Chapter 6 - Sophie
Last night I got married.
The twenty-third of June.
It was a Tuesday night.
But two years ago, it was a bright, sunny Sunday morning, when the birds chirped freely, and the air felt like a kiss of warmth, until Damian Hans broke my heart without a valid explanation.
This year, it marks the night I signed away my freedom to the very same man. Still, there's no valid reason, and now, instead of my heart breaking, my gut is churning, my blood boiling, my head spinning from how quickly and unreasonably things are happening.
Things that are out of my control.
That's what I've lost now. Control. Every move I’d made for the past two years had been mechanical.
Wake up. Work. Home. Rinse. Repeat.
It's how I functioned. It's how I stayed in control of my emotions. But it had become so monotonous that I’d stopped checking the dates. Every day just bled into the next with a routine that had kept me sane after the heartbreak.
But today, with a moment to pause and without a routine to cling to for my sanity, I see the date in bold on the fridge calendar. There’s no missing it, but I still blink as if I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Of course, in this sick twist of my fate, I'd get married to Damian—forcefully, might I add—on the anniversary of our breakup.
Sighing, I tear my gaze from the calendar, hugging my arms around my chest and willing myself back together.
Composure. That's what I need if I'm going to find a way out of here. I might have signed my name away, given up my autonomy by signing that marriage certificate last night, but there's just no way I'm going to be stuck here with him for the rest of my life.
To my relief, I woke up this morning to quiet. I tiptoed out of the bedroom to find the cabin empty, allowing me to explore the place. I hate that I found breakfast on the table, as if it could make up for being a prisoner here overnight, served food in the prison cell of that bedroom.
I felt only a flicker of hope yesterday when the bedroom door opened, and it wasn't Damian on the other side. Instead, I'd been visited by a woman with an uncanny resemblance to him, except her features were soft where his are hard.
Dianna.
She said she's his little sister, and I burst out laughing, because I never thought I'd meet her under these circumstances.
He'd told me about her in the past, so it was almost as if I knew her when we met, but the woman who visited yesterday felt like as much of a stranger to me as Damian does now.
But she didn't come to help me. She came to plead with me to go through with the marriage, citing that her brother knew what he was doing.
She was simply an assistant to his crimes, an accomplice, and didn't offer any real support.
Not the kind that I needed. Not the escape I was hoping for.
Now, I'm married to her brother and forced to be under his roof.
I shiver at the thought, but my body feels different as I grab a cereal bar from the cabinet and find a seat at the table.
It feels strange, like embers are glowing just beneath the surface of my skin.
Frowning, I look down at my free hand, turning it over to stare at my palm, as if the lines mapping my skin will lead me to the answer of why I'm feeling like this.
The only time I'd ever felt warm and tingly was after a passionate tryst with Damian in the past, so feeling like this right now is cruel, uninvited sensations flowing through me when the last thing I want is to remember how we used to be.
A gentle knock on the door jolts me, and the untouched cereal bar slips from my fingers and lands on the floor. Not caring who's outside, I reach for the bar, and when I pick it up and straighten, I'm met with a pair of eyes that are almost identical to Damian's, but softer.
“Dianna,” I nod, turning my face away when she walks inside, finally taking a bite of my cereal bar.
“Hi, Sophie, how are you doing this morning?” she asks, her voice oozing a sweetness that repulses me.
I flick my eyes toward her, watching her join me at the table as I chew. I take my sweet time chewing, then swallowing, seeing her notice the untouched breakfast plate and probably gathering that this is an act of rebellion.
“If you're here to check up on me after last night, I can assure you, your brother and I did not have sex.”
Dianna's cheeks bloom with color as she stares at me, wide-eyed.
I hold up three fingers while two remain curled around the cereal bar, chuckling sarcastically.
“Or was consummation part of the deal in exchange for my freedom?
Although it's not really freedom I have to look forward to, is it? I've already signed my name away. For all I know, we’re halfway across the world.”
Dianna is frozen in her shock, only her lips moving to mutter, “You're in Bitterroot Valley, Sophie. He didn't take you out of the country.”
“Oh, wow! Now you tell me!” I chuckle again, rolling my eyes. “What does it matter? We're surrounded by wilderness. I wouldn't even know which direction to run in.”
“North,” Dianna says calmly, pointing at the kitchen window. “Hamilton is north of this area.”
A frown flits past my face, but I'm still wary of the woman, unable to understand why she's telling me this now. Her forced sweetness is unnerving, and I don't trust her.
“Okay. So why are you telling me this now? It's too late.”
Dianna sighs, her eyes dropping and her shoulders slouching bashfully. “Because I don't agree with what Damian did to you. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to talk to you, and—”
“Talk?!” I exclaim bitterly, taking another bite of my cereal bar. “I wouldn't have agreed to this if he were the last man on earth!”
Dianna frowns. “You wouldn't? Why?”
I take a deep breath as I swallow. “You wouldn't understand. I'm not telling you. Just like you're not telling me what this is all about. Why did I need to marry him?”
Dianna sighs as she lowers her gaze again. “It's not my place to tell you, Sophie. I can tell you about our traditions, about the necessity of it all, but it's not my place. Damian needs to tell you this.”
“I'm not talking to him,” I snap with an indifferent huff.
“I don't wanna talk to him. I just wanna understand why I've been forced to marry him. Why me?” my voice cracks with desperation, prompting Dianna to look up with an apology in her blue eyes.
She places her hand on the table, near me, as if reaching out an olive branch of comfort.
I wish I could take it, but I don't trust her.
I don't trust any of them. I just want to hear that I'm not crazy, that my mind didn't make up what I saw that night in Hamilton. But Dianna has said nothing about it, and it leaves me confused. Shouldn’t she be the one trying to convince me that what I saw was real? Isn’t that why she’s here?
Because her brother failed to convince me.
It’s my denial that’s volatile, and now I’m left questioning myself.
Did I make that all up? Did I imagine Damian turning into a monster?
“Because…” Dianna begins with a painful sigh. “The valley is dying, Sophie.”
“What do you mean, it's dying?”
Dianna takes a deep breath, as if swallowing her words, as if she's said too much. She moves her hand to the breakfast plate and pushes it toward me.
“Please eat, Sophie. You may not trust me, and you have every reason not to, but I care about your well-being.”
“I'm not hungry,” I murmur, and take the last bite of the cereal bar.
As I'm chewing, I see the light in Dianna's eyes flickering, her pupils dilating for a few seconds while she remains quiet, almost stunned, before those eyes return to normal.
Almost as if she entered a trance, but it doesn't last long, and when she snaps out of it, she lifts her eyes to mine as she rises to her feet.
“I'm sorry, I must go,” she says with a curt nod.
“Er—okay,” I respond in confusion, watching her leave the cabin through the front door.
What was that?
A small flicker of something in my chest compels me to follow her outside, through the door that's now unlocked.
The sun greets me with a warmth and brightness that has me closing my eyes to bask in my freedom for a small moment, and when I open my eyes, I'm met with the view of the vast wilderness in front of me.
Pine trees and firs spread out for miles, ascending the mountain from the bottom of the valley.
The gushing water of the river sets a serene tone to the surroundings, and for a brief moment, I allow myself to appreciate the beauty of this place.
Even with the cabin near the river being so isolated, the only one that's visible from where I stand, there's a certain calmness I feel settling into my bones.
That faint tingle beneath the surface of my skin remains, warm but not alarming, though still foreign. I look down at my palms, and I must be imagining my veins changing color, like the heat is taking physical form and materializing in a gentle shade of red.
My heart is thundering now as panic sets in, the strangeness of it all frightening me in a way that doesn't feel normal. I take a deep breath as I look away from my palms, lifting my head just in time to see Damian walking out of the forest.
He slows his steps the moment he notices me standing on the porch, hesitation pooling in his crystalline blue eyes, softened by the midday sun rising in the sky, its rays catching him at an angle so perfect it radiates off his skin.
My breath catches when I notice that he doesn't have a shirt on, exposing the gleaming ivory skin that covers his sculpted muscles.
I can't help myself, and admiration outweighs my hatred for him as my eyes rake over his abs, my mind traveling to moments when I used to allow my hands to smooth over his skin.
A surge of awareness rushes through me, burning me up in places that have been lying dormant for two years.
It's as if Damian can sense my thoughts, the corners of his lips twitching as if he wants to smile at me or smirk triumphantly.
I'm not sure what's worse, but I do know that I'm betraying myself by gawking at him like the love-sick fool I was in the past.
I'm about to turn my face away in disgust with myself when I notice how his left arm is no longer bandaged, an open wound now, clutched to his ribs as his face twitches with pain.
There's a part of me that wants to turn and disappear into the cabin before he approaches, but there's also another part that keeps me frozen in place. Perhaps it's a bit of curiosity when I see him injured.
Not care.
There's no way I could care about—
“What happened to your arm?” I blurt out before I can stop myself, regretting the question as soon as it leaves my lips.
It's not like I wasn't aware that he'd been injured—it was evident since the moment I woke up in this cabin on Monday morning.
But it's the first time since I was kidnapped that I feel inclined to ask about it, and the question catches me off guard.
It seems to catch Damian off guard, too, and he pauses on the first step, staring up at me with confusion evident in his eyes.
He takes a deep breath first before he says, “You still don't remember, do you?”
I shake my head slowly, hesitantly, my eyes moving to his arm where a gruesome wound on his upper arm slashes down toward his elbow. The flesh has been stitched together, but it's clear that it's hardly healing, dried blood peeking through the open cuts.
“N-no…” I whisper, and Damian clenches his jaw, the muscle in his cheek twitching as if my response frustrates him.
That's what sets me off, and I turn my face away, crossing my arms.
“It's good to see you outside,” he comments, and I scoff.
“If you're here to make sure I'm not running away, then you'll be pleased to know that I'm not.”
Damian nods—I see the movement in my periphery, hating the way his blonde hair bounces lightly like the main character in a romcom meant to appeal to the female gaze.
“I know you won't run away,” he remarks before climbing the steps of the porch until he reaches the door. He places a palm on the wood, about to push the door open, when I spin toward him and scoff.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Damian sighs, hanging his head.
“You won't understand, Sophie. Not yet, anyway.”
He pushes the door in, but his reply has me so furious, so incredibly irritated that he's still avoiding telling me what any of this is about, that I grab his forearm—his bad arm—and suddenly, a surge of heat flows from my palm.
It's scorching hot, nearly enough to burn him, but instead, the stitches on his upper arm snap.
The flesh knits together like a magical force, suddenly healing him.
I snatch my hand back quickly, pulling it to my chest as I stare at his arm. All that's left is a blush-pink scar where the gruesome wound used to be.
“Sophie…?” Damian gasps as he lifts his eyes from his arm to me. He turns slowly while I'm frozen, shocked at what I just saw happening, and he reaches out toward me. “Your eyes…”
I blink fervently, snapping out of my daze while heat continues to pulse through my veins.
“Don't touch me!” I snap, dodging the hand that comes toward me and rushing into the cabin before he says anything else.
I don't stop until I'm in the bedroom, locking the door behind me and pressing my back against it, trying to steady my racing heart with huge gulps of air.
What the hell just happened out there?
“Nothing…” I breathe through hot pants, shaking my head. “Nothing happened. You're just…stressed…”
But there's a tiny voice that whispers in my mind, the words fuzzy and distorted, but even without hearing them, I can feel what it's trying to tell me.
Something responded to my touch, or maybe, my touch responded to something.
It's something beyond my understanding, beyond my comprehension, and I don’t want to make sense of it. Just like the other night, I'm pushing away every instinct that tells me this isn't a hallucination, even when deep down, I know something is going on.
I'm not the same Sophie I was a few days ago, and it frightens me.
In the end, only Damian is to blame for this.