His To Keep

Five Forget Me Not.

Lily Malen

The chair is too soft. It gives beneath me like it was made to cradle, to soothe, to offer rest—and I can’t trust that.

Comfort is unfamiliar, threatening. My body doesn’t know what to do with it.

I sit straight as a rod, spine tight, neck locked, every muscle held in place like strings pulled taut.

My hands are knotted in my lap so fiercely the skin has gone white and bloodless, and I don’t dare move.

He hasn’t said anything in thirty-seven seconds. I counted.

The silence stretches across the office like fog, thick and sacred and paralyzing. The kind of quiet that clings to cathedral walls and graveyards, where even breath feels like trespass.

He sits behind a desk that looks carved from the bones of ancient trees—black oak, old and polished, the kind of heavy that’s meant to outlive generations.

His posture is loose, elegant in a way that feels dangerous, one arm resting across the desk, the other draped along the armrest like he owns the very air between us. Which he does.

And he watches. Eyes the color of smoke-washed steel, cold but clear, as if nothing escapes them. He hasn’t blinked in a while. I don’t think he needs to. He looks like a man made of stillness. Power without motion.

I hear the echo of the door locking behind me on repeat, the snap of it—clean, final, inescapable.

Then: “So.”

Just one word, and it cuts through the quiet like a blade through silk. His voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to. It glides—low and deliberate, a contrast of velvet and glass, soft enough to draw you in but sharp enough to draw blood.

“Where did you come from?”

The question isn't cruel. Not exactly. But it lands like a weight dropped straight through my ribs. Like being asked to dig through the mud for pieces of myself I’ve buried just to survive.

But I know what to say. We all did. We were trained for questions like this. Coached until the lie felt like truth, until the story lived beneath our tongues like a reflex. Say it with your head down. Say it without blinking. Say it like it’s all you’ve ever known.

My gaze drops to my hands. My thumbnail is bruised from the pressure I’ve been pressing into it. I’m shaking, but only a little. Just enough to remind me I’m still alive.

“Foster care,” I say.

The words taste wrong. Ash and acid and something darker beneath.

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t call me a liar. But he doesn’t believe me either.

“Foster care,” he repeats, slow. Testing it. Tasting the lie.

I nod, careful not to overdo it. Too eager is suspicious. Too casual is dangerous. Somewhere in the middle is where I’m supposed to land.

He leans back, just slightly, and the light shifts across his face—amber and shadowed, catching the hard edges of his jaw, the cold curve of his mouth.

I can’t read him. That’s the part that scares me most. I don’t know what he’s thinking, and I’ve spent my whole life learning how to read the room before it reads me.

Then he says, with nothing but calm detachment, “That’s what they told you to say?”

My heart jerks once.

He knows.

I don’t respond. Silence is safer than a wrong word.

But he doesn't press. Doesn't need to. He files it away behind that unreadable expression, and the fact that he’s willing to let it go terrifies me more than if he had slammed his fist against the desk.

“Fine,” he murmurs. “We’ll pretend that’s true.”

And then he stands.

The movement is smooth, intentional. There’s nothing rushed about him.

He moves like a man who’s never had to prove himself twice.

Like the world already bends when he speaks.

He steps around the desk, and each footfall is quiet on the marble floor—quiet enough that I almost don’t hear it over the pounding in my chest.

“I’ll make this simple,” he says, and every syllable threads itself into my skin like stitching, binding me to something I can’t yet see.

“You’re not in chains. You’re not locked in a cell. You’ll eat when you want. Sleep when you want.”

It’s meant to sound like freedom. But it doesn’t.

It sounds like a trap I can’t see yet.

“But,” he continues, and the tone shifts—cooler now, clipped. “There are rules. Doors that are locked stay locked. If Logan gives you an order, you follow it. No questions. No hesitation.”

I nod. Automatically. The kind of nod that comes from years of being trained like a dog—obedience burned into my spine.

“You’ll do what I ask of you. Without resistance.”

Another nod. Slower this time. Not because I’m unsure, but because I need him to see it. I need him to know I can follow orders. That I can be good. That I won’t give him a reason to send me back.

Because going back isn’t an option. I won’t survive it.

He’s in front of me now. Towering. Closer than I expected. The scent of him crashes into me—expensive cologne wrapped in cold wood smoke and something darker beneath, something male and unforgiving.

He crouches low, bringing us eye to eye. His face is inches from mine, and I don’t flinch. I want to. But I don’t.

He studies me the way men like him study weapons—wondering how sharp the edge is before they draw blood.

“I don’t like things I can’t control,” he says, voice like silk strung tight across a blade. Not loud. Not cruel. Just final.

I nod again, almost imperceptibly.

He doesn’t blink.

“I don’t share what’s mine.”

The words settle deep in my gut like ice. I feel them lodge somewhere between fear and something else I can’t name yet. Something that aches.

My shoulders tremble before I can stop them.

He watches. And then, like it’s a simple observation, says, “You understand?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

His gaze stays on me a second longer. Then he straightens. Walks back to his chair. Sits.

“Good,” he says. “Because you’re mine now, Lily.”

A sentence like a brand.

"And once something is mine..."

He doesn’t finish it like a threat. He finishes it like a vow.

“I don’t let it go.”

He doesn’t dismiss me with a word. Just gestures toward the door, already returning to whatever it was he was doing before I stepped into his world.

And I stand—slowly, carefully—afraid to move wrong, afraid to move too fast, afraid that if I do, he’ll change his mind and send me back to the House, back to the dark, back to Max and the girls with hollow eyes.

But he doesn’t stop me.

He just watches.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Because I don’t know if this is better than where I came from.

I just know I can’t survive being thrown away again.

So if he says I’m his…

Then I’ll be his.

Whatever that means.

The hallways stretch endlessly before me—vast corridors of polished stone and echoing silence.

The air is cold, almost sterile, as if even the oxygen here obeys.

Everything is marble and gold, hard surfaces meant to reflect power, not warmth.

The ceilings arch like cathedrals, impossibly high, as if designed to make anyone standing beneath them feel small.

The windows—tall, narrow things—let in light, but never softness.

I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t ask.

My feet are soundless on the floor as I move.

I pass closed doors, gilded sconces, towering portraits of men with eyes that follow you down the hall.

I turn corners blindly, guided by nothing but the ache of something restless in my chest. Then, like it’s been waiting for me all along, a door gives under my hand with quiet ease.

And for once, something soft greets me.

The moment I step outside, the air shifts. It wraps around me, warm and damp with the scent of living things—soil and dew and the green sweetness of chlorophyll. The quiet here is different. Not heavy like the halls, but hushed like reverence.

Before me stretches a garden. Not a neat little flowerbed, but a hidden world of color and life, blooming in secret behind the walls of marble and stone.

It’s a maze of meandering paths, each one winding through tangles of wild roses, the blooms bursting in shades of pink, crimson, and white.

Vines curl up wooden trellises like they’re reaching for the sky.

Lavender spills out of the beds and hums softly in the breeze, and a weeping willow leans low over a koi pond, its drooping branches brushing the water, scattering petals like whispers.

It doesn’t make sense.

This place, this life—it’s all steel rules and cold eyes, men with guns and sharp smiles. I’ve known only concrete walls, iron locks, and fear. I’ve lived in silence and service. And yet… here, there is color. Texture. Life. Something untamed. Something kind.

I take a step forward, then another. The stone path beneath my bare feet is sun-warmed, smooth, comforting in a way that makes my heart clench.

I keep walking, past snapdragons and foxgloves, past honeysuckle curling along iron gates.

There are butterflies here. Bees. The gentle thrum of a world untouched by cruelty.

My fingers brush over the petal of a white rose, and I freeze.

It’s soft—softer than anything I’ve ever touched. It feels like breath, like innocence.

They never allowed flowers in the House.

Too messy. Too sentimental. But I’d seen pictures—torn pages from magazines, smuggled and hidden beneath floorboards.

I used to press them to my chest and imagine what they’d smell like.

I dreamed of dirt beneath my nails. Of planting something that was mine, that didn’t hurt to touch.

I used to close my eyes and pretend I was in a place just like this.

And now, I’m standing in it.

A breeze rustles through the leaves, carrying with it the scent of jasmine and damp earth. I inhale sharply—real air, not filtered or artificial. It fills my lungs like freedom.

I don’t know how long I wander. It feels like I’ve stepped into someone else’s dream, and I’m afraid I’ll wake up at any moment.

My feet carry me toward the pond, where lily pads float lazily on the glassy surface, and orange koi flash beneath the water like secrets.

I lower myself into the grass, the blades cool and dewy against my legs, and something inside me gives out.

I cry.

Not loudly. Not like in the room, when everything inside me shattered.

This is quieter. A leaking kind of sadness.

The kind you don’t fight. Tears slip down my face, silent and unhurried.

My reflection wavers in the pond, rippled by the wind.

I look like a girl who’s been swallowed whole.

Who’s still being digested by something too vast, too monstrous to escape.

But here, beneath the willow branches, in a garden that shouldn't exist—I don’t feel watched.

Not yet.

°°°°°

Adrian Rossetti

She moves like someone who's never been given permission to move.

Each step is careful, not cautious in the way prey flees, but in the way someone walks through a memory they aren't sure is theirs. Her bare feet kiss the stone path with reverence. She doesn’t rush.

Doesn’t look around like she’s curious or eager to explore.

She walks like she’s expecting someone to yell her name, drag her back by the wrist, tell her she’s trespassing.

Like beauty might be a test she’s destined to fail.

I watch her from the window of the upstairs study, the scotch in my hand untouched. It warms the glass, not my fingers. The air inside is still—quiet in the way museums and tombs are. But outside, through the pane, she's found something the rest of us forgot existed.

She doesn’t even glance back at the house. Doesn’t notice the sleek marble patio, or the glint of the pool catching gray light, or the custom-built outdoor bar that costs more than most people’s homes. She sees none of it. All her attention folds into the garden.

She steps into it like it's sacred.

The grass accepts her without protest. The vines that curl around the archways seem to lean slightly toward her, like even they know softness when they see it.

Her hair—unbrushed, wild at the ends—falls forward as she lowers herself to the edge of the koi pond.

She doesn’t touch the water. Her hand hovers.

The moment is still, fragile, like the air itself is afraid to break it.

Then she cries.

Not with sound. Not with violence. Just quiet tears slipping down her face as if they’ve been waiting years for permission. She hugs her knees, makes herself small. Smaller. As if the world might be kinder if it could forget her.

Something shifts in me. Not pity. Not desire. Just… gravity. Like she’s pulling me toward a part of myself I didn’t know was still alive.

I don’t like it.

The office door creaks open behind me. I don’t turn.

“Do you ever knock?” My voice is flat, distant.

Logan’s reply cuts through the quiet like he’s always belonged in it. “I do. You just don’t hear it over the sound of your soul slowly rotting.”

The soft thud of his boots makes its way toward me. He stops a few paces behind, like always, his presence both relaxed and deliberately positioned. I can feel the grin trying to crawl across his face.

“Oh,” he says. “We’re watching the stray now?”

“Logan.”

“I mean, come on. All that tangled red hair and delicate misery? She’s like a Victorian orphan painting come to life.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He laughs, easy and unbothered. “There it is. Was worried you’d gone soft.”

I glance over my shoulder just long enough to see the glint in his eyes, the casual cruelty he wears like a jacket. But there’s something under it today. Something lighter. Different.

Outside, Lily wipes at her cheeks, not like she’s embarrassed, not like she’s trying to hide it—just absentminded, like it’s become habit.

“She doesn’t even know I’m watching,” I murmur.

Logan steps beside me, leans his shoulder against the frame.

“She didn’t notice the pool either,” he says. “Or the bar. Just went straight for the flowers.”

“I didn’t think she would.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s not interested in what we use to show off. She found the only thing here that isn’t pretending.”

Logan watches her now too. The wind stirs the willow branches above her head. A few petals fall across her lap. She doesn’t brush them away.

“She was lying,” I say.

“About what?”

“The story. Foster care. The delivery was too clean. Memorized.”

He nods slowly. “Somebody coached her.”

“She said it like someone who gets punished for telling the truth.”

“Sounds like someone we used to know.”

“She’s scared of the consequences. But she’s not scared of me. Not yet.”

Logan’s face shifts, just slightly. “Should she be?”

“No. But she will be—if she thinks I'm going to tear apart her whole life just to get to the bottom of it.”

He tilts his head, studies me now more than her. “You’re usually bored by now. You get tired of damaged girls before they finish their second sentence.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You are.”

I look at him, slow and cold. “She’s mine.”

He lifts a brow, but the smile he starts with doesn’t last. “That was fast.”

“She’s mine,” I say again, quieter. Final.

And that’s when he hears it. The tone. The weight of it.

“If someone lied to me about what I was keeping,” I add, “then someone’s going to die bloody.”

“Yeah,” Logan says, softer now. “Heard that before.”

But he doesn’t mock me this time. He studies the girl in the garden, then me.

“She’s different,” he says.

“I don’t even know why,” I admit. “I just looked at her. And something in me—” I cut myself off. The scotch hits the windowsill with a soft click.

“She doesn’t know how to exist,” I say. “Not outside of fear.”

Logan nods, eyes still on her. “She’ll learn. Or she won’t.”

“No.”

He glances over.

“No?” he echoes.

“She’s going to learn. She’s going to speak without rehearsing every word. She’s going to sleep without flinching. She’s going to walk through this house like she belongs in it.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

I look at him, steady. “Then I’ll burn the world to find out who made her like this.”

He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t call me dramatic. Just nods once. The smirk is gone, replaced by something thoughtful.

“She reminds me of a kid I used to know,” he says after a moment. “Used to flinch every time someone raised their hand. Took months to stop.”

I don’t reply. But I see it then—quiet in the corner of his mouth. The flicker of something not quite pity. Not quite protection.

We both watch her for a while, saying nothing.

And for the first time since she arrived, the house feels less like a cage and more like the start of something else.

Something neither of us has a name for yet.

°°°°°

Lily Malen

I don’t hear him approach.

The garden is too still. Too full of quiet movement—wind brushing through ivy, petals loosening from roses, the soft ripple of the pond like something dreaming beneath its surface.

I've been here a while, though how long, I couldn't say.

Time thins out in places like this, where the air feels heavy but kind, where your body doesn't know how to hold still but does anyway.

My knees are drawn to my chest, arms locked around them like a shield I forgot how to lower.

I watch shadows shift across the water, stretching long, then folding in again.

Then boots.

The crunch of gravel behind me is soft but certain. My whole body locks in place before I even register the sound. I don't move. Don't breathe. Muscles wired to the bone. I wait.

“Dinner time.”

His voice is quieter than I expect. Not amused, not sharp. Just… spoken. Like he’s offering something rather than delivering a line. I turn my head slightly, enough to see him standing a few feet away on the stone path, arms loosely crossed, posture relaxed in a way that feels rehearsed.

“I’ll make it,” I say quickly, words tumbling over themselves. “I didn’t know what time I was supposed to—”

Logan tilts his head. Not mocking. Just thoughtful. “It’s already made.”

I blink. “Oh.”

He studies me. Not the way some people do—like they’re measuring what they can take. This is quieter. Slower. His jacket is unbuttoned, the sleeves pushed up. Tousled blond hair, lean frame, something unreadable in his expression. Less danger, more restraint.

“You mean... it’s for me?”

“Yes,” he says, simply. “You eat dinner. That’s how it works.”

I nod. My mind can’t quite wrap around the idea. That something was made for me. That people noticed I was missing. That they… waited.

He doesn’t smile, but something eases in his face. “Come on,” he says gently, and turns.

I follow.

Bare feet silent on cool marble, hands folded tight in front of me.

The halls feel colder now, though maybe it’s just me—carrying the garden’s chill indoors, like it clings to my skin.

We pass through a corridor I haven’t seen before.

The house is too big, too polished. Not lived-in.

Like a place built for show, not memory.

Logan walks a few steps ahead, not rushing me, not checking back too often. When he does glance over his shoulder, there’s nothing sharp in his gaze.

“Adrian probably won’t be joining us,” he says. “So don’t bother looking like you’re about to be executed.”

The attempt at levity is dry, but not cruel. And for a moment, something in my chest unfurls—not trust, not comfort—but the absence of fear. That’s rare enough to notice.

We step into the dining room and I almost stop breathing.

The table is long. Comically long. Too many chairs. Too much space. But only two places are set—white china, gleaming cutlery, a candle flickering low between them like some ritual is about to begin.

My stomach tightens.

Logan moves to the far end and pulls out a chair with a small nod. “Sit.”

I do, lowering myself slowly, spine straight like I’m back at the House. Even here, in this ridiculous palace, I can’t help but try to disappear. If I fold in enough, maybe I won’t be noticed. Maybe they’ll forget I’m here.

He lounges across from me, draped sideways in his chair like it’s a throne he was born into. Easy. Effortless. But he’s not watching me like I’m strange. He’s just here.

Then—the soft sound of a door opening.

Footsteps.

I freeze again. Something instinctive. Something buried.

Logan glances up. Blinks once.

Adrian steps into the room as if the air bends to let him pass. Black clothes, quiet presence, clean lines and a darker intensity that doesn’t need volume. He takes the seat at the head of the table without a word.

The silence sharpens.

“Eat.”

Just that. A command, but not cruel. Not impatient. Just inevitable.

I reach for the fork because I was told to.

Because I don’t know how to disobey when the air gets this quiet.

The plate in front of me is too much—too perfect.

Roasted chicken, vegetables in herbed butter, carrots that shimmer under the candlelight, a golden roll, and something small and sweet tucked beside it like a secret.

It’s a feast. For someone else. It has to be.

Nothing at the House looked like this. Food came on cracked plastic trays, cold before it hit your fingers. You didn’t eat for taste. You ate because if you didn’t, someone else would take it.

My fingers hesitate over the fork. Then I glance up.

Logan’s already eating. Not greedy, not mocking—just casual. He twirls a stalk of asparagus between his fingers before taking a bite. He looks over at me, not smiling but not scowling either.

“You gonna try something?” he asks after a moment. “Or are you just planning to memorize the plate for fun?”

I force a smile. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve barely touched anything.”

“I’m full.”

He raises an eyebrow, not in disbelief but concern. “Off what? Air?”

“Logan.” Adrian’s voice slices through the space like a blade drawn slow. Not loud, but impossible to ignore.

He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t eaten either. He just watches.

Logan leans back slightly, sipping from his glass. “I wasn’t pushing.”

“You don’t need to comment on everything she does.”

“I was just making conversation.”

“She’s not here for your amusement.”

At that, Logan glances at me. Not irritated—thoughtful. Then back to Adrian.

“Wasn’t treating her like a show,” he says calmly. “She just looked like she needed someone to talk like it’s normal. So I did.”

Adrian doesn’t respond. But the tension shifts, if only slightly. Logan turns back to me.

“There’s bread,” he says, voice lower now, more focused. “Best thing on the table, if you ask me.”

My hand moves before I can think. I pick up the roll—warm, soft—and tear off a piece the size of a breath. I taste it.

And something inside me cracks.

It’s so good it hurts.

The salt, the butter, the heat that sinks into my tongue like memory. I chew slowly. Trying not to look like I’m savoring it. Trying not to cry.

Logan catches it. But he doesn’t mention it.

He just leans back again, stretches a little. “Told you,” he murmurs, like it’s a secret between us.

I don’t say anything. But this time, I take another bite.

The room falls into a soft quiet, the kind that doesn’t press. Adrian finally lifts his fork. Logan watches me less now, more content to let the moment pass without commentary. I don’t know what this is yet. I don’t know what I’m meant to be here.

But for the first time since I arrived, I don’t feel like I'm failing a test I didn’t know I was taking.

Just... sitting. Eating. Breathing.

Maybe that’s enough—for now.

After a few more bites, the conversation wilts.

The hush that follows is thick, like dust settling.

I keep chewing slowly, even though I’m not hungry anymore.

I don’t know what’s expected of me—whether I’m supposed to finish every bite or leave some behind.

At the House, everything was counted. Watched.

Monitored. There was no such thing as enough.

Across from me, Logan leans back in his chair, arms stretching overhead as though the quiet is a performance he's enjoying. He looks entirely at ease, like tension is just another flavor he’s used to tasting.

“Well,” he says, pushing his plate away, “since this one clearly isn’t about to launch a mukbang career, maybe it’s time we educate her on the finer things in life.”

I blink. “What?”

He turns toward me with that easy grin—bright, boyish, impossible to read. “You ever watched a movie, doll?”

I tilt my head. “…A what?”

He stops. Blinks once. Then twice, as if waiting for the punchline.

“You’re serious.”

I nod slowly, a quiet pulse beginning to throb beneath my skin. The way he says it makes me feel like I’ve failed a test I didn’t know was being given.

“No way.” His laugh spills out, uncontained but not cruel. There’s no sharpness to it—just disbelief. “You’ve never seen a movie? Not one? You mean, like… a screen? A story?”

I look toward Adrian instinctively. He hasn’t spoken since dinner began. He hasn’t eaten much either. But he’s watching me. He's always watches me. His eyes give nothing. No approval. No disapproval. Just a cold, unreadable silence that could mean everything or nothing.

Is this a test?

Is everything a test?

Logan shakes his head, still somewhere between horror and wonder. “You poor, stunted thing. Alright, that’s it. Come on.”

He stands, brushing invisible crumbs off his shirt and gestures for me to follow. “Movie night, sweetheart. You’re overdue.”

I hesitate. My fingers hover near the edge of my plate. “Should I clean this up?”

His answer is immediate. “Nope. That’s not your job.”

That sentence lands like a dropped plate.

I blink at him, unsure whether I heard it right. Not my job? But everything was always my job. At the House, if you didn’t move fast enough, someone else moved for you—and they didn’t forget.

But he’s already turning, walking away with a loose-limbed confidence that makes it hard not to follow. I rise slowly and trail behind him, the scent of roasted herbs and bread clinging to my hair, my skin, as if the dinner’s trying to stay with me.

The house is quieter now. Or maybe that’s just in my head. Every hallway echoes with footsteps that aren’t mine. Every shadow looks like it might unfold into something sharp. We pass door after door, spaces I don’t recognize, places I’m not sure I’m allowed to see.

Finally, he stops in front of a wide door and pushes it open with his shoulder.

The room inside is soft. Low-lit. Couches the color of old smoke, deep and plush like something meant to swallow you whole.

The far wall is covered by a single flat, black surface so large it seems to warp the room around it.

Shelves filled with strange objects line the edges—little figures, stacks of shiny cases, glowing things I don’t understand.

Logan collapses onto the couch like he’s been waiting for this moment all day. He pats the cushion beside him. “Come on. I don’t bite. Unless provoked.”

I hover for a second, then ease down onto the far end. My body doesn’t know how to rest. Even cushions this soft feel like they might reject me if I breathe too loud.

He picks up a small black device with buttons and starts pressing them. The big screen flashes to life—bright, too fast, too loud. I flinch.

“Okay,” he mutters, scrolling. “No horror. No weird dramas. Nothing with timelines that’ll melt your brain. Let’s find something light. Dumb. Safe.”

I don’t know what he means. None of the words connect.

“What’s a movie?” I ask, voice barely above a whisper.

He pauses. Then turns slowly toward me, eyebrows raised.

“It’s a story,” he says, carefully now, as though explaining to someone made of glass. “But on a screen. Like… a book you don’t have to read. You just watch. It tells itself.”

I stare at the glowing images. “People make those?”

“Yeah.” He laughs again, softer this time. “Whole industries. People win trophies for them. It's a big deal. Welcome to civilization, sweetheart. We’re not all monsters.”

I fold my hands in my lap. They look small here, in this room full of color and noise. “I’ve never… watched anything.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. Just nods, like he believes it. Like he’s already guessed more than I’ve told him.

The screen explodes into color. Music, voices, movement that’s too fluid and too sharp at once.

I lean back instinctively. My eyes can’t track it fast enough.

The colors feel like they’re pressing into my brain, too big, too loud.

The people on the screen laugh. The audience in the movie laughs.

Logan chuckles once, but I don’t know why.

I don’t understand the words. I don’t know what’s funny.

Or what the point is. It feels like standing in the middle of a foreign city, surrounded by signs I can’t read.

I keep my face still. I don’t want to seem ungrateful. Or stupid. I press back into the couch and stay very, very still.

Logan’s still watching the screen when the room shifts.

The air sharpens.

I don’t need to turn to know who it is.

Adrian steps into the room like he’s always belonged here. He doesn’t sit. Doesn’t speak. Just lingers behind us—silent, towering, a shadow with eyes. Watching.

I feel him.

Feel his attention settle on me like weight on my chest. Heavy. Inescapable.

I glance up, slowly, afraid to look him full in the face.

He’s not angry. Not precisely. But his expression holds something colder. Something still and blistering beneath the surface, like frozen glass about to shatter.

He looks at me the way someone might look at a porcelain doll found buried in a ruin—intact, but wrong. His eyes flicker over my face, my posture, my confusion.

And I see it.

Not pity.

Not curiosity.

Disbelief.

As if my not-knowing, my innocence, my softness—all of it—somehow offends him. As if I’m harder to look at for all the things I’ve never seen.

As if I wasn’t meant to be this untouched.

I don’t know what to do. So I sit there, still as stone, watching a screen I can’t understand, while two men I barely know look at me like I’m something fragile placed on a ledge.

Something that might fall.

Something they can’t agree on whether to catch.

°°°°°

Adrian Rossetti

I don’t usually sit at the dinner table.

Not unless there’s something I’m expected to perform.

A signature, a smile, a silent threat. A fucking costume to wear for the sake of peace or intimidation—whichever suits the hour.

The table, like most things in this house, exists more for appearances than necessity. But tonight, I sit.

I take the head of the table without fanfare, without ceremony, like it was built for me, carved from the bones of this goddamn place and molded to fit the weight I’ve grown into.

The chair feels colder than it should. Stiffer, somehow, like it remembers my father’s shape before mine.

Like he’s still haunting the legs of it, watching me from under the lacquered wood.

Across from me, she doesn’t notice. Not at first.

She’s already seated, tucked rigidly into the high-backed chair like she’s been placed there as part of the setting—porcelain, breakable, silent.

Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, her spine painfully straight, every inch of her body so still it aches to look at.

She hasn’t moved since Logan brought her in.

Just that quiet, tight blinking, as though even her lashes are something she’s afraid to be punished for.

Her plate is full. Overflowing, even. Logan saw to it—under my orders.

Chicken glazed in wine sauce, the meat tender and glossy beneath the dim chandelier light.

Steamed vegetables soft enough to melt on the tongue.

A warm dinner roll that still lets off the faintest thread of steam when broken.

And something delicate, something sweet, resting untouched in a porcelain saucer at the edge.

It’s a meal. A real one. The kind people forget to be grateful for.

But she hasn’t touched a single thing.

She stares at the food like it’s a puzzle, not a plate.

Her eyes flick upward, barely a breath toward Logan, then quickly retreat.

Back to the plate. Back to the offering she doesn’t know how to accept.

It's not the food she’s unsure of—it’s the gift.

The fact that it was given at all. That it’s warm and full and meant for her.

She doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t trust herself to deserve it.

It’s not until several minutes pass that her hand moves. She reaches for the roll, cautiously, like it might vanish beneath her fingers or reveal something rotten inside. She tears off the edge of it—not even a bite-sized piece, just a soft corner—and brings it slowly to her lips.

Her jaw moves in a practiced rhythm, chewing small, careful bites like someone trained to make herself disappear with every swallow.

I watch the way she folds into the act of eating.

She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t let herself be seen enjoying it.

She finishes only half, then folds her hands in her lap again, the rest of the plate still untouched.

Chicken. Vegetables. Dessert. All left behind.

Across from her, Logan lets out an exaggerated sigh, pushing his chair back slightly like the silence offends him. “You’d think we were feeding her diamonds,” he mutters, shaking his head. “What a waste.”

But I don’t answer. I barely hear him.

She’s not wasting anything.

She’s enduring something.

And that difference matters. It matters more than I want it to.

Because she’s not just a girl with a broken appetite—she’s a girl who’s been broken around it.

Taught to question anything soft. Anything warm.

Taught to treat kindness like it has teeth.

And I want to know who did that to her. I want to know what she’s been through that made her flinch from a fucking dinner roll like it might strike her back.

I want to know because I see myself in it—and I fucking hate that.

After dinner, I leave them. Or at least, I let them think I do.

Logan drapes an arm across her chair like he owns the air around it, flashing one of his shit-eating grins as he coaxes her from the table with some throwaway line, smug and harmless on the surface—his specialty.

She follows without protest, her movements hesitant, her eyes flicking toward me once before slipping away like a thought she’s not sure she’s allowed to have.

I know exactly where he's taking her. The screening room. Logan’s idea of "culture." An excuse to entertain himself. Or maybe, tonight, a distraction meant for her.

I retreat to the office out of habit more than need. Pour a drink I won’t touch. Watch the slow amber spin in the glass like it might give me answers if I look hard enough. The house is quiet except for the distant echo of her voice, soft and confused, drifting like dust through the hallway.

"...What’s a movie?"

The words stop me.

I don’t move. Don’t blink.

It’s not a joke. Not a game. There’s no forced sweetness in it. Just raw, bewildered honesty. The kind you don’t hear in this house. The kind people like us forgot how to speak.

I imagine Logan’s face—split between baffled amusement and whatever passes for pity in him. He’d never admit it, but it’s there sometimes, tucked beneath the sarcasm.

She really doesn’t know.

I leave the drink on the desk and follow the sound of her wonder.

The lights are low in the screening room, dimmed to gold and shadow. The screen glows across the walls—cartoon faces, overexaggerated voices, too much brightness, too much noise. A safe choice. Logan wouldn’t risk something that might scare her off, not yet. He knows better.

She’s sitting at the edge of the couch like it might collapse beneath her, stiff and silent and small. Eyes wide. Lips parted. Awestruck.

She turns the second I step into the room.

Her gaze finds mine like it was trained to. Like part of her is always aware of where I am, what direction I move. She stiffens immediately—shoulders rising, spine straightening, hands curling into the couch cushion beside her. Bracing.

I don’t say anything.

I cross the room and stop behind the couch, arms folded. I don’t look at the screen. I watch her.

Slowly, she turns back, though her posture remains angled toward me—half-tilted, like she needs to keep me in her peripheral. Like anything less than full awareness might be a mistake.

She’s mesmerized.

And I hate it.

I hate it because I feel something twist beneath my ribs as I watch her eyes follow the motion, the color, the life on the screen like it’s a miracle. Something holy. Untouched. Like she’s been given a glimpse into another world and doesn’t know if she’s allowed to want it.

There’s too much in her expression. Too much wonder. Too much softness. Like no one ever let her believe the world could be more than grey walls and iron voices. Like she's never been allowed to laugh.

And I hate it because I want to preserve it.

Not break it.

Not twist it.

Not weaponize it.

Just... protect it.

The thought alone makes my jaw tighten. I don't protect things. I control them. Use them. I know how to handle fear, loyalty, even love. But not this. Not innocence.

As the movie rolls on, her body starts to give in. Her head tilts. Jerks up. Drops again. The weight of the day pulling her down inch by inch.

Logan notices before I do. His voice is low, amused. “Didn’t even make it to the second act. Damn shame.”

I don’t respond.

She folds in on herself like a leaf curling under heat. Knees tucked, arms drawn close, cheek pressed into the pillow. She’s asleep before I can convince myself to intervene.

Logan shifts beside her and glances up at me, smirking. “You gonna carry her, or leave her there like a discarded puppy?”

I shoot him a look. Sharp. Unamused.

His grin only widens. “God, you’re predictable.”

But I move. Step forward. Bend. One arm beneath her knees, the other behind her shoulders.

She doesn't stir.

She just folds into the motion, weightless. Light in a way that makes something ugly rise in my throat. Like she’s used to being moved. Like she expects to be handled, but never held.

I carry her through the hall in silence.

Past polished walls, cold portraits, chandeliers that throw light but never warmth. Past everything she doesn’t belong to—but is now part of. Whether she wants to be or not.

Her door creaks softly open. The room beyond is quiet, untouched. Still new enough to be unfamiliar, but hers.

I lay her down gently.

She sighs in her sleep. Barely a breath. A sound so small it shouldn’t matter—but it lands like a stone in my chest.

I cover her with the blanket. She doesn’t move.

I stand there longer than I should, watching the way her lashes press against her cheek. The way her lips part just slightly, like she’s still halfway between sleep and whatever dream she’s never had the safety to finish.

I don’t know what this is.

I don’t know what she is.

But I know I’ve already let her too close.

My voice is a whisper—meant for no one.

“What the fuck am I doing?”

I glance down one more time. Her face is peaceful. Soft in a way that doesn’t exist in the rest of this house.

“And who the fuck are you?”

°°°°°

Next one done! I'll be making a few drafts and try to post them regularly.

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