Chapter 44
For a while, there is no sound. That’s the first thing I understand after.
Not where I am. Not what happened. Not what comes next.
Just silence. Thick. Heavy. Wrong. The kind of silence that doesn’t mean peace.
It means something terrible has already happened, and the world is waiting to see whether you’ll survive knowing it.
My eyes are open, but I’m not seeing much.
The ceiling above me is stained. There’s a crack in one corner that cuts across the plaster like a vein. The light hanging overhead swings slightly, barely moving, but enough to make the shadows shift every few seconds.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
I focus on that because everything else is too much.
My wrists burn. My ankles ache. Every part of my body feels like it belongs to someone else. Too sore. Too exposed. Too heavy. My skin crawls with the need to scrub and scrub and scrub until nothing is left but rawness, but I can’t move enough to do anything about it.
I feel dirty. Not because I did anything wrong.
I know that somewhere. Deep down, beneath the shock and the shame and the way my mind keeps trying to turn itself inside out to escape my own body, I know that.
But knowing something doesn’t always make it feel true.
The room smells like metal and sweat and blood.
Blood.
My eyes move before I can stop them.
Eli.
He’s still there. Slumped against the floor where he fell, too still now, too quiet. His face is turned slightly toward me, and one of his hands is curled near his chest like his body tried to hold onto itself at the end.
My throat tightens until breathing hurts.
No sound comes out. I think I used up every scream I had.
He came because of me. The thought forms slowly.
Then lands. He came because I asked him.
He took me to the store because I wanted to do something sweet.
Something normal. Something stupidly small for a man who never would have told me it was his birthday.
Eli hesitated. He knew better. He said Cobra would lose his shit. He still took me. Because I asked. Because he wanted to help. Because he thought he could get me there and back before anything happened. And now he’s dead. He died because of me.
My stomach turns so hard I gag, but there’s nothing there. Just pain. Just the awful pull of my body trying to reject a reality it can’t get away from. “No,” I whisper. It doesn’t sound like a word. It sounds like something broken scraping its way out of me.
No one answers.
Not Eli.
Not Cobra.
Not God.
The door opens eventually.
I don’t know how much time has passed. Minutes. Hours. A lifetime.
Two men step inside, and my body goes rigid before my mind catches up. Every muscle pulls against the restraints, pain flaring hot through my shoulders and hips.
One of them laughs softly. “Still got some fight in her.”
The other one doesn’t laugh. He’s older, maybe.
Or maybe he just feels older because he moves slower, calmer, like he’s done this enough times that nothing about it touches him anymore.
That calm makes me hate him more. He stops beside the bed, looking down at me like I’m something to inspect. Not a person. Not Olivia. Not a woman.
Inventory.
The word comes back from somewhere I never heard it but somehow know.
His gaze drags over me, clinical and detached. “You listen,” he says. “You listen good, because I’m not repeating myself.”
I stare at him. Not because I’m brave. Because I don’t know where else to look.
“You’re being moved soon,” he says. “Auction window got pushed up because your biker made a mess of things.”
Cobra.
His name doesn’t leave my mouth, but it hits inside me like a match. Warmth. Pain. Hope. Fear.
The man sees something flicker in my face, because his mouth curves. “Yeah,” he says. “That one. He’s loud for a quiet bastard.” The other man snorts. The older one keeps watching me. “He can break whatever he wants. Won’t change where you’re going.”
My fingers curl as much as the restraints allow. “You don’t know him,” I whisper.
The man’s smile fades.
Good.
Maybe I still have one small thing left.
He leans closer. “I know men like him,” he says.
“They think violence makes them gods until they run into men with money, time, and distance. Your boy is strong up close. That doesn’t help you if he can’t you.
” The words are meant to cut. They do. But not in the way he wants. Because I remember Cobra’s eyes.
I remember the way he looked at me after the alley, after I told him what that man said.
I will protect you.
He didn’t say it like comfort. He said it like law.
The man straightens. “So here’s your new reality. You behave, your next owner might be patient. Might even be kind, if that’s what he paid for. You fight, you make yourself difficult, they’ll give you to someone worse.”
My skin goes cold.
The other man steps toward Eli’s body and nudges his boot near the floor, not touching him, but close enough to make the room tilt. “Like your friend learned,” he says.
My vision flashes. Hot. White. Then black around the edges.
The older man lifts a hand, stopping him. “Enough.” His eyes come back to me. “Compliance matters,” he says. “Good girls live easier.”
Good girl.
The phrase crawls over my skin. I turn my head away from him, staring at the wall instead.
He sighs like I’m disappointing him. “You’ll learn.”
The door closes after they leave. The lock clicks. Silence returns. Not the same silence as before. This one has teeth.
I stare at the wall until the shadows blur.
My body hurts. My mind hurts worse. There’s a place inside me that wants to float away.
To leave this room without moving. To let my body stay here while the rest of me goes somewhere they can’t reach.
For a second, I understand how easy that would be.
How tempting. No pain there. No fear. No Eli on the floor.
No memory. But then I hear Cobra’s voice.
Not from the room. Not real. Still clear.
Look at me.
My breath catches. I close my eyes.
Look at me.
I can almost feel his hand on my jaw, firm and controlled, grounding me when everything else tried to spin out.
No.
I open my eyes. I’m still here. That’s the first thing. Not clean. Not whole. Not okay. But here. Alive. They want compliance. They want broken. They want a quiet body they can move from one place to another without trouble.
Fine.
Let them think they’re getting it. My breathing shakes as I pull it in. Then out. Slow. Small. Careful. I look at the room again. Not as a victim this time. As information. Door. Lock. Hinges outside. Light overhead. Table. Chair. Concrete floor. No windows. Two men at least. More outside.
Eli on the floor.
Eli.
My eyes sting. I don’t look away from him this time. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. The words are almost silent. Not enough. Never enough. But they’re all I have. “I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t answer.
Of course he doesn’t.
I let the guilt come. Just for a few seconds. Let it crush down on my chest, let it hurt, let it exist. Then I put it somewhere else. Not gone. Never gone. But not in control. Not right now.
If I live, I can grieve him.
If I live, I can tell them he refused.
If I live, Cobra will know Eli looked at me and still said no.
That matters.
That has to matter.
I shift carefully, testing the restraints again, not yanking this time. Feeling. Learning. Wrists tied tight. Skin slick where it’s rubbed raw. No slack. Ankles worse. The bed frame is metal. Solid.
My shoulders scream if I pull too hard. Good to know. Pain is information. I almost laugh at the thought because it sounds like him. Cobra would say something like that. Pain is information. Fear is information too.
Mine tells me I’m alive.
Mine tells me they haven’t moved me yet.
Mine tells me time still exists.
And if time exists, then so does the possibility that he’s coming.
No.
Not possibility.
Cobra is coming.
I don’t let myself question that. Not because I believe in fairy tales. Because I know him. He will burn the world down to find me. The danger is surviving long enough for the fire to reach this room.
The door rattles again sometime later, but it doesn’t open. Voices pass by. Casual. One man mentions a vehicle. Another says something about moving before dawn.
I go still. Before dawn. That matters. Moving soon. Auction window pushed up. Transport. If I can stay aware, if I can remember sounds, turns, smells, anything, maybe I can help. Maybe I can leave pieces behind. Maybe I can make myself more than cargo. My body trembles.
I hate that. Then I stop hating it. Trembling means my body is still fighting.
Let it.
I stare at the ceiling again, at that crack cutting through the plaster, and I start counting breaths. Not because it calms me. Because it gives me a job.
One. Two. Three.
Stay alive.
Four. Five. Six.
Wait for him.
The tears come eventually, silent and hot, sliding into my hairline because I can’t lift a hand to wipe them away. I let them fall.
Crying doesn’t mean I’m broken.
Screaming didn’t mean they won.
Being afraid doesn’t mean I’m done.
I repeat that until it becomes something close to truth. Then I look at Eli again. “I’m going to tell them,” I whisper. “I’m going to tell them you said no.” My voice cracks. I keep going. “I’m going to tell them you were brave.”
The room doesn’t answer. But the words stay. That’s something. Small. Not enough. But something.
The men outside laugh again.
One of them says, “She’ll be easier now.”
I close my eyes. Let my face go slack. Let my breathing slow. Let them think whatever they need to think. Easier. Quiet. Broken. Fine.
Let them believe it.
Because deep down, under the pain and shame and guilt, under the fear so real it feels like a second skin, something hard begins to form. Not hope exactly. Hope feels too soft for this room. This is sharper.
Survival.
I am still alive.
I need to stay that way.
Cobra will come.
And when he does...
I want to be breathing.