The safehouse smelled of rot.

Not from death—though it may as well have been—but from the stagnant air, the sweat, the sickness that clung to the damp walls. The four walls had become her only constant, the opaque window in the corner her only view. Time had dissolved into something meaningless, a stretch of days and nights that bled together until Jaige couldn't tell if the sun still rose.

She had stopped expecting food. Stopped expecting water. She knew wherever they were, Lorea had no choice but to steal bits and pieces when she went out. She'd hear the door slam and greedily wonder what food might be brought back to her. Lorea shared, she assumed, what she didn't feel like consuming herself. 

Both women bore the strain of sunlight deficiency; the blanched skin of Lorea brought no comfort to what her own skin might look like. The hunger gnawed at her ribs like an animal, but the dehydration was worse, turning her limbs into brittle twigs that barely held her weight. The cuts on her body healed slowly, if at all. Every movement sent sharp protests through her battered skin. Jaige was still tied, though no longer to the chair. Its age gave way after a few months of sitting in it, shifting slightly on cystic skin, until it finally collapsed. 

Jaige had thought she'd fight to the very end. That had been the plan. But plans were for people who had energy to make them. Even with the opportunity of broken captivity, she had nothing when she cascaded onto the stone floor, feeling bruised and battered on the way down. Unable to move, Lorea had dragged her to a drain pipe and restrained her there. Both wrists, permanently taped up to the level of her shoulders as she slumped against the wall. Jaige's face lay against the pipe as a makeshift pillow as time tauntingly dragged on. Now, all she had left was the dull persistence of breath and the weight of Lorea's presence.

And even that was changing.

Unceremonious and sporadic, Lorea would sit slumped in the corner, her knees drawn to her chest, her arms wrapped around herself like she could keep something inside from shattering apart. Her eyes—dark, hollow, sunken from lack of sleep—stared at nothing. A week ago, she would have been pacing, muttering, bursting with nervous energy. A week ago, she still had purpose.

Now, she was unraveling.

Her fingers twitched, her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something, but no words came. Her shoulders hitched, a sharp inhale shaking through her. And then—

A sob.

Jaige didn't react at first. Her bleary eyes strained to focus, unable to discern if the sob was her own, a figment of her imagination, or the impossible. Could it be believed, this delusional and erratic captor shedding a tear? She wasn't sure she could. She wasn't sure if she wanted to. Instead, she peeled her cheek from the rusty pipe and watched as Lorea pressed her palms against her face, her body trembling with the effort to keep herself together.

The sight of it made something sour coil in Jaige's stomach.

Pity.

No. Not pity. Not for her.

But Lorea was breaking. The woman who had carved pain into Jaige's skin with the precision of an artist and the resolve of an assassin, who found tantalizing pleasure as she'd starved her and maniacal laughter as she'd beaten her senseless, was now weeping into her hands like a child lost in the dark.

Jaige almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

Then Lorea wiped at her face and turned, her expression shifting, cracking like glass under pressure.

"I did everything that was supposed to work," she whispered, the words ragged and breathless. Her fingers curled into fists. "Everything. It was supposed to work. And it's still falling apart."

Jaige's voice was a ghost of itself, raw and papery from thirst. "What did you think was going to happen?"

Lorea's eyes snapped to hers, and for a second, Jaige braced for the slap, the fist, the boot to her ribs. But Lorea didn't move. She just stared, as if Jaige had spoken something neither of them had been ready to admit.

"I thought—I thought I could fix this, fix me," Lorea choked out. "I thought I could—"

She stopped herself, shaking her head. Her hands rose to grip her hair, tugging hard, like she wanted to rip something out of herself.

Jaige swallowed against the sandpaper of her throat, forcing herself upright, even though it sent sparks of pain through her.

"You don't have control," she rasped. "You never did."

Lorea's breath hitched. Then, as if a switch had flipped, the mask slid back into place. Her eyes sharpened, her lips twisted. "Shut up."

Jaige almost smirked. Almost. But she was too tired, too drained, too—

The kick came without warning. Jaige never registered Lorea rise from the floor, but Lorea's boot slammed into her stomach just the same, and Jaige crumpled, gasping, vision flashing white. Another kick. Another. The taste of copper filled her mouth.

Lorea was still unraveling. But she was still dangerous.

Jaige curled into herself as best she could, barely breathing through the pain. Lorea was breaking, and somehow, that made her even more violent, even more erratic.

The storm hadn't passed.

"He hasn't even tried to find you," Lorea seethed, punctuating every word with her boot.

Jaige's eyes slid shut, praying the tears that came would never show. But the pain was far greater than the cracking of her ribs. She knew she'd been here with Lorea for months, but not sure how many. The sickly voice in her mind terrorized her, his absence with each passing day a surefire sign he would never come. The voice wasn't always taunting her, but instead showed up like this, screaming at her as Lorea continued her fit of passion.

Jaige couldn't believe he wasn't looking, but would he ever find her?

Maybe he'll never come for me.

A sob tore through her. Then another. It came fast, unrelenting, like a dam breaking after months of drought. Jaige's body convulsed with the force of it, wracking her frame in violent shudders. Lorea hesitated, her hand half-raised for another strike, eyes widening at the sound. But Jaige couldn't stop. Wail after wail erupted from her chest, raw, guttural, shaking the air between them.

Lorea panicked.

"Shut up," she hissed, grabbing a rag from the corner and shoving it against Jaige's mouth. Jaige spat it out, sobbing harder, louder. Lorea cursed, fumbling for something stronger—a towel—tying it around Jaige's head, pressing the fabric between her lips to stifle the noise. The sobs didn't stop, only muffled now, vibrating against the damp cloth.

Lorea stumbled back. Stared. The wails still echoed in her ears, though they were quieter now. And they sounded—

They sounded like hers.

Like the way she had screamed when her Jovanni was taken from her.

She turned and fled the room, slamming the door behind her, unable—unwilling—to face the suffering she had mirrored onto someone else.

Lorea was gone.

Jaige lay there, her body curled inward, her breath shuddering behind the muffled fabric still tied around her mouth. The tea towel was damp with her tears, her sobs still shaking through her ribs, but quieter now. It didn't matter. Lorea wasn't there to hear them.

For a moment, Jaige's mind was blank, scrubbed clean by exhaustion. The pain in her body was immense, but distant, like it belonged to someone else. A dull, throbbing ache layered over sharper stabs that flared with every shallow breath. She let herself sink into it, let it settle into her bones.

This is real. I am still here.

It should have been a comfort. Instead, it was a curse.

She tried to focus on anything else. The sound of her breath. The damp chill in the room. The slow, rhythmic drip of water from some unseen crack in the ceiling. She counted the drips. One. Two. Three.

It wasn't enough.

Her mind wandered, desperate, reaching. Searching for something to hold onto.

She thought of warmth. A fire crackling in a hearth. The feeling of thick socks on a cold floor. The plush comfort of a worn blanket pulled tight around her shoulders.

She thought of laughter. His laughter. Low, amused, effortless. The way it used to chase away the worst of her nightmares, as if his presence alone could ward off the dark.

She thought of hands. Strong, steady hands that had held her face like she was something worth holding. Hands that had traced the curve of her jaw, the bridge of her nose, memorizing her as if she could slip away at any moment.

But she had.

And he hadn't found her.

The fragile warmth shattered, replaced by the gnawing, familiar emptiness. The voice slithered back, whispering its cruel truth.

He isn't coming.

Jaige squeezed her eyes shut, as if that alone could block it out.

But the silence had nothing left to offer her but the truth.