He’s already moving, his hand closing around my arm, guiding me back toward the bedroom with that same firm control.
“I can’t let you hurt yourself,” he says, like this is reasonable.
Like this is care. I try to pull away. It doesn’t matter. The bed hits the back of my legs and I fall back onto it, my body too slow to stop it.
The chain shifts at my ankle.
Still there.
Still real.
He lets go of me for a second.
Then the mattress dips. My entire body locks. He’s getting into the bed.
“No—”
The word comes out weak, my limbs heavy, unresponsive as I try to move away from him.
“I said no—”
My body doesn’t listen.
He settles beside me like it’s normal. Like this is where he belongs.
“You’re safe here,” he says quietly.
I feel sick.
Nothing about this is safe.
Nothing about him is safe.
My head is getting heavier by the second, my thoughts slipping before I can hold onto them.
The necklace is gone.
The ring is gone.
That thought hits harder than anything else.
My chest tightens painfully, something cracking open inside me.
I try to hold onto the thought of them, to Elijah, to Jackson, to Zach, to the certainty that they’re coming for me, but it’s getting harder, like the drug is pulling everything down, dragging it away from me.
My eyes close.
Not because I want them to.
Because I can’t keep them open.
And underneath everything, something is shifting.
Time.
It doesn’t feel steady anymore.
It feels like I’m losing pieces of it.
