Chapter 8
eight
Liana
Consciousness returns in uneven pulls, dragging me upward through something heavy, my body slow to follow, like it hasn’t decided whether it wants to wake at all.
At first there’s no shape to anything. Just a distant awareness that I exist again, suspended somewhere between nothing and something, without any sense of where I am or how I got here.
Then the world begins to settle around me.
Cold presses into my back.
Not soft, not shifting, hard enough that it feels like it’s been there for a long time, seeping through my skin, anchoring me in place before I understand what it is.
My head aches in a slow, heavy pulse, something deep behind my eyes that makes everything feel slightly out of sync. When I swallow, it takes effort, my throat dry, the movement dragging behind the thought that tells it to happen.
I stay still.
Not because I choose to.
Because moving doesn’t feel fully available to me yet, like my body is there but not entirely mine.
My fingers twitch.
The movement is small, weak, dragging against something that doesn’t give, and the second I feel it, something in me sharpens without warning.
I try to push up. My arms don’t follow.
There’s resistance. Immediate. Solid.
My breath catches as the fog fractures and my eyes open.
The light is too bright, too direct, forcing me to squint as the room resolves around me in fragments that don’t belong together. A ceiling I don’t recognize. Flat, pale, bare. A faint electrical hum that presses into the ache in my skull.
I turn my head too quickly and the room tilts, the movement sending a wave of dizziness through me that makes my stomach twist.
Concrete.
Bare walls.
Nothing familiar.
My wrists pull before I can stop them, instinct taking over, the restraints biting into my skin as they hold firm no matter how much force I put into it.
My heart is already racing.
Too fast.
Too loud.
The memory lands at the same time.
The door.
The flowers.
Then something shifts behind me...everything in me locks.
Footsteps. Close enough that I can feel the space change around me before I even see him.
“Liana.”
The sound of my name lands like something physical, cutting through everything else, familiar in a way that doesn’t belong here.
For a second, my mind doesn’t catch up. It reaches for something else, something that fits that voice in a different place, a different time.
I turn my head.
Slowly.
Carefully.
And when I see him, my stomach drops.
Paul.
The reaction is immediate, my stomach twisting sharply, my chest tightening so fast it almost knocks the breath out of me.
Of all people...Him. My ex.
He stands a few feet away, watching me like this is something expected, something he’s been waiting for, not something he’s done.
Relief moves across his face when our eyes meet.
Relief.
“There you are,” he says softly, stepping closer. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to wake up.”
My throat feels tight.
Dry.
I don’t answer straight away. I just look at him.
Because nothing about this fits.
Not him.
Not here.
Not after everything that ended between us.
“Paul…” My voice comes out quieter than I expect, rough at the edges.
Something in his expression settles when I say his name, like I’ve confirmed something he needed.
“Hey,” he murmurs, lowering himself slightly so he’s closer to me. “You’re okay.”
The words land wrong.
Everything about this is wrong.
My hands flex against the restraints, but I keep the movement small, controlled.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Why am I here?”
He studies me for a second, head tilting slightly, like the question doesn’t quite make sense to him.
“I had to bring you here,” he says. “You weren’t listening.”
My stomach tightens.
“That’s not an answer.”
Something flickers in his expression, tightening briefly.
“I gave you space,” he says, like he’s correcting me. “After everything. After we ended, I didn’t come near you. I let you settle.”
The words land slowly, wrong in a way I can’t immediately place.
“I ended it,” I say.
His jaw shifts.
“That’s what you think happened.”
My pulse ticks higher.
“You wanted to be alone,” he continues, like he’s explaining something simple. “So I made sure you were.”
The words don’t make sense at first. Then they do. Cold. Sharp.
The video.
My chest tightens.
“You did that so no one would touch me,” I say, the understanding settling in fully now.
His expression eases.
Finally.
“Yes,” he says. “And it worked.”
My stomach drops.
“You stayed out of the public,” he continues, something almost pleased threading through his voice. “You stopped putting yourself in situations where people could take advantage of you. You were… better.”
Better.
The word lands heavy.
“And then you started again,” he adds, the shift returning, the edge creeping back in. “Going out. Meeting people. Letting them get close.”
Elijah.
Jackson.
Zach.
The names sit unspoken between us.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say, my voice tighter now.
His expression hardens.
“I do,” he replies. “Because you’re mine.”
The words land clean.
Final.
My hands go still against the restraints.
“That’s not how this works,” I say.
“It is,” he says, stepping closer. “It always has been.”
My chest tightens.
“That’s not what it was,” I push, the words coming out before I can stop them. “We weren’t good, Paul. You weren’t even happy with me.”
The shift is immediate.
Sharp.
“I was trying to make you better,” he snaps, something breaking through the control. “That’s what you never understood.”
The air feels tighter.
“You wanted me to change everything,” I say, the memory slipping out before I can stop it. “What I wore, who I spoke to, what I did...”
“Because you needed it,” he cuts in, his voice rising just enough to fill the space. “You didn’t know how to be what you could be. I was helping you.”
My pulse is racing again, the rhythm uneven now.
“That’s not helping,” I say.
“It is when you stop fighting it,” he replies.
I can feel it. That edge. The way he tips. I don’t push further.
I let the tension drop just enough, forcing my shoulders to ease, forcing my breathing to steady.
“Okay,” I say carefully. “Then… what now?”
For a moment, something shifts in him.
Softens. Relief threading back in.
“Now we fix it,” he says, quieter again. “We go somewhere new. Just us. No one else interfering. No one else getting in the way.”
My stomach tightens.
“Where?” I ask.
His mouth curves slightly.
“You’ll see.”
He reaches for something beside him and I don’t notice what it is until he steps closer, until the smell hits first, water, something faintly metallic from the container in his hand.
“You need to drink,” he says, like it’s obvious.
I pull back instinctively, my body reacting before I can stop it, the restraints tightening as I try to move away.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he says, the softness slipping slightly. “You’ve been out for hours.”
“I said I’m fine.”
His expression shifts. Not fully. But enough.
“Liana,” he says, sharper now. “Don’t make this difficult.”
I shake my head, the movement small but immediate.
“I don’t want it.”
That’s all it takes.
His hand comes out of nowhere, fast enough that I don’t see it until it connects, the impact snapping my head to the side as pain bursts sharp across my cheek.
The room tilts violently, the world shifting out of alignment as dizziness crashes through me, my vision blurring at the edges.
For a second I can’t process it.
The sound.
The force.
The way everything goes slightly distant.
“I told you not to fight me,” he says, his voice cutting through the haze.
My ears ring.
My body feels slow again, heavier than before.
I try to pull away but the movement barely registers, my limbs not responding the way they should.
Something sharp pricks my arm.
I don’t even see it happen.
Just feel it.
A pressure.
Then warmth.
“No—” The word comes out slurred, delayed.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, his tone soft again, like nothing just happened. “I can’t let you hurt yourself like that.”
The words don’t make sense. Or maybe they do.
My head feels heavier, the edges of everything starting to blur again, the room slipping slightly out of focus no matter how hard I try to hold onto it.
“Stop…” I manage, but it doesn’t carry any weight.
My body isn’t listening anymore.
He moves closer, his presence filling the space in a way that feels inescapable now, his voice dropping lower as the world starts to fade.
“Tomorrow,” he says quietly, close enough that I feel the words more than hear them. “We’ll be home.”
Home.
The word drifts.
“I’ve spent the last twelve months getting everything ready,” he continues, his voice soft, certain. “Somewhere no one can find us. No one can take you from me again.”
My thoughts feel slow now.
Heavy.
Like they’re slipping through my fingers as I try to hold onto them.
“We’ll start over,” he murmurs.
Start over.
The room tilts again.
Darkness creeping in at the edges.
My body sinking back into the cold beneath me, heavier than before, harder to move, harder to fight.
I try to hold onto something.
Anything.
Elijah.
Jackson.
Zach.
The names slip through me like something distant, something I can’t quite reach anymore.
And then everything goes dark again.