Chapter 21
twenty-one
Liana
Waking doesn’t feel like waking anymore.
It feels like being dragged up through something thick and heavy, like my body surfaces before the rest of me does, like my eyes open before I’m fully inside them. The room doesn’t come into focus straight away. It shifts, blurs, settles, and even then it doesn’t feel real in the way it should.
For a few seconds, I don’t know where I am.
Then I feel him.
His mouth presses against my cheek, slow, deliberate, like he’s been doing it for a while before I was aware enough to register it. His hand slides into my hair, fingers threading through it in a way that might have once felt gentle, might have once meant something soft.
Now it makes my stomach turn.
“Liana,” he murmurs, his voice low against my skin. “You’re waking up.”
The sound of my name in his voice lands wrong, too familiar for something that feels this distant, this disconnected. I try to move away from him, but my body doesn’t respond properly, the motion delayed, weaker than it should be.
He doesn’t stop.
His mouth brushes lower, to my jaw, my neck, like this is something he’s allowed to take, something he’s been waiting for.
Something in my stomach twists sharply.
Too fast.
Too sudden.
I turn my head away from him, the movement clumsy, uncoordinated, and then I’m pushing up without really deciding to, my body lurching forward as nausea hits hard enough that it forces everything else out of the way.
I barely make it off the bed before I’m on my knees, my hands catching against the floor as my stomach heaves.
There’s nothing in me.
Or there shouldn’t be.
But my body doesn’t care about that.
It forces it anyway.
My head spins as I cough, my throat burning, my vision blurring at the edges as I try to catch my breath.
For a second, I just stay there.
Still.
Shaking.
He’s beside me almost immediately.
His hand comes to my back, rubbing slow, steady circles like he’s soothing me, like this is something normal, something expected.
“It’s alright,” he says softly. “It’s just your body adjusting.”
I flinch slightly under his touch, the reaction small, delayed, but still there.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
Or he does, and he ignores it.
“This is good,” he continues, his tone calm, reassuring in a way that makes my skin crawl. “It means it’s working. You’re getting them out of your system.”
Them.
The word lands faintly, like it’s trying to mean something more than it does.
I don’t answer him.
I don’t have the energy to.
My head is still spinning, the room tilting slightly as I try to push myself upright, my body slower than it should be, weaker than I remember it being.
He helps me without asking, his hands guiding me back to my feet, steadying me in a way that feels less like support and more like control.
“You need to eat,” he says.
The words barely register.
“I can’t,” I manage, my voice thin, my throat still raw.
“You can,” he replies easily. “You just don’t want to.”
He walks me to the table before I can argue again, his hand firm on my arm, not hurting, but not something I can pull away from either.
The chair presses against the back of my legs.
I don’t remember sitting.
I’m just there.
The plate is already in front of me.
I don’t know how long it’s been. I don’t know when he made it. I don’t know anything except that the smell of it turns my stomach again.
“I’m not—” I start.
His hand slams against the table hard enough to make me flinch.
“Eat.”
The word cuts through everything else. My hands tighten slightly in my lap.
“I’m sick,” I say, quieter now.
“I know,” he replies, his tone shifting back just as quickly as it changed. “That’s why you need to eat.”
He picks up the fork.
I watch it for a second before I realize what he’s doing.
“Open your mouth.”
I shake my head, the movement small, instinctive.
“I can’t—”
His hand closes around my jaw.
Not violently.
But firmly enough that I feel it.
“You can,” he says, softer now, but there’s something underneath it that wasn’t there before. “You just need to stop fighting me.”
My body hesitates.
Then...my mouth opens.
I don’t remember deciding to do it.
He feeds me slowly, the motion controlled, patient, like this is something intimate instead of something forced.
I chew because my body does it.
I swallow because it’s easier than choking on it.
Every bite feels heavier than the last, my stomach turning with each one, my head spinning harder the longer I sit there.
He watches me the entire time.
Pleased.
Content.
Like this is exactly what he wanted.
“See,” he says quietly. “You’re already getting better.”
The words don’t land.
Or they do, but they don’t stick.
“Tomorrow is going to be a special day,” he continues.
The sentence pulls at something in me.
Slow.
Delayed.
“Why?” I ask.
He smiles. It’s soft. Wrong.
“Because it’s the day you and I become one again.”
The words slide into place without weight.
Without meaning.
I blink slowly, trying to hold onto them, trying to understand what he means, but my thoughts don’t connect properly, they slip before I can piece them together.
“I have it all planned,” he says. “Everything. It’s going to be perfect.”
My stomach turns again.
“I can’t eat anymore,” I say, my voice barely there. “I feel—”
My head dips forward slightly, the room tilting with it.
“How many drugs are in my system?” I ask, the question coming out before I fully think it.
He laughs softly.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he says. “I know what I’m doing.”
My fingers curl slightly against my legs.
“It’s just until you stop doing things that get you hurt,” he adds, his tone gentle again. “Then you won’t need them.”
The words settle somewhere distant.
Not close enough to react to.
“Just rest,” he says.
He helps me up again, guiding me back to the bed, his hand steady at my back as I move, my body slow, heavy, like it doesn’t fully belong to me anymore.
The chain shifts when I sit, the faint sound of it dragging across the floor barely registering.
I lie down because it’s easier than staying upright.
Because everything feels like effort. He comes with me.
His hand moves through my hair again, slow, repetitive, his fingers brushing over my skin in a way that’s meant to be comforting.
It isn’t.
It makes my skin crawl. But I don’t move away. I don’t have the strength to. I don’t have the clarity to.
I just lie there, staring past him, letting it happen without reacting to it properly.
His voice continues somewhere above me, talking about the future, about us, about things that don’t feel real enough to understand.
I don’t follow it.
I can’t.
My thoughts drift.
Slip.
Fade.
And somewhere in that space, something shifts. A thought that doesn’t disappear immediately. A feeling that doesn’t slide away before it forms.
If they were going to find me, they would have by now.
It settles slowly.
Heavier than everything else.
If they were coming for me they would have already come.
My chest tightens slightly. What if they don’t know where I am. What if they can’t find me.
What if... I swallow, my throat dry.
What if I don’t get out of this.
The thought sits there. Then everything softens again.
The edges blur. My body sinks further into the bed. And this time, when I close my eyes, it isn’t because I’m fighting it.
It’s because I don’t know how to stay awake anymore.