EPILOGUE

I sit in the quiet of the room, surrounded by old photographs—smiles frozen in time, moments that once felt like they could last forever. But now, they’re just relics of the person I used to be. The woman I was before him .

I can’t seem to find her in these pictures. The girl who wanted to save the world, who believed in kindness, in healing. I can barely remember her. She’s lost in the wreckage, buried beneath layers of bruises and broken things. Her innocence is a shadow I can almost touch, but it slips through my fingers every time I try to hold on to it.

Damien . His name is the only thing that still makes sense.

I trace the edges of one of the photos—my family, my past, so far away from where I am now. Everything is different now. Nothing is simple anymore. I should be disgusted by how tangled up I’ve become in his darkness, in his chaos, in the twisted little world we’ve built for ourselves. But I’m not. Not anymore .

I turn the page of my journal, the one where I write about him—about us . The words pour out of me like blood from a wound. I’m not sure if I’m writing to understand or to hold on. I write about the violence, the mess, the danger, the kind of love we have—if you can even call it love. It’s a mess of power and control, of twisted affection and hatred, of obsession and fear. But it’s ours . And that… that’s the only truth I know anymore.

I don’t know where this ends. I don’t know if there’s a breaking point for us, a line we can’t cross, or if we’ll keep going, faster and faster, until we burn out in a blaze of destruction. I wonder sometimes if it’s inevitable—that we’re like two halves of a broken mirror, destined to shatter each other.

I think about the way he touches me, the way his fingers leave marks on my skin, both tender and bruising. I think about the way he looks at me, like I’m the only thing that matters , and at the same time, like I’m just another piece of his wreckage. And I wonder if, when this is all over, when it all falls apart, I’ll have anything left of myself to pick up. Or if he’ll have taken it all.

It doesn’t matter. Not really. I’ve already given him everything. My sanity. My peace. My soul. And in exchange, he’s given me a kind of clarity I didn’t know I needed. It’s strange, this feeling , this pull between us that’s impossible to escape. It’s magnetic. It’s suffocating. And it’s the only thing that feels real .

I close my journal and set it aside, my fingers trembling as I look at the walls around me—everything that holds the ghosts of who I was, and everything that holds the weight of who I’ve become.

The doorbell rings, breaking the silence like a sharp crack in the stillness.

I freeze, my breath caught in my chest. Who could it be at this hour? My skin prickles with a cold tension as I stand, every nerve on high alert. My feet move before I even think about it, drawing me toward the door, and when I open it, I find an envelope lying there, ominously plain. No return address. No markings of any kind. Just a thick, unmarked envelope with my name scrawled on the front in hurried, messy handwriting.

I bend down, hesitant but curious, and pick it up. My fingers are unsteady as I tear it open, a sense of dread crawling up my spine. Inside is a single photograph.

I look at it, and my blood runs cold.

It’s him. Ben . My captor. The man who haunted my every step, the one whose hands destroyed my past. The photo slips from my hand, dropping to the floor with a soft thud, but I can’t tear my eyes away.

Then my gaze shifts, and something else catches my attention.

A boy. A young boy, standing next to Ben. A familiar feeling gnaws at my gut.

I bend down, my heart racing in my chest as I pick the photo up again .

I flip the photo over, and as my fingers tremble, the words on the back sear themselves into my brain.

Ben and his son, Damien.