Chapter 36
The Flame
My heart stopped.
It felt as though every last drop of blood in my veins instantly chilled. The sounds of crunching leaves grew louder, closer, steadily creeping towards me.
And then Silas began to whistle. A low, leisurely tune that seemed so out of place when my entire body was shaking with fear.
The entire forest grew quiet—even the insects quietened their chirping, leaving me with nothing but an eerie silence.
I vaguely remembered a documentary I watched that said if the forest goes deathly quiet, you’re in danger.
There’s an apex predator nearby. That couldn’t have been nearer to the truth.
The next crunch of leaves broke me out of my trance, and I took off again, no longer paying attention to where I was running or what I was running past.
All I cared about was putting distance between me and Silas.
I ran because I didn’t know what else to do.
It didn’t matter that every logical part of my mind understood how pointless it was.
It didn’t matter that my feet were already sore, that my lungs were burning, that the cold air was cutting through my throat every time I dragged in another frantic breath.
Running was the only thing my body understood.
Put some distance between us. Keep moving. Survive!
Those were simple enough concepts, even if the reality was laughable. I had no shoes, no plan, no idea where the forest ended, and somewhere behind me Silas fucking Falcone was whistling as though this entire thing was nothing more than an amusing way to spend his morning.
My phone buzzed again, and I almost screamed with fright.
Luca: Stop running, little ember. It will be better that way.
A breathless, disbelieving laugh escaped me. It would definitely not be better! Silas would make me pay for this. He would see to it that I never ran again.
The thought of ending back up in the basement made me want to hurl. Because I knew this time, I wouldn’t be there as a pampered prisoner.
Isabelle: Fuck you, Luca. That’s not helpful.
Luca: Neither is what you’re doing. What is your end goal here? You’re going to get caught.
“Fantastic,” I muttered, pushing past another branch as it clawed at my sleeve. “Really comforting, thank you.”
My end goal was to escape. Wasn’t that perfectly fucking obvious?
The whistling drifted through the trees again, sounding far too close for comfort. It didn’t sound as though he was gaining much ground on me. There was no rush of movement, no frantic crashing and snapped branches. But he sounded close. He sounded relaxed and casual.
He didn’t sound as though he was hunting me. He sounded as though he was allowing me to run because it entertained him. Because he knew there was nowhere I could go.
It wasn’t the best thought to have at a time like this.
Why isn’t he more nervous? Why doesn’t he believe there’s the smallest possibility I could actually escape?
That thought was what was bugging me the most.
He hadn’t been worried when I ran through the house the first time.
He hadn’t been worried when I tried to fight him.
He hadn’t even seemed particularly concerned when he’d left me alone with more freedom than any kidnapper with sense should have allowed.
He left me here for days alone at a time, and never once thought to be slightly concerned about that.
And now here I was, racing through the forest, and he didn’t seem at all worried.
Isabelle: Where do I go next? Please, Luca.
Luca: You turn around and go back.
Isabelle: I can’t do that. Please. You don’t understand. You have no idea what it’s like.
Luca: I can imagine.
Isabelle: He’s getting closer! Fuck! Please. Please Luca. If you felt anything at all for me, please help me.
He didn’t reply. The typing bubble didn’t appear for even one split second. I stopped running for a second, resting my back against a thick tree trunk, and took a moment to catch my breath.
I could hear Silas whistling nearby, but I was too scared to peek around the tree and have a look to see how close he was.
Isabelle: How does he always know where I am? There can’t be that many cameras in the fucking forest!
The typing bubble appeared, vanished, then appeared again.
Luca: Think about the car.
I frowned so hard my head hurt.
The car? What fucking car?
I scanned the forest, as though miraculously an escape car would appear.
I had no clue what Luca meant. My thoughts were too panicked. Then, slowly, unwillingly, a memory began to surface.
The car!
The night Silas took me.
My hand flew up before I could stop it.
He had done something to me. At the time, I thought he had injected me with a sedative. The world had been hazy, and once that sharp prick in my neck disappeared, everything was black.
But what if it wasn’t the sedative?
I remembered my neck hurting a lot when I woke up—far more than a simple injection should have. I’d assumed it was whiplash. And I remembered how Silas always scanned my wounds, particularly my neck.
My breathing came hard and fast as my fingers pressed against the side of my throat, searching the skin there as though I might be able to feel the answer beneath my fingertips.
I remembered his gloved hand brushing that exact spot.
I remembered him tilting my head, studying the healing mark from the injection with far more interest than it deserved.
I remembered thinking it was strange, thinking he was strange, and then dismissing it because everything about Silas had been strange from the beginning.
But why would he keep checking it?
Why would he need to?
My fingers pushed harder against my skin, but there was nothing obvious there.
No raised scar or lump. No proof that anything had been placed beneath the surface.
And yet somehow the lack of proof didn’t reassure me at all.
Because Luca wouldn’t have told me to remember the car for no reason.
And Silas was obsessed with keeping tabs on me.
Silas had put something in me.
A tracker.
The realisation should have made me scream. It should have sent me sprinting harder through the trees, should have flooded me with fresh panic and outrage. Instead, for one dreadful second, I simply stood there, staring at nothing, feeling the full weight of my own stupidity settle over me.
Of course he had.
Of course Silas Falcone, a man who had cameras in my bedroom, guards around his property, surveillance on my family home and enough control issues to terrify a therapist, had not simply trusted locked doors and intimidation to keep me.
Of course he had made sure that no matter where I went, no matter how far I ran, no matter how clever or brave or desperate I thought I was being, he would always be able to find me.
He didn't just imprison me. He carried the prison around inside me.
Luca: He’ll always find you.
As soon as I finished reading the words, the whistling stopped, and the cold hands of dread settled around my heart.
Because the whistling had meant distance.
It had meant he was somewhere behind me, somewhere in the trees, close but not close enough.
The silence meant something else entirely.
It meant the game had changed. It meant I had reached the part where Silas stopped amusing himself and reminded me exactly who had been in control from the beginning.
I lifted my head slowly, scanning the trees around me, but the forest had become a maze of shadows and branches and movement that wasn’t movement at all.
Every trunk looked like it could hide him.
Every whisper of wind sounded like his breathing.
My own heartbeat was so loud I could barely hear anything beyond it.
Then a gloved hand closed around the back of my neck.
His fingers settled exactly where mine had been moments before, right over the place I now knew he had marked me, and the possessive certainty of that touch stole whatever breath I had left. He didn’t squeeze, but he didn’t need to. The message was there in the placement alone.
Found you.
Slowly, I looked over my shoulder.
Silas stood behind me in the trees, the silver mask covering his face, the dark smear of blood still visible along the lower edge.
He looked utterly calm. If anything, there was something almost pleased in the way he stared down at me, as though he had enjoyed every second of watching me run myself into exhaustion only to end up exactly where he had known I would.
A sick, furious laugh built in my chest, but it never made it out. Silas’s grip tightened by the smallest amount, and every thought I had scattered.
“You put something in me,” I whispered.
He said nothing.
Of course he said nothing.
I turned as much as his hold allowed, forcing myself to face him properly. “You put a tracker in my neck.”
The tilt of his head was almost curious, as though he was waiting to see what I would do with the information now that I finally had it.
No denial. No explanation. No apology. Just Silas watching me with that infuriating stillness, letting me piece together the full shape of his betrayal on my own because apparently even his cruelty came with homework.
Rage flickered through me then, hot enough to burn through some of the fear.
“You let me run,” I said, my voice shaking despite every effort to keep it steady. “You knew where I was the entire time, and you let me think I had a chance.”
His thumb stroked once over the side of my neck.
Gentle.
Possessive.
Cruel.
Because this was not punishment. Not yet. This was him reminding me that the chase had been a gift. A privilege. A small, temporary freedom he had allowed because he knew he could take it back whenever he wanted.
“You’re sick,” I breathed.
His eyes darkened behind the mask.
For one foolish second, I thought I had finally managed to hurt him. Then his gaze dropped to my mouth, and I realised with a fresh wave of horror that I had not hurt him at all.
I had challenged him.
And Silas Falcone liked challenges.