7. The Sheriff is Coming #2
For one impossible second, I think he's going to turn around. I think he's going to tell me something. Help me. Instead, his grip tightens, the latch clicks softly beneath his hand, and he walks out without ever looking back.
The door closes behind him, the lock clicking into place with the same quiet finality I've come to dread. I don't move until his footsteps have disappeared completely, straining to hear them fade farther and farther down the corridor until there's nothing left but silence.
Only then do I look at the tray. Eggs. Toast. Something warm and buttery that smells so painfully normal it makes my stomach turn.
It's the kind of breakfast my mom would've made on a Saturday morning while music played quietly in the kitchen, the kind of smell that belongs to homes where people are safe.
It has no place in this room. My stomach contracts, not with hunger but with nausea.
I know I need to eat. Every part of me understands that if I'm going to survive whatever Jackson has planned for me, I need my strength. I need a clear head. A body that can still run if the chance ever comes. So I make myself pick up a piece of toast. I chew because I have to, but I can’t even taste it.
By the second bite, my stomach heaves hard enough that I have to stop. I carry the tray into the bathroom instead, setting it carefully on the edge of the basin before reaching for the folded napkin, intending to scrape the untouched food into it before throwing everything into the bin.
The napkin slips slightly beneath my fingers as I shake it open and something catches my eye.
I freeze.
There, hidden inside one of the folds, is a streak of blue ink.
I just stare at it, my mind refusing to catch up with what my eyes are seeing.
Nobody writes on napkins. Not unless they're meant to be read.
My pulse begins to hammer so hard I can feel it in my fingertips as I unfold it completely, smoothing the creases with hands that suddenly don't feel steady anymore.
The handwriting is rushed, uneven, as though whoever wrote it was watching the door while they did.
Just four words.
The sheriff is coming.
Jacob. He knows where they’ve taken me.
My fingers tighten around the napkin until the paper crumples beneath them, hope rushing through me so suddenly it steals the air from my lungs.
The certainty lasts only a second before doubt crashes into it, extinguishing it almost as quickly as it came.
Why would Harris do this? Why would he risk leaving me a message if Jackson controls every inch of this house?
My eyes lift instinctively toward the bathroom door, the thought of hidden cameras settling over me like a second skin.
Is he watching? Did he see my face when I unfolded the napkin? Was that the point? Give me hope... then stand back and enjoy what happens when he takes it away.
I close my eyes and force myself to breathe through the panic before it has the chance to grow. Panic is exactly what Jackson wants. Panic is how people stop thinking.
Harris paused.
The memory comes back with startling clarity.
The way his hand lingered on the handle.
The slight dip of his head. The tremor I'd noticed in his hands long before he'd reached the door.
It wasn't much—barely a heartbeat—but it hadn't felt rehearsed.
It felt like a man standing on the edge of a decision he'd already made, carrying the weight of it alone.
Could I be wrong? Maybe.
In this house I could be wrong about everything.
Every smile has the potential to hide cruelty.
Every act of kindness could be another piece of Jackson's game.
Every word that reaches me has already passed through hands I don't trust. But hope isn't something I can afford to throw away simply because I'm afraid of it.
I fold the napkin carefully, smoothing each crease flat before crossing to the vanity.
A packet of tampons sits beside the sink.
I open one, pull the cotton free and slide the folded note into the wrapper before sealing it again and slipping it back among the others.
No one will think to look there, but I’ll know exactly where it is.
And when this place starts trying to convince me I've imagined the life I left behind...
when the walls close in and Jackson begins picking apart the pieces of me one by one...
when I start forgetting the woman I fought so hard to become…
I'll read those four words again.
The sheriff is coming.
My gaze lifts to the mirror. For a long moment I do nothing but look.
The bruise blooming along my jaw has darkened overnight, the shape of his fingers beginning to stain my skin, but it isn't the bruise that holds my attention.
It's my wrists. The marks are fading now, little more than pale shadows where Jacob's handcuffs once circled them, yet seeing them sends me somewhere else entirely.
Back to his bedroom. Back to the night he stripped away every defense I'd spent years hiding behind.
Back to the man who demanded more from me than I believed I had to give and refused to let me settle for anything less.
He tore me apart until there was nothing left to hide behind, and somewhere in the wreckage he left me with something I never expected to find.
Myself.
The woman staring back at me isn't fearless. She isn't untouched. She's bruised, exhausted and terrified of what waits beyond that bedroom door. But she has survived Jacob Darnell. She has survived losing everything she thought made her who she was. She has stood in the fire before.
Jackson doesn't know that yet. He thinks he kidnapped someone fragile—someone who will submit. But I won’t.
I straighten my shoulders, hold my own gaze for one final second, then turn and walk back into the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed. And I wait.