Chapter 47
I don’t sleep. Not properly. Not really. I drift in and out of fractured memories and waking nightmares, each one sharper than the last. The cell is too cold, too still, the kind of stillness that feels like it’s waiting to become something far worse.
I dream of water, of the beach. Abbie’s honeymoon, the sun on our skin, the laughter and champagne, and how it had felt like a quiet goodbye to any sliver of hope I’d had that Matt and I would ever work out.
Then it shifts. The waves recede, and I’m in a chapel instead, watching Matt stand at the altar in a suit that should have been mine to admire.
I see him lift the veil over Gianna’s head, slip the ring onto her finger, and the world lurches, nausea curdling in my stomach.
I wake with a gasp, heart hammering, lungs burning as I try desperately to slow my racing pulse.
The other girls are clustered around me, shadows in the dim light, each in various stages of waking. Their faces are blank, weary, but even through the exhaustion, I can see the shared fear, the unspoken question lingering in all of us—how long, and what next?
My body aches from the hard floor, from sitting too long, from every tense muscle I haven’t allowed to relax. My wrists tingle where I imagine I was bound yesterday. It’s an unwelcome reminder of how small and powerless I feel. How easy I was to trick. How fucking stupid I was.
I pace in the limited space, counting the cracks in the concrete wall, memorising the angles of shadows that stretch across the floor with the slow movement of the sun outside.
The air is stale, carrying a faint metallic scent I can’t place.
I’m not sure if it’s fear or blood or if I’ve just lost the ability to distinguish between the two.
I try to sleep again, pressing my cheek to the cold wall, hoping exhaustion will swallow me whole, but every time my eyes close, the memories claw back in sharper, faster.
The chapel. Gianna. The beach. Matt’s face, that impossible mixture of warmth and betrayal, haunting me like a ghost I can’t exorcise.
From somewhere deeper in the cell, one of the other girls shifts, letting out a soft, broken moan. Instinct claws at me to reach for her—to offer even a scrap of comfort—but lifting my arms feels like dragging iron through mud. And wasting energy is a luxury I don’t have.
So I curl my hands into fists instead.
I squeeze until my nails cut crescents into my palms, until the tremor in my fingers steadies into something sharper. Something that keeps me from sinking into the cold on this floor.
Because if I hold on long enough—if I survive long enough—I’m going to use these hands.
On whoever did this to me.
On the monster who dragged me from the life I knew, the life I was fighting for.
I picture my fingers closing around his throat.
Feel the imagined give of his windpipe under my grip.
Hear his panic instead of mine.
The thought is the only warmth I have left.
Hunger gnaws at my stomach, though it’s not food I want.
I want Matt. I want the normality of his presence, his voice, the rare softness he allows himself around me.
The thought twists into panic. I can’t hear him, can’t see him.
I don’t even know if he’s searching, if anyone knows I’m here. If anyone even knows I’m missing.
I press my forehead to the wall, breathing shallow, telling myself to focus. Survive. Observe. Wait.
Minutes stretch into hours. Each sound—the distant drip of water, a shuffle of feet, a low cough—sets my heart hammering.
I try to catalogue them, mark the patterns, and figure out when the guards change shifts outside the door, assuming there is a guard stationed there around the clock.
Logic is the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity.
That, and the stubborn, pulsing flame in my chest that refuses to let fear fully consume me.
I am small. I am trapped. I am terrified. But I am not broken.
And though I don’t know if I’ll survive the day, or if the next day will bring something worse, I cling to one mantra with iron teeth: I will find a way. I will survive. Matt will come for me.
Even in this cell, even in this dark, cold cage, that thought is mine. That hope is mine. And no one, no one, can take that from me.
Time crawls. Every minute stretches taut, each second threatening to snap. Has it been hours or days? I can’t tell. I have no way to measure how much time they’ve already stolen from me.
I hover near the wall, knees drawn up, fingers tracing the cold concrete, counting the cracks, the shadows, the faint imperfections in the paint.
Hunger is there, gnawing at me, but not the kind that can be fed with food.
I’m starving for information, for movement, for any sign that someone is searching for me or that someone is about to make their next move.
The cell is quieter than usual just the low creak of pipes and the faint drip in the corner.
The three of us sit close, knees touching.
Alice picks at a loose thread on her slip while Niamh—the girl with the fiery red braid—leans back against the wall, eyes half-open but alert, listening the way someone does when they’ve learned danger by sound.
“They won’t keep us forever,” Niamh whispers, mostly to convince herself. “Someone will come, they have to.”
Alice scoffs softly. “You think these people leave witnesses? We’re as good as—”
“Don’t,” I cut in sharply. “Not now.”
She presses her lips together, but the bleak understanding in her eyes says what she won’t. Part of her has lost hope—and after a decade, who could blame her?
Niamh leans into me. “Lily… do you really think—”
Before she can finish, the sound of the lock turning makes all of us freeze. Niamh’s hand clamps around mine. Alice sits up straighter, shoulders pulled tight, a harsh frown etched across her face.
“That’s not food,” she whispers, shifting slightly to shield some of the younger girls from view.
The door swings inward, light flooding the cell, outlining the shape of a guard—no, four, pushing inside with purpose. One guard is bad enough, four is unthinkable.
“You.” The one in front lifts a finger, pointing directly at me. “And her.” His chin jerks toward Niamh. “Up. Now.”
Niamh’s terrified whimper cracks something inside my chest.
Alice lunges before thinking. “No, take me instead—”
A guard shoves her back so hard she slams against the wall with a pained hiss.
“Stay down,” he snaps.
I pull Nimah behind me even though it’s useless. “Why us? What do you want?”
The lead guard steps right into my space, close enough that his breath brushes my cheek. “It wasn’t a request. Move.”
Niamh is already shaking as they grab her arm. She stumbles, crying, but the guard doesn’t slow. I twist to help her, only to feel a hand clamp around the back of my neck, steering me forward.
“We can walk,” I grit, trying to shake his sweaty palm off me.
“Then walk,” he says, his hot breath fanning across the back of my neck and sending repulsed shivers down my spine.
Sharing one last look with Alice, I feel the mantle of protector shift to me.
Niamh might have been here longer than me, but somehow she’s clung to some of her innocence, and I’ll be damned if anything happens to her on my watch.
We’re herded up a flight of stairs, the cell door slamming shut behind us with a finality that makes my stomach drop. Niamh keeps looking back, like she expects someone—Alice, maybe—to come charging after us.
But no one does.
The guards flank us on all sides as we’re pushed up a wide staircase and into a corridor lined with heavy metal doors.
Everything here feels too clean, too polished, like the building above is pretending it isn’t sitting on top of a dungeon.
I try to look for clues along the way, but with them on all sides of us, it’s hard to see little more than their guns and scowls.
A final shove sends us into a room that smells of jasmine tea and citrus polish—too clean, too deliberate. The door slams shut behind us, the sound swallowed by the high ceiling.
One look around the space makes it obvious this used to some kind of canteen.
The space is long and bare, walls tiled halfway up in institutional white, the rest painted a tired, peeling cream.
High barred windows line one side of the room, all of them cracked open just enough to let the cold air creep in, the wind stirring the curtains.
The glass rattles faintly in their frames, a nervous, restless sound.
At the centre sits a long metal table, bolted straight into the concrete floor—industrial, immovable, designed for order and control rather than comfort. I imagine there used to be long benches on either side, but they’ve been stripped away and replaced with wooden chairs.
The table is set for four. One chair at each narrow end, two along the side with their backs to the door, no way to see who’s coming without twisting around, without exposing yourself. Starched linen, porcelain cups, and silver spoons laid with obsessive precision.
A tea service pretending it isn’t a trap.
The effort is almost worse than the cruelty. This staged normality, this grotesque imitation of domestic calm in a place built to break people, makes my scalp prickle. My fingers itch with the urge to sweep it all onto the floor, to tear through the illusion and expose the rot beneath.
Because nothing about this room is meant to comfort.
It’s meant to remind us who has control.
Antonio sits at the head, elbows resting neatly on the table, fingers steepled. His dark suit is spotless, hair neatly styled. But none of it can disguise the slimy look in his icy eyes or the way he looks at us a little too long.
“How lovely that you could join me,” he drawls. “Sit.”
Niamh starts shaking her head. “Please—we didn’t—”