The transition from the velvet darkness of the living room to the harsh, clinical glare of the hallway was a violent assault on my senses.
He didn't use his hands to help me up.
His fingers tangled deep into the roots of my hair, his knuckles grazing my scalp as he yanked. I let out a jagged scream, my body flailing as he dragged me across the cold marble.
Suddenly, I wasn't on marble. I was on the floor of a rotting shack. The smell of mold and salt air rushed back. I wasn't in a mansion; I was back in the middle of nowhere, and a man's hand was tangled in my hair just like this.
"Please, Jason!" I heard myself cry in the back of my mind, a memory from a life I'd forgotten.
"Please!" I choked out, my fingers clawing at his iron-clad wrist. "Dante, stop! You're hurting me!"
"Good," he clipped, his voice devoid of the playful cat-and-mouse charm from minutes ago.
"Maybe if your body is in enough pain, your mind will finally stop playing these pathetic games of hide-and-seek."
He reached a heavy steel door at the end of the corridor—one I had never noticed before. He kicked it open and threw me inside.
I tumbled across the concrete floor, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. I scrambled to sit up, gasping, my hair disheveled and my scalp throbbing.
Click.
The overhead fluorescent lights flickered to life, buzzing like a swarm of angry hornets.
I looked up, and the world stopped spinning.
It simply ended.
Two chairs sat in the center of the room. Two bodies were slumped in them, bound with heavy chains. But it wasn't the blood that made the bile rise in my throat—it was the absence.
Both men had been decapitated, their heads nowhere to be seen, leaving behind only the jagged, gruesome remains of what used to be people.
I recognized the clothes. The build.
The man on the left was the guard who had taken me to the mall—the one who had taken me away from the man named Kieran. The man on the right was the driver who had looked at me through the rearview mirror with eyes full of silent, tragic pity.
"No," I whispered, the word trembling on my lips. "No, no, no…"
"Do they look familiar, Aurielle?"
Dante's shadow loomed over me, blotting out the harsh light. He stood there, perfectly composed, even with the blood from the stab wound I'd given him still blooming like a dark rose on his shirt.
"You… you killed them," I breathed, my voice cracking as I backed away on my hands and knees until I hit the cold wall.
"I didn't kill them," Dante corrected softly, leaning down until he was eye-to-level with my panicked stare.
"You wanted to see the world, Aurielle. This is the world. It's not boutiques and silk. It's bone and blood."
He pointed a finger at the headless remains.
"Your stubbornness did. Your 'little escape' did. You chose for them. Every step you took toward Kieran was a nail in their coffins. Look at the price of your 'freedom.'"
I felt the ground tilt. I leaned over and retched, the copper scent of the room filling my nose until I couldn't breathe.
"It wasn't me! You did this! You're a monster!"
Dante grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at the carnage.
"I am the man who keeps you safe from the world," he hissed, his eyes dark with a terrifying, possessive fire.
"And if the world tries to take you from me, I will burn it down—starting with anyone who mistakenly tries to help you escape. Look at them, Aurielle. Every time you run, someone will die. How many more heads do I have to take before you realize that you belong exactly where I put you?"
I couldn't answer. I just shook my head, tears blurring the sight of the men who had died just for being near me.
"I'm going to leave you here for a while," Dante said, standing up and straightening his cuffs.
"I want you to sit in the silence with your victims. Maybe by morning, you'll be ready to be a good girl again."
"I've always been an artist, Aurielle. Kieran had me locked in a psychiatric ward for it. He called it evidence; I call it inspiration."
He revealed a wall covered in charcoal sketches—portraits of people in their final moments.
He pointed to a fresh one. It wasn't the guard. It was a man with blonde hair, his face twisted in a cruel, familiar sneer.
"Recognize him? He was quite a fool before he died."
I stared at the drawing of the blonde man. My heart stopped.
The trauma of the gore, the physical agony of my scalp, and the face of the man who had betrayed me acted like a chemical reaction.
Flash. Jason slapping me.
Flash. Jason holding Adrien—my son?
Flash. The job application. The trap.
I screamed.
I remembered the club. I remembered the sweat on my skin as I danced to pay for my bills .
I remembered the milk-scented warmth of my son.
The screaming stopped abruptly.
The room went deathly silent. I stayed on the floor, my head bowed, my hair shrouding my face like a dark veil.
"Aurielle?" Dante's voice was cautious.
'Oh. I might have woken the wrong version of her.' He thought to himself.
I lifted my head. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, searing hatred.
I stood up slowly, my legs shaking but my gaze locked onto his. I didn't flinch at the headless men. They were just more ghosts in a house built on lies.
"You liar."
The word hadn't even finished echoing when—
Click.
Both of us froze.
Dante's eyes snapped toward the dark vent, his hand instinctively reaching for the holster at his hip.
Someone was there. Someone had seen it all.