, my eyes had already mapped the perimeter: concrete, cold, bare except for a band of sickly light coming through a slit of window near the ceiling.
The air stank of fresh cement, bleach, and a chemical I only recognized from the time Lin made me help clean the marble with “something stronger” after a wine spill. I was vertical and braced against the wall before the second panic hit.
The panic comes in layers, like an onion, or a cheap cake. First is pure animal terror, the kind that launches you upright and shoves adrenaline into your armpits. You let it roll. You count to thirty. If you’re still alive at the end, you start cataloguing. That’s the part that feels like me.
Thirty seconds, then I started the list.
I was chained to the bed. Not metaphorically; my right ankle wore a metal cuff attached to a chain about ten feet long, bolted directly into the concrete beneath the headboard.
The chain wasn’t heavy enough to be a prop.
It was heavy enough to be the kind you use on a Rottweiler you’re only half sure is house-trained.
The bed was a twin, the blanket institutional beige, sheets scratchy as a cat’s tongue.
There was a nightstand, but no lamp. On the wall above, a square shelf held a single houseplant—pothos, green and trailing, which in this climate meant it needed to be watered at least weekly, maybe daily, if the HVAC was running hot.
The plant was not just alive, but thriving.
That was what got me. Not the chain. The fucking plant.
I did the rest of the room in a slow spiral. To the right: a flat-pack bookshelf, loaded with hardcovers and trade paperbacks, spines all crisp and dust-free. I could tell by the titles that they weren’t random.
Someone had gone to effort—there were three of my favorites from Velvet’s staff book exchange, a couple of my guilty-pleasure detective novels, and one enormous art book about Pre-Raphaelite painters I’d once told a regular was my “spiritual manifesto” to score a tip.
Next to the shelf, a wall-mounted TV, not huge but new. Below that, a stack of DVDs, half still in the shrink-wrap, plus a portable DVD player set on top of a mini fridge.
The fridge had a see-through front, glowing soft blue. Inside, bottles of water, canned cold brew, juice, and on the top shelf, a six-pack of yogurt tubes. Next to that, individually wrapped cheese sticks.
They say you can know a man by the company he keeps. You can know a kidnapper by the snacks he buys for his victim.
At the far end, a door. Not a solid slab, but one of those heavy fire doors with a frosted plexi insert and a panic bar. There was no handle on my side. There was a deadbolt, which had been locked. Through the glass: darkness, nothing else.
The left wall was just concrete. The floor was covered by an ugly area rug, Ikea’s finest, blue triangles repeating in a way that made me want to gouge my own eyes out. On the rug: a loveseat. Leatherette, color of old toothpaste, big enough for two if you didn’t mind touching knees.
The far corner had a bathroom. I clocked it by the sight of a toilet and a plastic curtain, nothing more.
Last detail: the ceiling. There was a camera up there. Dome style, little red LED glowing, pointed at the bed but with enough fisheye to catch the whole room. There was a second camera, smaller, perched at the edge of the bathroom door frame.
That was the first time I let myself feel it, really feel it: the shape of the plan. It wasn’t a murder box. It was a terrarium. The chain was for safety. The snacks and the plant and the carefully curated library were for after. This wasn’t a hostage scenario, or a ransom, or even a warning.
Parsons had built a fucking life for me, and he expected me to live in it.
I pressed my hand to the wall, feeling the sweat on my palm, then forced myself to walk the length of the chain. I could reach the bookshelf, the TV, the loveseat, the bathroom. I did not try the door yet. I would do that last.
I checked the ankle cuff, looking for an obvious release.
There wasn’t one. The hinge was welded. The pin was a hex head, not a screw.
There was a thin layer of foam padding between metal and skin, probably so I wouldn’t cut myself trying to slip it.
I checked anyway. I did not scream. There was no one to hear it, and I’d been enough of a spectacle in this life.
I moved to the bookshelf. The books were real, no blank pages or fakes. There was even one that still had a library barcode, probably ripped from a public branch in a last-minute panic.
I checked the shelves for tools: nothing with a sharp edge, but a couple hardbacks were heavy enough to use as weapons if you tried. There was a bookmark in the art book—one of those freebie ones you get at the front desk. I pocketed it.
The fridge opened with a hiss. The water was cold, the yogurt not expired. The cheese sticks were “light,” which almost made me laugh. I checked the back of the fridge for a cord, thinking maybe I could short it out, but it was hardwired into the wall.
I turned to the TV. The remote was taped to the side of the screen, battery included. I turned it on. The only channel was a local news loop. Nothing about me, which meant the outside world either didn’t know or didn’t care. I tried the DVD player. It worked.
I checked the bathroom next. The chain gave me three feet inside the door. Enough to use the toilet, enough to shower if I crouched and aimed right. There was soap, a towel, even a spare toothbrush in the package. The second camera was dead-center above the sink.
That made me angry. More than the chain, more than the fridge, more than the fucking pothos. The idea that someone was watching me brush my teeth, watching me piss, watching me sleep—no. I drew a line there.
I left the bathroom, crossed to the bed, and stripped the pillowcase off. I wrapped it around the chain, once, twice, just to keep it quiet. Then I hauled the loveseat to the wall under the camera.
It was heavy, but I had the full length of chain, and I put everything into it. The sound it made on the floor was thunder, no doubt audible through the foundation. I climbed up, balanced on the back of the seat, and pulled the pillowcase off again.
I stuffed it over the camera, wedged it as deep as I could. The red light kept blinking, but the lens was covered. I hopped down, did the same in the bathroom with the towel, yanking it off the bar and jamming it into the corner above the sink.
It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would hold for now.
I returned to the bed, sat down, and put my head between my knees.
This is the part where you are supposed to fall apart. I did not. I thought about falling apart. I rehearsed it in my mind—cry, rage, beat the walls.
I imagined how Vadim would react if he saw me through that camera: would he be amused, or disgusted, or would he break the wall down just to prove a point?
I took thirty more seconds to just breathe.
Then I went back to the door.
It did not budge. I checked the frame, top and bottom, then the hinges. Reinforced, impossible to pry. I checked the deadbolt for play—none.
I sat down, right there, and let my mind wander.
Here is the thing about being locked up, or tied down, or chained to a wall: the terror is real, but so is the clarity.
Every minute you are alive was a minute you could plan.
Every hour the door didn’t open was an hour to map the world, build a weapon, and prepare the speech you’d give to the man who put you here.
I thought about Parsons. I tried to imagine his face when he walked through that door and saw the camera lens covered, the loveseat out of place, the bed made with the corners tucked. I wondered if he would be angry. I wondered if he would try to hurt me, or if that was even the point.
I thought about Sasha, and for a second, the anger came back—white hot, a line of fire from collarbone to jaw. I thought about what she had said, what she had taken, and what I would do if she walked in with him. Would I scream? Would I beg?
No. I would not.
I grabbed a book off the shelf, a thick hardcover with a red dust jacket, and sat on the rug.
I opened to a random page. The words swam at first, but I forced myself to read them.
Every word was a bullet point, another notch on the clock, another tiny declaration of intent: I am not broken.
I am not a pet. I am not what you want me to be.
I flipped the page. I kept flipping.
In the silence, I heard a sound, faint but distinct, from above: the creak of a floorboard, the scrape of a shoe, the hush of voices in a corridor. I did not look up. I did not move. I just counted the seconds, and waited for the next part to begin.
When the door finally opened, I was ready. It opened with a hiss of negative pressure, and for one wild second I was sure Vadim himself would step through, gun in hand, face set to “you have disappointed me, but I will still die for you.”
Instead, it was her.
Sasha. In a sheath dress so black it absorbed the overhead fluorescence, heels sharp enough to make a weapon of the floors, pearls at her throat like a string of perfect lies.
Behind her, Parsons.
Seeing her first—before the real threat—was a move straight out of the psychological warfare playbook.
I didn’t let them catch me off-guard. I scrambled backward to the headboard, bracing my shoulders hard enough to bruise, knees up, hands splayed in front of me as if ready to catch a punch or a bullet. My body was in full lockdown. Only my mouth moved.
Sasha took in the scene—the covered cameras, the re-positioned loveseat, me hunkered down with a hardcover for a shield—and did not so much as blink.