Tahlia
Icount the cracks in the ceiling like they matter. Like they’ve become some kind of map, as if they could lead me back to the version of myself I left bleeding on the floor the first time he touched me and didn’t stop.
But the truth is… I don’t think she exists anymore.
I don’t think I want her back.
There’s something wrong with me now. Something unholy and sharp and burning beneath my skin that keeps whispering his name in the silence, even when I scream to drown it out.
Hook.
Hook.
Hook.
It’s not just his name anymore. It’s a sickness. A fever I keep feeding with every breath I take inside this fucking room. I tell myself I hate him, that I’d drive that broken shard of glass into his throat if I had the chance. I dream of it. The blood. The gurgle. The collapse.
But then I wake up sweating. Wet. Empty.
Because he isn’t here.
And that’s worse than all of it.
I hate how quiet it is now. Hate how the silence feels like punishment. Like he knew exactly what I needed and chose to take it away instead. I thought the bruises were the worst part. The chains. The degradation. The things he said that scraped across my skin like knives dipped in honey.
But no.
It’s the absence.
The waiting.
The fucking void where his voice used to be.
I scream, just to hear a sound. Just to feel something that doesn’t end in me gasping his name like a goddamn prayer. My voice is raw from it now. Not from fighting. From wanting.
That’s the worst part of all this.
Not the cage. Not the pain. Not even the twisted, broken way he looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world he ever bled for.
It’s that I miss him.
It’s that I want him.
And I think… I think he knows.
My fingers drift to the edge of the mirror, the crack where my necklace hit it still jagged and sharp. I press into the glass until it bites, until a bead of blood wells up like it’s trying to remind me I’m still real. Still here. Still breathing in his absence.
I don’t feel real anymore.
I feel like a ghost trapped in a house that’s already burnt down, the smoke still curling around my ribs every time I inhale. I feel like a scream no one heard. Like a girl they forgot to save.
I lie on the floor for hours.
Or minutes.
Time doesn’t work the same here. Not when he’s not in the room. Not when his voice isn’t pulling me back from the edge, just so he can shove me over again with a smirk and a whisper I’d sell my soul to hear.
I thought I was stronger than this.
Strength means nothing when you start to miss the chains. When silence starts to sound like punishment and his cruelty feels like oxygen. He broke me so beautifully, so slowly, that I didn’t even realise I was begging to be shattered again just to feel his hands piecing me back together.
I stare at the camera in the corner of the room.
I know he’s watching. I hope he is. Because I want him to see what he’s done. I want him to choke on it. I want him to suffer.
But more than that—
I want him to come back.
The truth hits like a slap. It coils through my gut like poison, burning slow and bitter.
I don’t just want to kill him anymore.
I want to need him.
And that terrifies me more than any of the things he’s ever done.
So I do the only thing that makes sense in this unravelling reality—this world he’s painted in shadows and ruin and whispered commands that make my knees ache.
I crawl.
Not towards the door.
Not towards freedom.
But towards the bed.
And I wait.
Because I know him.
And if there’s one thing Hook hates more than defiance—it’s surrender.
I’m giving it to him now, in the cruellest way.
On my terms.
With my eyes open.
Bleeding for him in all the ways I swore I never would.
I stretch out across the bed like I’m made of silk and venom.
Every move is slow. Deliberate. A performance stitched together with the ruins of what he’s left me. I arch my back just enough to taunt the shadows. Let my shirt ride up just enough to make him wonder if I’m doing it for me—or him.
The truth?
I don’t know anymore.
I know the red light on the camera is blinking.
I know he’s behind it.
Watching.
Let him watch. Let him choke on it.
My fingers trail up my thigh, not touching anything important, not really—but giving him just enough to set fire to the edges of his self-control.
I graze the hem of my shirt, pause there, then slide it higher, exposing the curve of my hip.
I shift again, roll onto my stomach, glance back at the camera like I forgot it was there—and then smile.
A dangerous smile.
The kind I know will wreck him.
The kind he taught me.
I drag my fingers down my spine, a mock caress, slow enough to be cruel, shallow enough to mean nothing but suggest everything. And then I roll again—spread out now like an offering wrapped in rage and need. I don’t touch myself, not really. That would give him too much. This isn’t submission.
It’s strategy.
It’s war.
If he thinks he’s the only one who can manipulate a camera, he hasn’t been paying attention.
I stare into the lens until it feels like I’m staring straight through it, into the hollow behind his ribs where his heart should be. I whisper his name—not like a plea, but a dare.
“Hook.”
Just that.
Let him decide if it was meant for him.
Let him suffer.
He doesn’t come.
Good.
Let him sweat. Let his knuckles go white on the monitor controls. Let him try to resist, let him convince himself that he’s still in charge.
I know the truth now.
I can ruin him too.
And I will.
One glance at a time.
I slip off the bed like my bones have turned to syrup, every step towards the centre of the room unsteady but intentional—like a marionette dancing in the wreckage of her own strings.
I don’t look at the camera.
Not anymore.
Let him wonder.
I unbutton the shirt he gave me, slow and measured, like I’m peeling off a lie. It falls from my shoulders in a whisper, pooling at my feet like discarded innocence. I don’t bother to hide the bruises. The bite marks. The scratches I left on myself just to feel something that wasn’t him.
Let him see.
Let him ache.
I wrap my arms around myself, pretending for a moment that it’s comfort. That it’s protection. But then my fingers trail lower again, and I twist, letting the light catch my skin, the angles of my body turning feral in the dimness.
I climb back onto the bed, not like I belong there, but like I’m reclaiming it—tainting it with something he can’t name.
And then I moan.
Soft. Hollow.
Just enough to echo through the room like an unanswered prayer.
I know what it’ll do to him.
I know he’ll lean forward, fists clenched, breath caught, eyes eating the screen like it’s his only salvation.
So I close my eyes.
I arch.
I whimper.
I touch the scars on my wrist, tracing over them like they’re sacred. Like they’re mine.
Because they are.
He took so much.
But not this.
I don’t break down. I don’t cry. I just lie there—spread out, used up, beautiful in the way broken things become when they realise they’re still sharp.
Still dangerous.
I breathe his name again.
Softer this time.
“Hook…”
Not a scream.
Not a beg.
Just a ghost.
And then I fall silent, letting the moment choke itself out, letting the weight of it pull the whole room down around me like a house built on ash.
He still doesn’t come.
Good.
I’m not done making him bleed.
I don’t know if he’s watching.
But I hope to God he is.
I pace the room like a trapped animal, bare feet over broken glass, the sting sharp enough to ground me.
The mirror is still cracked where I threw the necklace—its pieces spiderwebbing across my reflection like even it doesn’t want to hold my face anymore.
I stare at myself, at the hunger buried beneath defiance, at the bruise-shaped shadows under my eyes, the pink lip gloss I smeared on hours ago like armour, the way my lashes clump from crying but still try to flutter like they remember how to pretend to be pretty.
Let him see.
Let him see what he did to me.
Let him see what I became for him.
I sit on the edge of the bed like it’s a stage, back straight, thighs parted just enough to whisper a promise, but not enough to give him everything. One hand skims down my throat, a slow, theatrical glide, like I’m the showgirl in a cage and I know the ringmaster is somewhere in the shadows.
I smile at nothing.
It’s not real.
None of it is.
I learnt a long time ago how to survive men like him.
You give them what they want—until they don’t know what you want anymore.
I tilt my head and let my fingers drag down between my ribs.
Not touching. Just showing. Just performing.
My nails leave little crescent moons in my own skin.
The dress he left me in is barely that—lace, sheer in all the places that matter.
I hate that it smells like him. I hate more that I keep breathing it in.
“Come on then,” I whisper to the ceiling. “Come collect your broken doll.”
But the door doesn’t move.
No footsteps.
No voice in the walls.
I hate the silence most of all.
So I perform louder.
I crawl up the bed slowly, like a siren dragging herself across the rocks, like I’m asking to be destroyed. I arch, writhe, twist in the sheets like I’m fucking the ghost of his presence. My hand hovers at the edge of sin—but doesn’t fall.
It’s not for me.
It’s never been for me.
It’s for the monster behind the glass, the one who thinks I belong to him.
Let him burn.
Let him choke on it.
Because I will shatter again.
But this time, I’ll make sure the shards hit his eyes.
The necklace is gone.
A twisted little relic of rebellion, now shattered like the girl who wore it. The cracked mirror catches the fractured light, cutting through the silence with a glint as sharp as my own fury.
I should stop.
But I don’t.
Because if he’s watching—and I know he is—then he’ll see what happens when you leave a fire untended. I don’t go still. I don’t simmer. I burn.
I rise, bare feet silent on cold stone, and I move towards the mirror like I’m walking into war.
My reflection flickers in its broken pieces, a kaleidoscope of a girl unravelling—eyes red-rimmed, lips swollen from biting back screams, bruises blooming like ink beneath pale skin.
I look like a sin. I look like something ruined. I look like his.
Let him watch me be dangerous.
Let him watch me be desperate.
I reach for the silk robe hanging carelessly off the bedpost. Not to cover myself, but to use it. I tie it around my waist like armour, leave it open just enough. Just enough to provoke. Just enough to remind him I’m not the doll he tried to dress up and shelve. I am not breakable. I am not quiet.
I sit on the edge of the bed, thighs parted just slightly, fingers tracing the edge of my knee. Not touching anything wicked—yet. But enough to suggest. Enough to invite.
If he wants a show, he’s going to get one.
But it’s not for him.
It’s for me.
Because the only way to survive this place—the only way to survive him—is to make the monster salivate. To bait the predator and make him lose his precious control.
So I lean back.
Let the robe fall off one shoulder.
Tilt my head like a challenge and say, to the empty air, to the hidden camera behind the roses on the wall:
“Is this what you wanted, Hook?”
My voice doesn’t shake.
But my hands do.
Because I know what happens when I provoke the dark.
And I just bared my throat to it.
The room is too quiet.
Not even the walls dare breathe with me.
And yet I can feel him behind them—can feel the weight of his gaze bleeding through the surveillance like static. Watching me like he always does. Like I’m not a person, but a performance. A prize. A possession to be catalogued and unwrapped and dragged into the dark.
Fine.
Then let him choke on the sight.
I slide one leg up onto the bed, deliberate and slow, skin brushing silk, the robe falling farther down my shoulder until it’s barely clinging. My pulse taps against my throat like a warning bell, but I ignore it. I don’t look at the camera.
I perform.
One hand dips between my thighs—not to touch, not yet—but to press flat against the inside of my leg, spreading heat through muscle, sending a message. I tilt my head back against the pillows and breathe like I’m imagining his hands instead of mine. Like I’m not broken. Like I’m the one in control.
But my body’s a traitor.
It always has been.
And when I close my eyes, I don’t see freedom. I don’t see sunlight or escape or a face that isn’t his.
I see him.
The way his eyes burnt when I screamed. The curve of his mouth when he whispered filth against my ear. The weight of his hand at my throat like a promise he never intended to keep. And god help me, I want it again. I want him again. I want to hate him whilst he makes me beg.
I shift my hips.
Let the robe slide farther apart.
Fingers ghost up the inside of my thigh—so close now I can feel the air shift with my breath, can feel the tension twist through the atmosphere like a live wire. I want to come. Not for pleasure.
For revenge.
I want to steal the moment he thinks belongs to him. Take it for myself. Own it.
“Still watching?” I murmur, breath catching.
He is. I know he is. He’s probably pacing now, probably cursing through gritted teeth, fists clenched like he can’t decide if he wants to punish me or praise me.
Let him boil.
Let him burn for once.
I bite my lip and press harder—not enough to finish, but enough to make myself whimper. Enough to hear it echo in the room and feel it crawl up the walls like a ghost he can’t exorcise.
I’m close. I’m so close—
And then I stop.
I freeze.
Because I know what happens if I finish without permission.
Because I know what happens when I defy him too well.
I yank my hand away, the denial sharp, cruel, and self-inflicted.
And I whisper, “You don’t get to break me, Hook. Not if I shatter first.”