Page 100 of Shattered Obsession

-Thalia-

The basement is a chilling void, the cold concrete floor seeping into my skin, numbing my senses. My wrists throb painfully from the iron cuffs biting into them, each futile tug a stark reminder of my captivity. The sound of Damian’s heavy boots echo against the hard floor as he prowls around me, his presence a dark shadow that looms closer with every silent step. The knife in his hand glimmers with a menacing light, reflecting off the weak, flickering bulb hanging overhead. He doesn’t touch me yet, and that’s the worst part. The anticipation is suffocating; he watches and waits, allowing the oppressive silence to fill the space between us until I find myself gasping for air that seems perpetually out of reach.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” he hisses, crouching down to my level, his breath hot and invasive against my ear. “It races when you think of him, and slows when you entertain thoughts of me. Guess who comes out on top in the end?” I clamp my mouth shut, grappling with the tremor threatening to escape as I wrestle with my fear. I tell myself that I can’t give him the satisfaction. I refuse to give in. But when he presses the cold, flat edge of the blade against my throat, I go rigid. In my silence, the cruel laughter spills from his lips, echoing like a death knell around the barren walls.

Damian kneels beside me, his head tilted like a predator assessing its prey, eyes alight with a twisted hunger as they rake over my face.

“He’s coming for you,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper, as if sharing a delicious secret. “I want him to. But when he arrives? He won’t recognize what’s left of you.”

The chains clink as I tug against them, the metal scraping against my skin, the sharp pain grounding me momentarily. My brain tries to run while my body stays trapped.

I watch my hands tremble through a haze, like they don’t belong to me. I focus on anything beyond the pain, beyond Damian. The corner of the room. The faint scrape of the chain against the pipe. The drip, drip, drip of water from somewhere overhead, like a clock that refuses to move.

Think.

Breathe.

Don’t disappear.

Damian liked when I went still, when he could see the moment I left my body. I will not give him that. Not this time.

I try to flex my fingers, try to get sensation back. Everything feels distant, like touching someone else’s skin through gloves. The ache is sharp, pulsing with my heartbeat. The air smells like rust and mold, the taste of damp concrete resting heavy at the back of my throat.

I whisper to myself, barely audible, “Stay here. Stay awake.”

The panic tries to rise anyway.

But I force myself back into the room, into my body, into the fight.

I am not disappearing for him. Not again.

In a breathless whisper, I utter Xander’s name like an urgent prayer, even if it falls on deaf ears. My throat burns as I speak his name, a raw rasp that barely shapes itself into sound. For a moment, something inside me cracks—not from fear, but from anger. Damian thinks that taking my mobility, taking my power, means taking me. But he doesn’t know that I am not the same girl he broke before. Every scar he left in his wake became armor. Every bruise taught me exactly where to land the blow when it’s my turn.

I close my eyes and inhale slow and steady, feeling the sting of iron cutting into my wrists. Pain grounds me; it reminds me I am still here. Still conscious. Still fighting. I imagine Xander’s voice instead.

You fight.

You climb.

You rise.

Damian wants me to break.

But Xander wants me to live.

He doesn’t get to decide the final chapter.

I open my eyes, letting the fury rise.

-Xander-

I hit redial, heart pounding, even though deep down I know she won’t answer. Each ring is a hammering nail piercing my chest with dread. “Come on, baby. Please hold on. Just hold on,” I urge the phone, desperation clawing at my throat. I slam on the accelerator, rage surging through my veins like wildfire. Damian’s days are numbered; he just doesn’t know it yet.

My pulse hammers as I force myself to breathe evenly. Rage doesn’t help me track. Rage gets people killed.

I scan the road, eyes moving fast but precise, tire marks diagonal, not straight. He took a turn too fast. Sloppy. Overconfident.

Good.