32. Frankie

"Firefly."Bishop's voice slices through the eerie silence, startling me as he rushes over. His hands frame my face, his touch urgent, reflecting the panic in his eyes. He scans the dimly lit room rapidly, his gaze flitting from shadow to shadow, searching for any hidden dangers. His breath comes in heavy bursts, mirroring the pounding of my own heart. "You're okay," he says, though his voice trembles, betraying his words.

I step out of his range, the sudden intimacy too much, too soon. My neck itches with caution—a warning buzz of adrenaline still coursing through me. "What the fuck is happening?" I snap, my voice cracking under the strain. "And where is Victoria?" I demand before even acknowledging my surroundings, my concern for my friend slicing through the fog of confusion and fear.

Bishop holds his hands up and takes a step back, recognizing that I'm teetering on the edge. His gesture is one of peace, his features softening in an attempt to soothe. I haven't felt this out of control since…

I wheeze…

Since…

Oh hell.My memories suck me under, dragging me into a whirlpool of panic and disorientation. The images flash too quickly to grasp—a blur of faces, the echo of a scream, the stifling sensation of being utterly alone. It's like being submerged in deep water, struggling for air, reaching for something solid.

As the fragments of my past claw their way into my present, Bishop's presence becomes both a lifeline and a reminder of how deep the waters run. My breath hitches, each inhale a battle against the tide of emotions that threaten to overwhelm me. Bishop's concerned face swims into view again, his expression etched with worry.

"Frankie, focus on me. You're safe here," he says gently, his voice a steady beacon in the tumult of my unraveling senses. The room around us feels like both a sanctuary and prison, the safety a stark contrast to the chaos that still seems too close.

"Breathe, Frankie. You're not alone," he continues, his words a gentle command, grounding me back to the reality of the safe room's fortress-like walls and the dim, ambient lighting that casts soft shadows across the floor.

Except I am alone. I have always been alone.

I gaspfor air as I wake with a start, my lungs screaming and protesting as I gulp in desperate breaths. The room spins around me, a thick fog clouding my senses. As I try to rub the sleep from my eyes, a harsh, cold reality grips me—I can't move my arms. Panic surges as my eyes snap to my wrists, shackled to the unforgiving metal of a hospital-like bed.

"What the hell?" The clinking of the chains echoes in the sterile, dimly lit room, amplifying my growing panic.

"You're awake." The voice is a whisper, soft and unsettling, floating to me from the corner of the room. It slowly emerges from the shadows, a figure cloaked in darkness, moving toward me with a predatory grace.

"You!" I gasp, the air catching in my throat. "You kidnapped me." Tears start to burn the backs of my eyelids, a mix of fear and defiance welling up inside me.

"Shh. It's okay." Her voice is eerily calm as she sweeps my hair off my face, sitting on the side of the bed. The casualness of her touch contrasts sharply with the severity of my bindings. I'm trapped, unable to scoot away or escape her invasive presence.

"Why are you doing this?" I cry out, the weight of my entire life pressing down on me. Isn't it enough that I've lost every single place I've ever called home? And now, I've been kidnapped. What the hell did I do to deserve this fate?

"You needed to be saved," she coos, her tone disturbingly serene as her eyes gleam with madness and conviction. "And luckily for you, I found you."

"Saving me by binding me to a bed?" I choke on my words, my voice a mixture of incredulity and anger.

"For now," she replies softly, continuing to brush my hair away from my forehead with disturbing tenderness. "Until you're compliant."

My heart skips a beat. "What?" The word escapes me as a whisper, a fearful acknowledgment of the unfolding nightmare.

"You and I are going to do amazing things," she whispers as she leans over me. Her lips brush my forehead in a chaste kiss, her touch chillingly gentle. "I can't wait."

The cold kiss sends a shiver down my spine, her words echoing ominously in the dim room. As she pulls back, her silhouette framed by the faint light, the reality of my situation sets in. Trapped and at the mercy of a captor who sees me as a project, I realize that this is a new level of hell—one where my freedom is stripped away under the guise of being saved.

"Frankie,come back to me. Come on, firefly." Bishop's voice pulls me out of the swirling vortex of my memories, grounding me back to reality.

When I come to, I find myself sitting on the edge of a bed. The hum of fluorescent lights breaches my memories next, flickering above us in a steady, persistent rhythm. I blink, my eyes adjusting as I finally take in my surroundings.

The room is almost like an infirmary. Dozens of beds line both walls, their clinical arrangement reminding me painfully of an orphanage.

"Hey, there you are," Bishop says, leaning back on his heels, his eyes searching mine. "You alright?"

Am I? No. I don't even know what triggered my episode this time, but here I am, disoriented yet somehow steady. Though my stomach feels tight, I muster up a nod. I'm alright—no idea where I am or what is even happening, but I'm okay, or at least I tell myself that.

"Where are we?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Safe room," he replies.

Everything rushes to me all at once. "Victoria." I stand too fast, my head spinning as if I'm on a carousel, and I fall toward Bishop, who quickly catches me in his arms.

"Sit still, alright?" he instructs firmly but gently, setting me back on the bed. He scoots back, giving me space, or perhaps preparing to catch me again—I can't tell which. "She's okay," he adds, reaching into his pocket to slowly remove and unlock his phone, which he hands over to me. "She's waiting on your call."

I blink at him, then focus on his phone. My brain feels like it's short-circuiting under the strain. I concentrate on the messaging app, find Tori's number, and call her.

"Frankie," she answers immediately, and I sag with relief.

"Tori, you're okay."

"Yeah, are you alright? I'm coming to get you. Stay where you are." She pauses, her voice anxious. "Where are you?"

"Safe room?" I sound it out like a question, still disoriented.

"On my way." The call ends, and I hand the phone back to Bishop.

Licking my lips, I look around, feeling odd sitting in this huge room with just him. "Where is everyone else?" I ask, glancing at all the empty beds then back at him.

"Outside."

"With that thing?" My voice pitches into a screech.

He nods slowly, his expression guarded, his usual look when he's dealing with me. It's careful and measured, like he's treading on fragile ground.

"Just relax," he says as he stands up and fluffs my pillow, a small, almost absurd gesture given the circumstances.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask, watching him with surprise.

"Fluffing your pillow," he answers simply.

"Why?"

"To make you more comfortable."

"Know what would make me comfortable?" I snap, standing up without my nervous system malfunctioning. "Knowing what the fuck is going on." I spin in a circle, taking in the room again. "There are no windows in here, Bishop. That's weird."

He nods slowly, audibly gulping, caught off guard by my observation. "I…" His mouth opens and closes, but no words follow.

Snorting, I spin around and begin to march to the door. I'll find Tori on my own.

"I regret putting you on that train every day," he blurts out.

I pause with my hand on the door, dropping my head to my chest as I close my eyes. My heart rate spikes, thumping wildly as if trying to escape. Licking my lips, I blow out a slow, steady breath before turning to face Bishop again.

Standing in the middle of the vast room, wearing jeans and a Shadow Locke hoodie, Bishop looks like a normal young man perched on the precipice of adulthood, yet his gaze tells a different story—one of a soul racked with remorse as he looks at me, as though his actions toward me have ruined his entire world.

Good.

That action ruined me in ways I'll never be able to explain to him.

All I do is stand here, because clearly, he needs this moment more than I do.

He saw what our stepfather did to me that night—or at least some of it. If I'd known it would only go downhill from there, I'd have… What? Shaking my head, I breathe through my clenched teeth.

"I don't know what happened that night," he begins, his voice laced with regret. Seeing my bewildered expression, he takes a deep breath before continuing. "When I walked into the kitchen and saw you there, trembling and trying to clean up that spilled lemonade, something inside me panicked. You looked so terrified, so unlike yourself. I knew something terrible had happened, something I couldn't even begin to understand, and in that moment, all I could think of was getting you to safety. The train to Morrow Bay wasn't just a random choice—it was the first thing that came to mind."

Bishop's confession hangs in the air between us, each word weighted with regret and a plea for understanding. His eyes, normally so guarded and cool, now reflect a turmoil that seems to churn deep within him.

"I should have done more," he continues, his voice thick with emotion. "I should have fought harder for you. I don't know what happened to you, but that day I saw you in Morrow Bay, I just… I just needed to know you, know you survived, but the haunted look in your eyes tells me that day I put you on the train altered your entire life."

It did.

I remain silent, my own emotions a tangled mess I'm not ready to unravel—not here, not now. I've lived through the confusion, hurt, and rapid changes that swept through my life since that night. Bishop's regrets can't alter the past, nor can they soothe the scars those events left on my psyche.

He steps closer hesitantly, as if unsure whether to bridge the gap between us. "Frankie, I need you to understand. I thought I was helping. I thought I was protecting you by sending you away."

"Protecting me?" My voice is a whisper laced with bitterness. "Or was it easier? You have no idea what I went through and who I had to become to survive."

I will not cry. Now is not the time for this.

He flinches as if I struck him. "No, Frankie, no. I... I was scared. I didn't know what to do. I was just a kid too."

The raw honesty in his voice pierces through my building anger, reminding me that Bishop was just a teenager himself, thrust into a role he was unprepared for. We were both victims of circumstance, reacting out of fear and confusion.

Taking a deep breath, I allow my hand to fall away from the door handle. Turning to face him fully, I see him in a new light—a child who made a desperate choice out of a misguided attempt to do the right thing.

"Bishop," I say, my voice steadier now, "I can't do this right now."

He nods, relief and sadness mingling in his expression. "I need to."

The room suddenly feels stifling, the walls closing in as the reality of our conversation settles around us. I need air, I need space, but most of all, I need answers.

My heart palpitates as he takes a tentative step toward me.

"I can see what that time did to you. You had to hide and be someone you didn't want to be," he says gently, but he doesn't know. He has no idea. "If you stayed, I would have asked Mom to adopt you. Done something more."

I can't let him in, not like this. Not now. Now is not the time to spill my secrets, and even if I wanted to, when I open my mouth to tell him, the words just won't leave my mouth.

How does one even describe the person they had to be to survive if that isn't who they are? I can't.

"When Mom adopted me the following week, we looked for you." Bishop's voice is thick with regret, but I don't share it. His pain is because he couldn't find me.

A dark, twisted part of me wonders how he would feel if he knew the truth about those days—how I was chained to a bed to teach me obedience, and that I cried until my tears dried up and there was nothing left of me but the shell they demanded I become.

Good girls don't cry.

"I spent years looking for you, and then one day, there you were in Morrow Bay with a scholarship letter." His voice drops to a whisper as he takes another step toward me. "I saw you, and I just?—"

"Needed to fuck me?" I cut him off, the bitterness in my voice sharper than I intended. "Because that's what you did. You fucked me for days and then you dropped me."

"You didn't know!" he yells, his voice bridging the chasm between us.

"Know what, Bishop?" I take a defiant step toward him. "That you would act like a narcissist?" I snort derisively. "A manipulative fool?"

"It isn't like that. There are things you don't know," he pleads, desperation coloring his tone.

"Then fucking tell me!" I scream. "Tell me what I'm clearly missing here. Everyone around me is evasive, telling me I'll just get it one day. One day, I'll understand. I'm not understanding, Bishop, and until someone breaks and tells me, I just won't know."

He opens his mouth and closes it, struggling for words.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," I scoff. "A beast with red eyes just ended a rugby match, I'm in a fucking safe room, and you want to talk about your feelings?" I shake my head in disbelief. "Fuck off, Bishop."

I spin around and yank the door open, grateful to see Tori who launches herself at me and jerks me to the side.

"You're okay." She hugs me tightly. "They aren't supposed to exist," she murmurs repeatedly, her voice a mixture of relief and fear.

"What isn't supposed to exist?" I ask her as I glance back at Bishop, who's still standing in the middle of the room.

I'm almost convinced she won't answer me—hell, no one seems to want to answer me—but she does. "Shadow beasts."

"What?" I swallow hard, my eyes glued to Bishop, whose mouth is parted in surprise.

"Last I heard, they were extinct." She pulls back, her usually tan skin ghostly pale. "They are extinct."

"What?" It's all I can manage, my mind reeling with this new information.

Tori shakes her head. "Come on, let's go home."

"But…"

"That's all I know, Frankie. That's all I know." Her voice is firm, leaving no room for further questions.

I nod, but my gaze drifts back to Bishop, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath.

"Is it gone?" I ask her, needing some assurance.

She nods. "Yeah, it's gone, but the game is done. They are sending everyone back to their dorms."

"Let's get the hell out of here." I grab her hand and squeeze it. "Thanks for coming back for me."

She snorts. "I tried to follow you when you left, but I lost you in the crowd."

I snap my head around to look at her. "You came for me?"

"Yeah, of course," she says with a smile. "I told you, I'm making a choice."

She's choosing me?This thought warms something deep inside me.

"Come on, Mom is going to freak out. Let's crash there for the night."

"You're inviting me to your mom's?"

"Yeah, let's go." She tugs on my hand, drawing me out the door.

As I prepare to leave the suffocating tension behind, I steal one last look at Bishop. His shoulders are slumped, and he wears an expression of someone who has lost everything.

Good, I think, bitter satisfaction piercing through me. He deserves to feel this way. As I turn away, though, a sharp pang of guilt stabs at my heart. Why does his pain stir sympathy in me after everything?