Page 104 of Shattered Obsession

One.

Two.

Three.

Every muscle in my body aligns with one truth: I am not here to negotiate. I am here to end him.

Each step brings me closer. Closer to her. Closer to the moment everything ends.

The first bay stretches out in desolation, an emptiness broken only by the sight of sheet-metal tables flipped on their sides and a forklift lying dormant beneath a tattered tarp. As I step into the second bay, I am met with a ghostly landscape of pallets stacked haphazardly like forgotten tombstones, looming shadows forming a corridor that swallows sound. That laugh returns, louder now, dripping with a sinister satisfaction that sends a shiver up my spine. Muffled words follow, edged in a dark rhythm, a nursery rhyme resonating through the air, twisted and whispered by something predatory.

I keep the beam of my flashlight focused on my boots, determined to navigate this labyrinth of metal and decay. My free hand brushes against cold steel, grazing the nick of a rusty bolt head and the jagged edge of torn plastic wrap left in disarray. The concrete floor drops abruptly beneath me, a lip I sense before I see. Stairs leading downward. My pulse shifts from a steady beat to a frantic siren, and my mind slips.

-Thalia-

The basement fades, replaced by that dreaded night from my past. His breath on my neck. The weight of him pressing down. The moment I realized I couldn’t escape. The helplessness that clawed into my ribs and stayed there.

Back then, the world narrowed to one instinct: freeze.

He trained silence into me.

Damian steps closer, his boots echoing off concrete, and the old reflex returns, cold and automatic. My stomach clenches. My vision tunnels. My body remembers even when I don’t want it to.

I’m not there anymore.

He’s not allowed to touch me anymore.

I repeat it like a mantra.

Yet, my muscles lock, betraying me.

I’m shaking and furious that he can still do this.

No.

Not again.

Not anymore.

The cuffs bite in deeper, metal scraping skin until it burns.

If I stop pulling, it means I’ve accepted there’s no escape.

Damian always waited for that moment, the surrender. I won’t give it to him.

Even if my wrists bleed.

Even if the metal tears open skin.

Even if the pain becomes unbearable.

I’d rather bleed than bend.

I count my breaths the way the trauma therapist taught me.

In for four.

Hold for four.