The evening came slowly, like the sky itself was bleeding out. The last strips of orange sank behind the horizon, and darkness crept in from beneath the door frame.
The small room Josh had shifted me into smelled of dampness and dust. There were sheets thrown in a corner and an old, moldy sleeping bag rolled up against the wall.
It was not much of a change from the filthy room I had been rotting in, but at least this one had space to breathe.
I sat with my back against the wall, watching the shadows spread.
Can I ever get out of here? The question rang up in my mind. Every second felt like forever. I can barely remember my past.
All the faces have started to fade, and the voices have mixed up into some incoherent noise.
Everyone must have known that I was gone. The first moment I woke up, Josh revealed that everybody thought we were connected to those blackmailers and tried to sabotage them by faking the accident.
I could not even utter a word in that moment and realized that he had already closed all the doors for any suspicion towards his actual motives.
The realization sat heavily in my chest.
They had all closed every door. Josh made such a predictable story...so neat that no one would think to question it.
And you know the worst part?
Not even the nights that never ended.
It was that out there in the bright world I used to belong to. People would have already picked a version of the truth, and I knew better that once they picked it, that becomes the only truth they want to hear.
I pictured it like a movie I could not stop watching.
Several people are trying to contact me. Media, newspaper, and maybe my parents. My mother would have freaked out completely probably crying.
Oh, don’t misunderstand. She would not be crying because of my betrayal or possible kidnapping, but for my brother, her golden baby boy, Gregory, losing his potential clients. And to get uninvited from high-class tea parties and other invites.
My so-called dear friends whisper about me at parties, saying the kind of cruel things grown people say behind their backs.
The town chooses a villain. The papers would be printing a neat headline: ELENA KINGSLEY MORRIS RUNS AWAY. CHEATING SCANDAL.
They would point fingers without knowing the actual stories.
Some would say ’She deserved it’ and some would snort by saying, ’Good riddance. ’
People loved a clean ending. They love blaming one person and moving on to other gossip.
Would Dave stand up and speak?
Would he sign the obituary for our marriage and point at me like I had ruined everything?
Would Grandpa Albert fold his hand and say that family honor mattered more than the truth?
I could already hear Grace’s laugh and Nicole’s ’I told you she was a cheater’ look. The high-society circles are turning their backs like they always do when drama smells bad. Nᴇw novel chapters are publɪshed on novelFɪre.net
But what about Caroline?
A cold squeeze emptied my stomach at the thought. She had been pulled into this already—blackmailed, scared.
If I became the story’s villain, who would believe her?
Would people call her an accomplice of mine?
Would they tear her apart, too?
Or worse, she would also think that I was the one behind all of it?
I pictured her name in gossip threads and felt bile rise.
Then the police. I thought about that quiet, slow cruelty of official records and how easy it is to write a story on paper that looks like the truth. Kidnap? Runaway? Voluntary? Josh had planned it.
He had made it look like I vanished because I wanted to. He definitely would have left no footprints behind his actions.
That image made my nails dig into my palms. If everyone believed the official version, who would come looking? Who would pull at the edges until the whole cover story unstitched?
If no one came, I could rot here forever, and they had clapped for the neat ending.
Sweat started to trickle from my temple, and my breath started to become shallow as I thought I would have a panic attack when the silence was broken by Emma’s little voice outside.
"I want Mommy... please, I want Mommy!"
Her voice cracked with each word. I could picture her tiny face scrunching up, her fists rubbing against her wet cheeks.
She cried harder, repeating the word again and again from the other side, when Josh’s thick patience began to crumble as he snapped at her.
"That’s enough, Emma!" His voice thundered. "You can’t see her now. Stop crying."
Instead of understanding like an adult, Emma only wailed louder because, of course, she was not some big adult who could process the situation.
She was just a small child who did not know any better for her own good. For her, the world was still filled with fairies and ponies.
Her small sobs echoed in the hallway, stabbing me like needles. My heart clenched. I knew what would follow if Josh lost his temper completely.
I rose to my knees, my chains clinking lightly, and called out through the door. "Josh, please. Let her stay. Just for a while."
There was silence, then the heavy sound of his boots approaching. For a second, I thought he would not even answer.
But like I said, ’expect the unexpected’, the lock turned, and the door swung open.
It took me some time to adjust to the sudden brightness as my gaze fell on the entrance.
Josh stood there tall and broad. His eyes glinted with warning and something predatory, almost making me want to take my words back.
But before I could take any action on that thought, my gaze shifted from him to the little figure standing behind him.
Emma clung to the side, her face streaked with tears as her eyes played ping pong between me and him.
"She won’t stop crying," he said coldly. "And it’s testing my nerves." Of course, pathetic psycho behavior. What did he thought when he brought a child into this shabby place.