Page 18 of Shattered In Darkness

The finality in that sentence is a guillotine. I can’t breathe for a second.

“Congratulations,” I say. “You got out. I hope it was everything you wanted.”

“You could’ve gotten out too, Bambi. But you didn’t want to leave the glass cage.”

Hearing that name stings more than I want to admit. “That’s not fair. You don’t know⁠—”

He cuts me off, standing, looming over me, predatory. “I know you belong right where I found you the other day. Spread over some stranger for a camera. That’s the real you, isn’t it?”

My cheeks burn, shame and anger warring. “Go to hell.”

He leans in, his eyes are on fire. “Already there, princess. I thought I’d find some company.”

My hands shake. I want to hit him, or kiss him, or both. Instead I sit, hollowed out. “You’re cruel, Brody.”

He straightens. “You don’t know half of it.”

Sophie returns, her smile is too wide, too forced. She doesn’t ask what happened as she plops down between us, shoving popcorn at my face. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”

For a little while, I try. I let the wine fuzz out the ache, let the movie’s flickering light distract from the black hole chewing at my insides. But Brody never stops watching. Not really. His eyes keep finding me, latching on, branding me as his.

Nothing else gets said. Not out loud.

After a few hours, I stumble up, the world tilting just enough to make it hard to walk a straight line.

Sophie hugs me at the door, whispering, “Block out the bad. Remember I’m here.” She means it. But even her arms can’t warm what Brody froze.

Back in the dark, I shiver. Marcus waits for me at home. I think about his hands, the way he traps and claims. I think about Brody’s stare. The hate. The hunger. The memory of warmth, now broken and dead.

I stagger down the path, wishing I could vomit up every last feeling, leave it in the gutter for the rats. I can’t. I never could. I walk home alone, body buzzing and sore. Everything feels floaty, like my bones are hollow or dissolved. Inside, it’s so dark I see stars, but no darkness compares to the one left behind my ribs. It’s always there, waiting for me.

Always.

I breathe in, hoping for emptiness. The kind you get in late-night apartments, when no one’s home but ghosts and the echo of old arguments. But that’s not what I get. He’s here. Of course he’s here.

Marcus sits in the shadow of the hall, not reading, not watching TV. Just waiting, spine straight, hands folded like a man at his own funeral.

His eyes track me before I even shut the door. “Where were you?”

I try to be casual. “Studio went late.” But my voice is slurred. Weak. He hears it, of course he does.

He stands, smooth as a predator unfolding from camouflage. His feet are bare. I notice stupid shit like that when I’m scared. Hyper-awareness, they call it. A trauma-response. Skin, pale in the moonlight. The way his hand opens and closes by his side.

He walks like a wolf in the night. “Funny,” he says, stopping a breath away, “because I saw you walk out of the Voss house. With my own eyes.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

I ramp up the lies, desperate. “Sophie invited me over. Just for coffee, I didn’t even⁠—”

His fist cracks against my cheek. The sound echoes. He doesn’t let me fall. Not yet. He grabs my hair, yanks my head up until my neck screams.

“You think you’re fucking clever? Hiding things from me?” His breath scorches my ear, sour and cruel.

Tears sting even before the pain fully registers. I claw at his wrist, pure panic. “Please—Marcus⁠—”

He slaps me again, harder. “Did you forget what I said? Did you forget who you belong to?”

He drags me, stumbling, into the kitchen. My scalp burns. I try to twist away, but his grip is a vise.