Lielit
I shivered as I woke, instinctively trying to curl into my bed.
The cold didn’t fade.
I opened my eyes.
My head felt impossibly heavy. I stayed still as my stomach lurched, bile burning the back of my throat. The room was dark—but not my dark. Not familiar. Stone loomed where walls shouldn’t have been.
Panic stirred, sharp and nauseating.
Think.
I’d been in the office—
These walls were ancient. Rough-hewn. Close.
I tried to sit up. A violent cough tore from my chest, forcing me back down as dizziness slammed into me. I lay there, breathing shallowly, waiting for the spinning to slow… for the sickness to ease.
It didn’t.
“Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?”
His voice echoed in the confined space, sharp enough to make me clutch my head.
Prothero.
Seven weeks. We’d thought we were free of his madness.
How foolish of me.
I forced my eyes open.
He stood over me, hands tucked casually into his trouser pockets. Another immaculate suit—dark grey this time, paired with a stormy blue tie. Polished. Precise.
Civil.
Only now, the civility was a mask worn with confidence. With ownership.
“I have you,” his posture said, even if his mouth didn’t.
He thought he’d won.
“Why?” I croaked, my throat raw, my voice barely there.
“Because I can,” he said, turning away.
Fear stabbed at me as I heard his shoes click against the stone.
I almost begged him to stop. To let me go, but I forced the words away.
He would relish in me demeaning myself. Any posturing to him would feed his sadistic beast. I shut my eyes, listening as a door creaked open.
Slam.
My body jumped, and I heard the heavy metal clink as he locked the door.
Please don't, I wanted to cry. It would be futile. I felt the tears burning beneath my clenched eyelids, but I refused to let them fall.
I refused to let this monster win.
Silence followed, thick and unbroken. I didn’t know how long I lay there with my eyes closed, letting my thoughts drift where they wanted.
They went to my family first. To work. To everything I’d built.
What surprised me was the regret that crept in afterward.
Not spending more time with the people I loved. The holiday my parents had begged me to take last year—one I’d brushed off because I was too busy. The afternoons I could have spent with my grandparents, but didn’t, because I was locked away with spreadsheets and formulas.
Her Glow had been my baby. My pride. A massive part of who I was.
Yes, I was successful—but what was success if I hadn’t actually lived?
There were months where eighteen-hour days were normal, especially when the plant was being set up. I’d convinced myself I had to manage everything. That if I loosened my grip, it would all fall apart.
Now, lying here, I wondered what I’d traded away without even noticing.
?
?
?
Once I felt strong enough, I pushed myself upright on the mattress.
Something tugged at my ankle.
I looked down.
A cuff of tanned leather encircled my leg, a padlock threaded through a curved metal hook. My gaze followed the chain to where it disappeared into a rusted iron loop embedded in the stone wall.
Chained.
Like a criminal.
Wasn’t that what places like this had been built for?
I checked myself next—relief cutting through the panic when I realised I was still dressed. Skirt. Blouse. Tights. I shifted my feet and discovered one shoe was missing.
In the grand scheme of things, that barely registered.
I scanned the room again and caught a faint, blinking light in the corner. My stomach twisted.
Without thinking, I grabbed my remaining shoe and hurled it. It missed by a mile—but the act itself felt good.
Fuck him. And his camera. Creepy bastard.
My fingers pressed into my temples as my eyes landed on the bucket.
No matter the crime, no one deserved to be kept like this.
?
?
?
There was no sense of time—no way to tell if it was day or night. My thoughts spiralled between my parents and grandparents, imagining their anguish, and the colder possibility that he might leave me here to starve.
The bucket suggested otherwise, yet the absence of heat or food made me doubt my own logic.
The mattress was new. I could smell the plastic beneath it. The thin cotton sheet bore neat, parallel creases—unused. Even the blanket looked untouched, folded with care, but it wasn’t enough to cut through the cold.
Perhaps I was his first prisoner.
The thought settled heavily.
My father had uncovered fragments—disjointed connections that led nowhere solid.
Blaidd Prothero was everywhere and nowhere.
He knew people in nearly every industry, public and private.
Deeply embedded in government institutions, yet always behind the scenes.
No photographs. No interviews. A man who understood power well enough to avoid visibility.
Time dragged.
And then it clicked.
The camera.
Fuck.
He was waiting for me to break.
He was waiting for me to beg.
?
?
?
I shivered, rocked, and murmured the prayers my grandmother had taught me when I was young. In the silence, memories flooded in—unbidden, relentless. Perhaps it was because I believed this was where I would meet my end.
I had been blessed with an extraordinary family. Yes, they were nosy and opinionated, but growing up surrounded by my parents and grandparents, I’d been given more love and security than I could ever repay.
I was almost proud of myself for resisting the urge to raise my middle finger at the camera.
What I did not do was beg.
The bucket was what nearly broke me. The humiliation of it. The way my stomach twisted as I forced myself to use it. I hated myself for feeling grateful for the toilet paper afterward.
That shame curdled into anger.
Eventually, exhaustion claimed me. I slipped into a restless, fractured sleep, my head throbbing, my body aching. Just before my eyes finally closed, a low, soothing growl threaded through the darkness—unnerving and impossible—and then everything went quiet.