I stirred awake, my eyelids heavy, my breath shallow. The air felt too still. Too clean.
As my eyes fluttered open, the unfamiliar surroundings sank in like a cold weight on my chest. The room was softly lit, its walls adorned with faded floral wallpaper, and the furniture—vintage and immaculately kept—looked like something pulled from an old movie set. Nothing was broken, nothing out of place. But everything was wrong.
It was the little things that truly rattled me.
The silky nightgown brushing against my skin wasn't mine. Neither were the pale blue ribbons threaded into the bun someone had styled my hair into. I didn't remember putting on perfume, but I could smell it—sweet, delicate, clinging to me like a secret.
And then it hit me.
Like a sharp jolt through my spine.
The abduction.
My breath caught in my throat as the fragmented memory struck like a flash of lightning—panicked gasps, muffled voices, the shadow of a man towering over me, then blackness.
I shot upright, only to be betrayed by a punishing wave of dizziness. The room spun, tilting at odd angles, and I fell back against the pillows, gripping the sheets in a desperate attempt to stay grounded.
Outside the door, muffled voices murmured—low, calm, unintelligible. Their tone was almost casual, as if I wasn't a prisoner trapped inside.
Fueled by adrenaline, I threw off the covers and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold beneath my feet. My balance wavered, but I pushed forward, one unsteady step at a time. I reached the door and twisted the knob.
Locked.
Panic exploded in my chest.
I pounded against the door with my fists, voice cracking with urgency.
"Help me! Someone, please! Let me out!"
Silence.
The voices had stopped, and a suffocating stillness followed. I pressed my ear to the door, listening—praying for footsteps, a reply, anything. But the quiet that met me was far louder than any scream.
I stepped back, breath trembling, heart racing, and tried to remember. Anything.
But my mind was a maze of static.
What happened to me?
The last thing I could recall with clarity was the street—dusty, crowded, merciless. I had been running. Two weeks on the move, exhausted and afraid, living in shadows, always glancing over my shoulder. The stalker had found me again. I could feel him, even when I couldn't see him.
Then my car broke down.
Then my purse was stolen by a street kid.
I remembered chasing him, screaming for help, but people only stared—cold, judgmental eyes watching a desperate girl unravel.
No one stopped. No one helped. No one cared.
I had hit rock bottom. Homeless, broke, and hunted.
And then—him.
The man.
Tall. Imposing. Beautiful in a way that frightened me.
He stepped out of the shadows like he had been waiting there all along. His eyes locked on mine—dark, unreadable, and too intense. I had tried to back away, but my limbs had failed me. He reached out—
And then nothing.
Only his words remained, echoing inside me like a haunting lullaby:
"You're safe now. You'll never have to run again."
But as I stood barefoot in this locked, elegant room, wrapped in silk that wasn't mine, with no memory of how I got here…
I couldn't help but wonder—
what exactly had I been saved from…
And what kind of danger I'd been delivered into.