Chapter 8
SOPHIA
The first night he’s gone, I don’t sleep.
The second night, I do.
By the third, the silence has weight.
It settles into the beams and walls like it belongs here, like this house has always been quiet and I’ve simply stepped into the middle of it. The threat of him lingers at first—his shadow on the stairs, the way his voice seemed to sit in the air long after he left—but nothing happens.
No footsteps above me. No doors opening. No shift in the floorboards. Just wind across the mountains and the low hum of heat moving through vents.
Hunger finds me before courage does. By the second morning, my stomach twists hard enough to make thinking difficult.
I stand in the kitchen too long, staring at the refrigerator like it might accuse me of something.
I’ve only taken water out of it until now.
Eating feels like surrender. Like accepting the rules of a place I didn’t choose.
But survival has never cared about pride.
I open the fridge.
It’s stocked the same way the pantry is—deliberate, thoughtful, but I don’t let myself think about that for too long.
I grab two eggs from the carton and crack them against the rim of a bowl, the shells splitting cleanly. A fork appears in my hand without memory of reaching for it, and I whisk them until the yolks bleed into the whites, turning everything the same muted yellow.
The pan heats quickly, and I pour the mixture in, watch it spread, thin at first, then thickening as I drag the spatula through it. Soft folds form. Steam curls upward, carrying the simple scent of salt and butter.
The first few bites taste like nothing. By the fourth, I realize my hands aren’t shaking anymore. And once I’m done, I remember what it feels like to not have a stomach that’s hollow.
I clean my dishes because order compels me. If I let them sit, it means I’ve settled, and I’m not ready to admit that to myself yet.
After placing everything back into their spot, it doesn’t look like I’ve touched the kitchen, a small victory from a giant lie.
I eat again that evening. Fruit, because it’s easier—no heat, no waiting, no small domestic ritual that makes this place feel lived in. Just a knife, a cutting board, and something clean and bright I can swallow without thinking too much about where I am.
On the third morning, I test the front door again, as if it somehow magically opened overnight while I was sleeping. Of course, it’s still locked, and I’m still trapped.
By the fourth day, I’m pacing aimlessly, and that’s when it hits me—the thing I didn’t expect.
Boredom.
It unsettles me more than the panic ever did.
I should be plotting. Planning. Counting seconds, memorizing the layout, cataloging exits.
Instead, the hours stretch wide and empty, and I don’t know what to do with them.
Fear at least has a shape. Boredom is just formless time pressing against you from every direction, and it turns out I am very bad at being still.
The kitchen draws me back again, not with hunger this time, but with restlessness.
There’s flour in the pantry. Yeast tucked neatly in a glass jar. Salt. Olive oil. The ingredients line up like an invitation, and I stand there looking at them for a long moment before I reach for the flour.
Bread will take time. Time feels safer than silence.
I measure without rushing, flour dusting the counter in a pale cloud. I mix the yeast with warm water and wait for it to bloom, watching the surface foam slowly, alive in a way I don’t want to think too hard about.
When I bring the ingredients together, the dough is shaggy and stubborn beneath my fingers. I turn it out onto the counter and press my palms into it.
Push. Fold. Turn.
The motion is steady. Rhythmic.
Push. Fold. Turn.
My shoulders loosen. My thoughts quiet. The dough resists at first, clinging, but it smooths under pressure, growing elastic and warm, and I lean into it harder than necessary—working out something I can’t name.
It feels good to use force on something that yields.
By the time I shape the dough into a round and cover it with a towel, my arms ache pleasantly. I set it near the window where light spills in, golden and unhurried, and watch it start to rise.
It feels absurd—baking in a house I didn’t choose, humming to music from a speaker tucked under the cabinets. And yet the scent and heat soften something, and I lean against the counter and let them.
The house holds sound differently than my apartment did.
It doesn’t swallow it. It carries it across high ceilings and clean lines, across the long bands of light that shift slowly with the afternoon.
Whoever designed this place understood how light changes over time.
How a room can feel different at three than it does at five.
It’s a prison, but there’s a faint sense of comfort within these walls. It has to be the light. Light changes things, makes the surroundings feel safer than it really is.
I wash the flour from my hands and drift upstairs without fully deciding to.
The staircase curves gently beneath my palm as I trail my fingers along the banister.
I’ve avoided the upper floor as much as possible, using the small bathroom downstairs to pee and wipe toothpaste across my tongue.
Keeping myself anchored near exits gives me a sliver of hope—even if they never open.
But the house is quiet, and I’ve run out of reasons to stay on the ground level.
I pause where the staircase splits. I hadn’t noticed the fork the first time—my only concern then was the front door.
Now I stand at the divide, and I choose right because he went left the other night, and I need at least one small defiance, even one he’ll never know about.
The hallway ends at an open door. Open doors are rare enough in this house that I approach it the way I approach most things here now—carefully, half-expecting a trap. But when I reach the threshold and look inside, I find a bathroom.
Sunlight pours through a high, wide window that frames nothing but sky. It’s not grand in the way expensive things announce themselves—no marble for marble’s sake, no fixtures that shout about money. It’s quiet money, the kind that knows the difference between luxury and excess.
There’s a freestanding tub, matte white against warm stone walls. Brass fixtures, brushed and muted. A long vanity in dark wood with a single frameless mirror above it making the room feel larger than it is.
And then I look down.
The floor isn’t uniform. It’s mosaic. Tiles of different sizes and shades—deep blue pressed beside warm terracotta, pale cream against soft green. Some matte. Some glazed. No two quite the same.
It’s not the kind of mosaic that comes pre-mounted in neat little sheets, stuck to mesh for convenience. These have been set by hand, one at a time, fitted together from pieces that came from different places and somehow still belong to each other.
I kneel and trace the seams with one finger. Some edges are weathered. Some jagged. Some smooth and cool as river stone. The pattern isn’t perfect—it wasn’t trying to be. It’s beautiful in exactly the way that beautiful things are when they’ve been assembled from what was already broken.
What gets me—what I’m not prepared for—is how familiar it feels. Like I chose each piece myself. Like this floor was made for someone who wanted exactly this, who had stood in some imagined room and pictured it without knowing it already existed somewhere.
Why does it feel like this house understands me? God, that’s weird.
I stand and look at the rest of it. Thick towels stacked in precise order. A small ceramic tray holds soap, a shampoo bottle next to it. It’s my brand, the one that smells like vanilla and orange peel, but I choose not to let my gaze linger long enough for it to turn into a disturbing thought.
The timer downstairs clicks faintly through the vent, reminding me the bread is still rising, the house still moving, still breathing around me.
I don’t turn on the shower. I move to the tub instead, twist the brass handle, and let the water run until steam begins gathering along the mirror, softening everything.
I sit on the edge and press my palm into the rising heat, testing it. The warmth is immediate. Enveloping. And by the time I slip inside, the water reaches just below my collarbones.
The world narrows to breath and steam and the faint clean scent of eucalyptus, and for one moment—just one—I forget where I am. But he’s not far from my mind. He’s still lurking, with his vague answers and annoying silence.
When he’s here, the air tightens around him. My body stays braced, ready. My mind sharp. I hate the way he occupies every room, how he shifts the gravity of it just by standing there. And yet…without him, the house feels larger. Emptier. The silence isn’t relief. It’s hollow.
Is this better? I ask myself. Is this what safety feels like? Or is this something else?
Leaving me alone like this might be deliberate.
As if he knows silence can be sharper than proximity.
As if he understands comfort and uncertainty together will do more to me than confinement ever could.
Break me down with warmth instead of force—make the cage feel like a choice until I stop noticing the bars.
It’s a cruel thought, so I file it away and get out of the tub.
After wrapping a towel around me, I pad out of the bathroom.
I need clean clothing, and right now the only place I can think of is the cold room I’ve been avoiding, the one with the steel door, the one he brought me to on the first night and I haven’t gone back to since.
It stands open now, as if it’s been waiting, and my pulse quickens.
Get a grip, Sophia. He’s not here.
I step inside, rubbing my wrist, remembering the ropes, the ointment he placed by my feet like it was some peace offering, some misplaced kindness.