Thirteen Empty House, Empty Soul.
Lily Malen
Five days.
That’s how long it’s been since Adrian left.
I don’t keep track on purpose—not with pen marks on paper or numbers on a clock—but my body seems to do it without asking me.
Each morning I wake with that same dull weight pressing against my ribs, and I know without thinking: it’s another day without him here.
The garden is the only place that feels like it exists in the same world as me.
It’s solid, rooted, unchanging. When I kneel in the damp earth, I don’t feel like I’m drifting—like I might blink and find myself back in a white room with no name and no voice.
Here, there’s color, scent, texture. Here, the air holds the sharp green bite of cut stems and the sweetness of lavender.
The dirt works its way under my nails even through the gloves, though I don’t mind.
The gloves are too big for me, anyway, but I wear them because they make everything feel one step removed—less sharp against my skin, easier to hold.
This morning I woke before the sun and slipped outside while the house still slept.
Dew clung to the hem of my dress. The roses were only just starting to wake themselves, petals loosening from tight fists, stretching toward the first light as if they’d been holding their breath all night.
I moved through them slowly, the shears heavy in my hand, cutting only a few at a time. Never too many. Always careful.
Logan had bought me more vases. More frames, too.
He hadn’t said a word when he set them down on the kitchen counter yesterday—just left them there with a grunt like they were nothing.
But I had felt it. That small, quiet act of seeing me without asking why.
It was the kind of kindness I still didn’t know what to do with.
The kind that didn’t come with a price or a hand outstretched in demand.
Now the house is lined with drying flowers.
Petals strung up in the laundry room like fragile ornaments.
Frames on the table waiting for me to fill them with colors that might outlast the blooms themselves.
And still, it feels like I’m waiting for something else entirely.
Like none of this is the thing my hands are really reaching for.
When I bend to pull weeds, my thoughts slip backward without my permission—to Alex.
She’d be thirteen now. Still there. Still inside those walls I can’t see without feeling my throat tighten.
I picture her in the same faded dress, hair tied too tight, working until her small hands blister.
I wonder if she’s in the same bed I used to sleep in or if they’ve given her to someone else entirely.
I wonder if she thinks of me at all, or if she’s learned—like I had to—that thinking too much about anyone only makes the missing worse.
At night, I still cry for her. I bury my face into the pillow so no one will hear, but the ache never loosens. I’d promised myself I’d forget how it felt to leave her behind. I haven’t. The memory lingers like the smell of smoke on skin—faint, but impossible to wash away.
And beneath all of that—the garden, the flowers, the ache for Alex—there’s something else.
A quiet pull in my chest that I don’t name.
I only notice it because it’s there more when I think of him.
When I pass the empty chair at the table or glance toward the door, half-expecting the sound of his boots.
I don’t know why it’s there. I only know that it’s steady, and that it keeps me looking toward the horizon without meaning to.
I don’t hear Mary at first. The gravel under her shoes is softened by the grass, each step muted, blending into the gentle hum of bees threading through the air.
I’m crouched low in the far corner of the garden, my knees pressed into the earth, pruning dead ends off a twisted rosebush whose thorns catch at my sleeves.
The scent of the blooms lingers faint and sweet, almost lost in the warmth of the afternoon, when her voice drifts through the birdsong.
“You’ve got a good hand for this,” she says, her tone carrying that quiet praise that lands without asking for permission.
I look up.
She’s already lowering herself onto the bench, skirts settling in the dappled light. Her face has that rare softness—the kind that’s not forced, not sharpened by pity, but worn-in like an old quilt. It’s the softness that gives without being asked.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, sweetheart,” she says.
I shake my head. “You didn’t. I just didn’t hear you.”
She studies me for a moment, and I feel it—her gaze carrying the weight of unspoken questions. Curiosity without intrusion, but still heavy enough to shift the air.
“I don’t think I’ve seen Mr. Rossetti’s garden looking this beautiful in years,” she says at last, a smile pulling at her lips. “He won’t say anything, of course. But he’ll notice.”
A small, reluctant swell lifts my chest. “I hope so.”
“You’ve made this place warmer,” she continues, eyes sweeping over the roses, the tidy beds. “Feels like someone actually lives here now.”
I glance down at the flowers gathered in my lap. My fingers tighten on one of the stems without thinking, and the brittle snap cuts through the air. The rose sags against my palm, broken.
“Mary?” My voice is quiet, almost unsure if I should ask.
“Yes, baby?”
“Do you think… he’ll be mad? That I changed things?”
She blinks at me, as if the thought is strange. “Adrian?”
I nod. “I didn’t ask first.”
Her laugh is soft, almost fond. “Adrian’s many things, Lily. But when he cares, you’ll know it. He’s not as cold as he pretends to be. Not all the time.”
I nod again, but the words unsettle something in me—a twist low in my stomach I can’t name.
Silence drapes between us. It stretches long enough that I think she’ll get up and leave.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she asks the question.
“Where did you come from, Lily?”
I freeze.
The words land in my chest like a stone dropped into still water—no malice, no heat, but heavy enough to ripple everything beneath the surface. I wasn’t ready.
My eyes stay fixed on the rosebush in front of me, tracing the lines of its tangled stems, the bite of its thorns. My chest tightens until breathing feels shallow.
“I’m sorry,” Mary says quickly. “You don’t have to tell me anything, darling. You just… you never say much. I thought maybe—”
“No.” My voice is faint. “It’s okay.”
She waits.
I keep my gaze lowered, afraid my voice might shatter if I lift it too high.
“I came from a house,” I say slowly. “Not a home. Just… a house.”
She doesn’t move.
“It was where girls lived. A lot of girls. We were trained—taught to serve, to listen, to become what we were told to be.”
The shears are cold in my hands. I keep my focus on their steel jaws, on the dirt crusting under my nails.
“Trained to provide,” I murmur. “To be women, they said.”
Mary stays silent, but her presence doesn’t waver. I can feel her watching me—not with judgment, but with that same steady warmth that makes it hard to breathe.
“The men came and went,” I continue, the words tasting like dust. “Some stayed longer than others. Some were kind. Most weren’t.”
The shears bite into my palm.
“There was someone in charge. Mr. Klein. He made the rules, gave the orders. We didn’t question him.”
“And if you did?” she asks, voice so soft it almost doesn’t disturb the air.
I swallow. “You didn’t.”
The wind moves through the garden, brushing the rosebushes into a low rustle. I keep my eyes fixed on the dirt.
“You’re safe here,” she says after a long pause. “Whatever happened in that house, it doesn’t own you now.”
The words are meant to comfort, but something sharp twists in me, almost bitter. Doesn’t own me?
I wear a necklace engraved with Adrian’s name. I eat his food, sleep in his bed, live by his rules. Less than a week ago, he pressed a gun into my hands and told me to protect myself while he walked into a room full of men he planned to kill.
And I let him.
I trusted him.
That terrifies me more than anything I left behind.
Mary’s hand slips over mine, her skin warm and work-worn, grounding me to the earth.
“I don’t need to know everything,” she says. “But if you ever need to talk, I’m here.”
I nod because speaking feels impossible.
She gives my hand one firm squeeze before rising from the bench. Her footsteps fade into the garden’s quiet, leaving me alone among the flowers.
I don’t move.
The rose in my lap is broken.
But I keep it anyway.
°°°°°
It had been eight days since Adrian left.
I told myself I wasn’t keeping track. I told myself I wasn’t counting them the way I used to count petals from the roses in the garden—plucking them one by one until the stem was bare.
But my body knew. My body kept score in ways my mind couldn’t ignore. It was in the stillness of the house, in the heaviness of the air that pressed against me at night, in the restless ache that bloomed low in my chest and had no name yet.
And tonight, that ache wouldn’t let me sleep.
The silence downstairs felt too loud, so I drifted through the house like a shadow.
I wandered the way I always did now—barefoot and unhurried, my fingertips brushing the cool plaster walls as though they might hum beneath my touch and tell me they remembered me.
From the linen closet, I’d taken a heavy blanket that smelled faintly of cedar, its weight like a hand pressing gently across my shoulders.
I curled into the velvet couch in the drawing room, folding myself small, the fabric sinking around me as if it wanted to keep me.
The television glowed in the dim, its light flickering across my face. A film I didn’t recognize played in hushed tones—people in strange costumes, falling in love, running from something I didn’t understand.
I understood pieces of it.
The rest felt like looking through a window at a world that didn’t belong to me.
But it was warm.
The room. The blanket. The steady hum from the screen.
I’d dressed in the satin shorts and silk camisole Mary had tucked into my dresser days ago, both in the softest shade of blush.
They caught the light when I shifted, a faint shimmer against my skin.
The camisole was weightless, the shorts brushing high along my thighs.
It was strange—so bare, so unlike anything I’d worn before.
I kept tugging the hem down, pulling the neckline up, but the fabric slid back into place each time. It was what it was.
And still… I liked it. The way it whispered against my skin. The way it felt like nothing at all. Even if I didn’t know whether I was allowed to.
Knees tucked to my chest, the blanket gathered close, my thoughts had quieted into something softer.
That’s when I heard the door.
The sharp click of the lock turning. The slow drag of wood over marble.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.
It was late. Too late. Mary had gone upstairs hours ago, her footsteps fading into the hush of the second floor. Logan had disappeared after breakfast, and I hadn’t seen him since. The house was supposed to be sleeping.
The flicker from the television painted my skin in shifting light.
Another sound.
The creak of the door shutting fully. A low, heavy thud behind it—boots or something dropped onto the floor.
My pulse spiked so fast my vision seemed to tighten around the edges.
It could be him.
But it could also be someone else.
Adrian’s voice returned without warning, low and certain, curling beneath my ribs like smoke.
You’re never safe. Don’t expect to be.
I slid the blanket from my shoulders, and the sudden bite of cool air made my skin prickle. Moving on instinct, I rose from the couch and padded toward the kitchen.
Last time, I’d armed myself with a spatula.
This time, I went for the knife.
It wasn’t large, but it was solid in my hands, heavier than its size suggested. I gripped the handle with both palms, the blade angled low but ready, the way I’d seen people hold weapons in the movies Logan had shown me over a few days, labeled as 'Horror'.
I hated them.
The marble floor was cool beneath my bare feet, grounding me and unsteadying me all at once.
I moved into the hall, each breath shallow, each step careful. My heart was so loud I swore it was bouncing off the walls.
And then—
I saw him.
Adrian.
He was just standing there, framed in the open space near the front door, caught beneath the warm gold wash of the foyer lights.
For a moment, I didn’t think about danger or blood or anything that had kept me awake these last eight nights. For a moment, all I saw was him—Adrian—solid and real, no longer just a ghost in my head.
The sight pulled something loose inside me, something almost like relief, a small exhale I hadn’t known I was holding.
But that relief shifted quickly, because he didn’t look like the man I remembered.
His white shirt hung half-untucked, rumpled and creased as though he’d been wearing it for days.
The collar gaped open, revealing the hollow of his throat, skin shadowed and damp.
Black leather gloves still clung to his hands, smudged with dirt…
and something darker that clung to the creases like it belonged there.
His hair was damp too, strands curling against his temple, as if he’d walked through rain or sweat or both.
And his jaw—locked so tightly I could see the sharp pull of muscle with every shallow breath.
But none of that was what made my heart stutter.
It was the blood.
The dark stain was already spreading, blooming across the left side of his shirt, seeping in slow, steady waves down toward the waistband of his black trousers. It was rich and deep, catching the light just enough to glisten before sinking into the fabric.
My grip slackened without thinking.
The knife slipped from my fingers and hit the marble with a sharp clatter that rang too loud in the stillness.
“Adrian…” His name left my mouth like a confession, breaking in the middle.
His head lifted toward me, sluggish, almost reluctant, and when our eyes met, I noticed they were darker than I remembered—shadowed, the usual sharpness dulled into something heavier.
And then—barely—a twitch at his mouth. The curve of it could have been a smile, or maybe just the grimace of pain.
“Hey, doll,” he rasped, voice rough and low, the sound of gravel under a heavy boot.
He stepped forward once, a slow, unsteady shift of weight, and then stopped.
His hand pressed against the wound at his side, fingers slick and red, blood still fresh and wet enough to catch the light.
My body remembered how to move before my mind did.
One step toward him.
Another.
“Adrian…” My voice came out softer this time, almost pleading. “You’re hurt.”
He made a sound deep in his chest—part grunt, part breath—trying to stay upright, his jaw tightening as though he could hold himself together through will alone. “Just a scratch,” he muttered.
But I could see it wasn’t. The stain on his shirt was too dark, too wide. This wasn’t a wound you brushed off. This was the kind that stole time if you didn’t stop it.
I reached for him, my hands hovering in the air like I was afraid to touch him wrong.
He swayed under the weight of his own body, his boots shifting on the marble.
And then—without warning—his knees buckled.
°°°°°
Heyyyy
So sorry for the borderline cliffhanger.
Actually no I'm not. Love you.
But one thing I just want you guys to notice is that lily has quickly become dependent on Adrian, maybe not him as a person, but as a figure in her life.
She was dependent on the House, Max, the Head of the House. So now that she's not there, she's found someone else to depend on, as in have a heavy controlling figure in her life.
Also sorry for the shorter chapter, I know I usually do longer ones but I really want to let the next scene have it's moment...
You guys are not ready for the next few chapters
I'm also so grateful for you, the reader. It would mean so much to me to hear what you guys think and what you hope to see.
Please vote and leave a comment, means so much to me;)
Love you guys!