Chapter 4
RAVEN
Damien hasn’t let me out of his sight for three days.
Not to shower.
Not to sleep.
Not to breathe.
The clamp is gone, but his grip is worse.
The new one is metal—an unyielding weight around my ankle, cold and constant, a reminder that he replaced something temporary with something permanent. He locked it on the second night—tight enough to bruise, chained to a bolt he drilled straight into the bedroom floor.
I still remember the sound of the drill biting through the boards, the way he held the cuff in his hand like it was something sacred.
He didn’t ask.
He didn’t explain.
He just locked me down like I’m something that needs to be kept.
I didn’t fight him.
Not once because I think I want to be kept.
I think I want to be his.
Even if I’m starting to forget what I was before him.
Before the cage.
Before the lock.
Before the chain’s cold bite became part of my skin.
He doesn’t sleep anymore. Not really.
He paces.
He stalks.
He hunts through the feeds, the records, the static, chasing the ghost that’s unravelling him thread by thread.
He hasn’t told me what he found but I hear him talking to himself.
Low. Sharp. Fractured.
Snapping orders to no one.
Repeating the same phrases under his breath until the words lose their shape, until they’re nothing but sound scraped raw.
His knuckles are raw.
His boots still stained.
His mouth still tastes like blood when he kisses me—metallic, warm, the taste of someone who’s been fighting shadows and losing sleep.
The chain rattles every time I shift, every time I try to move just enough to stop the cold metal from biting into my skin. The sound follows me through the room, an echo, a tether, a reminder.
I don’t ask for the key.
I don’t ask to leave.
I don’t want to leave.
Damien’s losing something now.
Not just time.
Not just control.
Something deeper.
The way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking—like he’s memorising the shape of me in case I disappear.
The way his fingers trace the chain like it’s not tight enough, like he needs to feel the metal to believe I’m still here.
The way he checks the door lock fifteen times in an hour, each click louder than the last.
He’s slipping and I think I like the sound of it.
The slow, quiet break.
The unravelling of something he’s held too tightly for too long.
He drags me out of bed on the fourth day.
Doesn’t speak.
Doesn’t give me time to steady my breath.
Just pulls me across the apartment with the chain clinking behind me, each step a reminder that wherever he goes, I go too.
The surveillance room door slams behind us.
The monitors buzz.
The feeds flicker.
The third screen glitches.
And then—A new message appears.
Typed in real time.
Right in front of us.
Good morning, Damien.
Did you tell her?
Does she know you begged first?
My stomach drops.
My pulse skips, tripping over itself.
“What does that mean?” I whisper.
Damien’s jaw locks, the muscle jumping.
His hands clench at his sides.
His breath rakes sharp through his chest—too fast, too rough.
He doesn’t answer.
He flips through the feeds, his movements sharp, violent, desperate, like he’s trying to tear the message out of existence by moving fast enough.
But the message keeps typing.
The cursor blinks.
Slow.
Mocking.
I remember you, little boy.
I remember the way you prayed for me.
I remember the sound you made when you cried.
Does she?
My blood runs cold.
Damien grips the edge of the desk until the veins in his forearms stand out, stark and blue beneath the skin. His breathing fractures. His teeth grind until I hear the dull crack of enamel meeting too much pressure.
The message doesn’t stop.
She should know, Damien.
She should know you were mine first.
You begged first.
You cried first.
You broke first.
His knuckles split against the desk, skin tearing, blood smearing across metal.
“Damien—” I whisper, stepping closer, the chain dragging like a warning across the floor.
His chest heaves.
The next line bleeds across the screen.
You’re still mine.
You’re still a good boy for me.
Damien moves before I can breathe.
He hurls the monitor across the room—the crash violent and explosive, glass shattering, metal twisting, fragments skittering across the floor like teeth.
His hands fist in his hair, pulling, dragging, tearing at the roots like he’s trying to rip something out of his skull.
He’s unravelling.
He’s shaking.
He’s choking on something I can’t see.
“Damien—”
He snaps toward me, wild, wrecked, feral.
His hands slam into the wall on either side of my head, trapping me there, caging me with the force of his panic. His eyes are blown wide, unfocused, his pulse snapping in his throat like it’s trying to escape his skin.
“You don’t read those messages,” he hisses, voice sharp and cracked, breath ragged.
My heart skitters.
My throat tightens.
I don’t look away.
“I already did.” His chest convulses, a sharp, broken inhale. “I need to know what it means.”
“No.” His hand fists in my hair, dragging my head back with a force that’s desperate rather than cruel. “You don’t need to know.”
“Damien—”
His grip tightens.
His forehead presses to mine, his breath shuddering, his whole body vibrating with something jagged, something splintered beneath the skin.
“I won’t let him take you.” His voice fractures, too thin, too raw.
“I won’t.” His other hand fists the chain on my ankle, tugging it, grounding himself with its weight.
“I’ll lock you so tight he can’t fucking breathe near you.
” His chest crashes against mine—desperate, dangerous, drowning. “I’ll bury you in me.”
And God—I want him to.
I think I want to be buried there, in the dark part of him, the part that’s breaking open like a wound.
Even if he’s breaking.
Even if he’s slipping.
Even if there’s a part of him I’m not allowed to see yet.
His thumb drags across my lip, slow, trembling.
“Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
“Say it louder.”
“I’m yours.”
“You’ll never leave.”
“I’ll never leave.”
“You’ll never believe him.”
“I’ll never believe him.”
His mouth crashes to mine—savage, filthy, frantic—like he’s trying to swallow the message, the memory, the fear. His grip drags me closer until I feel like I’m folding into him, sinking into him, disappearing inside the fracture line he’s been hiding.
The monitor buzzes again.
A final message blinks across the cracked screen.
Good.
Keep her locked up, little boy.
I like to watch you cage yourself.
Damien’s breath shudders.
His lips drag over mine.
His voice cuts sharp, savage, broken:
“I’ll find him.” His hands fist the chain tighter. “And I’ll burn him properly this time.”
The monitor buzzes again.
Damien’s thumb drags across my lip like he’s wiping something away—something he doesn’t want me to see.
Something I see anyway.
The crack in his ribs.
The tremble in his breath.
The echo of something he’s been running from so long he doesn’t know what it feels like to stop.
I don’t touch him.
Not yet.
Because he doesn’t know what to do with soft things.
But I need him to.
“Damien,” I whisper.
His grip on the chain tightens.
His breath stutters.
“Don’t,” he says, low, desperate.
His eyes flick to mine—sharp, manic, pleading.
“Don’t ask.”
I step closer.
Slowly.
Softly.
I press my palms to his chest, feel the war drum of his heart beneath my hands—the frantic, uneven rhythm of someone trying to hold back a flood with bare hands.
“I need to know.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice breaks. “You don’t want to know who I was.”
His hand snaps up, gripping my throat—not cruel, not choking—just enough to hold me there, to keep me steady before I get too close to the truth.
“I know who you are now.”
“You don’t.”
His jaw ticks.
His breath catches.
“I’m the lock. I’m the chain. I’m the cage.”
“You’re more than that.”
His throat bobs.
His grip trembles.
“You won’t love me when you know.”
The weight of the words crushes the space between us.
“You’re wrong.”
His forehead presses to mine.
His breath sharpens.
His voice is a crack.
“You’ll run.”
“I won’t.”
“You’ll see me the way he did.” His voice fractures. “You’ll see me as something small. Something easy to control. Something that liked it.”
His hand falls from my throat like the touch burns him.
“He told me I was good when I stayed.” His voice is a cracked whisper now, unravelling, thinning. “He told me I was bad when I ran.”
My breath shudders.
“He told me…” Damien drags his palm over his mouth, pacing now, his other hand still clutching the chain, dragging me with him like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it.
His eyes won’t meet mine.
“He told me I prayed beautifully when I cried.”
The floor caves beneath me.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
I see it now—the pieces I didn’t know were broken, the history etched into him like scars under the skin.
Damien locks me down because no one ever let him go.
Damien cages me because no one ever told him he could walk away.
I step forward, slow, careful—like I’m approaching something wounded and dangerous, something that might bolt or break or bleed.
His eyes flick to mine.
Sharp.
Wild.
Scared.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m worth saving.”
My throat tightens.
My pulse stumbles.
“You are.”
His breath catches.
His jaw clenches.
“You can’t save me,” he says, shaking his head, voice splintering down the middle. “You can’t put me back.”
“I don’t want to put you back.”
His eyes finally meet mine—raw, splintered, terrified.
“I just want to be here with you.”
His breath cracks.
His whole body leans forward like he wants to believe me but doesn’t know how.
“I don’t know what it feels like to be free,” he says, voice shaking. “I only know what it feels like to be kept.”
My heart caves.
“You kept me.”
His fist tightens around the chain until his knuckles split again, blood blooming across bruised skin.
“I kept you because I didn’t know how to ask you to stay.”
I step closer.