Chapter 13
thirteen
Liana
I wake up with my heart already racing.
Not gradually, not slowly coming back into myself, but like something inside me has been pulled tight and held there, my body catching up to it a second later as my eyes open and the room comes into focus around me.
It’s darker than it was before.
That’s the first thing I notice.
The second is that I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep.
That thought lands harder than anything else, because I try to reach for something solid, when I last remember being awake, how long it’s been, how many times I’ve been under like this, and there’s nothing there. It’s just a gap, a missing stretch of time I can’t account for.
My head feels thick, like my thoughts are moving through something slow and heavy, and when I push myself upright the room shifts just enough that I have to grab the edge of the mattress to steady myself.
The chain at my ankle drags with me, the metal scraping softly against the frame, and that’s the only thing that feels sharp, clear, real.
Everything else feels dulled.
Wrong.
The smell hits me next.
Food.
Warm, cooked, something simple that shouldn’t feel threatening but does, because nothing about this is normal.
“Liana.”
His voice comes from the other room, calm and even, like this is routine.
“It’s ready.”
My stomach tightens.
I don’t answer him.
I sit there for a second longer, forcing myself to breathe through the heaviness in my chest, through the slow, dragging feeling in my limbs, because I already know what happens if I don’t move.
The last time I tried to resist him, it didn’t end well.
I swing my legs off the bed, the chain following with that same soft, unavoidable sound, and I stand carefully, waiting for the dizziness to settle before I move.
It doesn’t fully settle.
It just becomes something I can function through.
The cabin feels smaller at night. The walls closer. The air heavier.
He’s already sitting at the table when I step into the main room, a plate set out in front of the chair across from him like this is something normal, something shared, like we’re just having dinner.
I don’t sit.
“I’m not hungry.”
My voice comes out quieter than I want it to.
He looks at me, and I see it immediately, the shift.
“You need to eat.”
“I don’t.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“Sit.”
I hesitate, just for a second, but it’s enough.
He stands.
The movement is sudden enough that it makes my body react before my mind does, my pulse jumping as he closes the distance between us in two strides.
“I said sit.”
His hand closes around my arm and forces me down into the chair before I can pull away, the pressure firm enough that I feel it all the way up my shoulder.
“I don’t want it,” I say, trying to pull my arm back.
He doesn’t let go.
“Eat.”
“I said no!”
His grip tightens sharply, pain shooting up my arm as he leans closer, his voice dropping.
“Eat, Liana.”
Something in his tone makes my stomach drop.
Not anger. Something worse. Expectation.
Like he already knows I’m going to do what he says.
Like this is already decided.
My hand shakes slightly as he releases me just enough to push the fork into my fingers, his eyes staying on me, waiting.
I don’t want to.
I take a bite anyway.
It sits heavy in my mouth, my stomach already turning, but I force myself to swallow because he’s watching me like this is something I owe him.
I take another.
Then another.
Each one harder than the last.
My body doesn’t want it.
I don’t want it.
But I keep going because I can feel him waiting for me to stop.
Waiting to see if I will.
My hands start to tremble, my stomach tightening harder with each bite until I can feel it building, rising too fast.
“I can’t,” I say, my voice unsteady. “I’m going to be sick.”
He watches me for a long second, his eyes searching my face like he’s trying to decide if I’m lying.
Then he leans back.
“Fine.”
The pressure eases just enough that I can breathe again.
My hands move without me thinking.
My fingers find my ring first, twisting it slowly, grounding myself in the feel of it, the familiarity of it.
Then my necklace.
Zach’s.
My fingers close around it, holding it tighter, pressing it into my skin like I can anchor myself to it.
They’re looking for me.
That thought is the only thing that steadies me.
Elijah won’t stop.
Jackson won’t stop.
Zach won’t stop.
My fingers tighten. I hold onto that. I need to hold onto that.
“What are you doing?”
His voice cuts through it. I freeze.
“Nothing.”
His eyes drop to my hands.
To the necklace.
To the ring.
Something snaps in his expression.
“They don’t belong on you.”
The movement is so fast I don’t have time to react.
His hand comes up and grabs the necklace at my throat, yanking it hard enough that it bites into my skin before it breaks, the chain snapping with a sharp crack as it’s torn away from me.
The sudden loss of it hits like something physical.
“No!”
I lunge forward without thinking, my hand going to my neck, but it’s already gone.
He throws it across the room like it’s nothing.
Like it means nothing. Something inside me breaks with it.
Then his hand is on mine, pinning it to the table, hard.
Pain shoots through my fingers as he grips my ring and twists it violently.
“Stop!”
I try to pull back, but I’m slower than I should be, my body not responding properly as I fight him.
“They don’t belong to you anymore,” he says, his voice sharp, almost shaking. “You don’t belong to them.”
“I’m not—”
The words don’t finish.
He forces the ring off anyway, dragging it over my knuckle hard enough that it hurts, the skin catching slightly before it slides free.
I gasp.
It’s gone.
Just like that.
“You belong to me.”
The words land like something rotten.
I pull my hand back the second he lets go, clutching it to my chest, my breathing uneven, my skin burning where he touched me.
The room feels too small.
Too tight. I don’t look at him. I can’t.
There’s a silence after that, heavy and suffocating, before it shifts again like nothing just happened.
“It’s time to sleep,” he says calmly.
“I’m not tired.”
“You are.”
I push myself up from the chair, but the moment I stand, the room tilts sharply, my vision blurring at the edges as my balance slips.
Something is wrong.
More wrong than before.
“You drugged me,” I say, my voice weaker than I want it to be.
He doesn’t deny it.
“You need rest.”
“I don’t—”
My legs don’t hold properly.
He’s already moving, his hand closing around my arm, guiding me back toward the bedroom with that same firm control.
“I can’t let you hurt yourself,” he says, like this is reasonable.
Like this is care. I try to pull away. It doesn’t matter. The bed hits the back of my legs and I fall back onto it, my body too slow to stop it.
The chain shifts at my ankle.
Still there.
Still real.
He lets go of me for a second.
Then the mattress dips. My entire body locks. He’s getting into the bed.
“No—”
The word comes out weak, my limbs heavy, unresponsive as I try to move away from him.
“I said no—”
My body doesn’t listen.
He settles beside me like it’s normal. Like this is where he belongs.
“You’re safe here,” he says quietly.
I feel sick.
Nothing about this is safe.
Nothing about him is safe.
My head is getting heavier by the second, my thoughts slipping before I can hold onto them.
The necklace is gone.
The ring is gone.
That thought hits harder than anything else.
My chest tightens painfully, something cracking open inside me.
I try to hold onto the thought of them, to Elijah, to Jackson, to Zach, to the certainty that they’re coming for me, but it’s getting harder, like the drug is pulling everything down, dragging it away from me.
My eyes close.
Not because I want them to.
Because I can’t keep them open.
And underneath everything, something is shifting.
Time.
It doesn’t feel steady anymore.
It feels like I’m losing pieces of it.
And I don’t know how much is already gone.