The air was damp again. Heavy, like grief. Like it had swallowed too many screams.
I lay there, empty. Mind hollow. Heart too sore to ache anymore. Hope had dried up like the bruises on my skin—fading but never truly gone. I didn't move. I barely blinked. Even the rats that used to scurry across the cracks had gone silent, as if mourning with me.
It was better this way.
Stillness.
Despair.
I had no expectations. No dreams.
I didn't want to live anymore. Not like this. Not after everything I'd lost. Kas... Oh God, Kas..
I still remember her scream the day they took her.
It was the last time I heard joy leave a body.
She had been sunshine when I had nothing. She had made me laugh even in this rotting pit of hell. We made up stories, whispered songs to each other, called the rats "pets." But then a car came—loud, foreign. The sound of a god or devil. It took her away.
And the silence after that was louder than any scream.
Nobody ever came here. The hallway that led to our cages stretched into nothingness like a dead tunnel. Like we were buried alive. So when I heard it again—a car, screeching to a stop above ground—it was like the walls shook. My blood turned to ice.
No.
No, not again.
Not me.
Not today.—I muttered out loud
The soldiers above shouted. Doors slammed. The ground trembled like it was afraid. I sat up, trembling, my breath jagged. I heard boots, heavy, ruthless. Commands barked in a language I didn't understand.
The cages creaked open.
One by one.
Metal groaned, people screamed. The sounds of chains. And then I heard them—
Men.
Armed to the teeth, their bodies glistening with sweat and metal and ink. Their skin bore scars and veins that looked like war had crawled beneath them. They stomped from one cell to the next, dragging out the weak, the sick, the too-afraid.
I backed up as far as I could, pressing my spine to the cold wall. My heart was thudding, fast and wild, as if wishing death upon myself.
Please don't come.
Please.
I couldn't do it. I didn't want to go the way Kas did. I didn't want to be taken and vanished like smoke. I thought maybe, just maybe, if I held my breath hard enough, I'd become invisible.But..
Then I saw him.
He didn't walk like the others.
He moved in silence. Like power wearing human skin.
He wore a black suit, tailored and sharp like a blade. His hair fell carelessly over his forehead, and his skin looked carved—refined and smooth as porcelain dipped in shadow. He didn't look like he belonged in this place. No dirt. No blood. He smelled like wealth—like rare spices, cool leather, and danger wrapped in silk.
His eyes… they weren't human.
They were red.
Crimson like crushed roses in snow.
He stopped outside my cage.
And looked at me.
Not through me.
At me.
No fear. No empathy. Just precision. Cold curiosity. His face was unreadable, but his presence alone pulled the air from my lungs.
"Is this the girl?" he asked, voice smooth like broken glass.
The soldier beside him nodded—not with obedience, but reverence. "Yes, sir."
He didn't even flinch. Just said, "Take her."
Two men rushed forward. The cage opened. I screamed and kicked and twisted like a dying thing, but their arms were steel. They didn't flinch. They dragged me down the corridor, past the other cages, through a hall that smelled of metal and blood and secrets.
I tried to fight.
I begged to die.
But they didn't listen.
And suddenly Everything went dark.
—-
I opened my eyes slowly, to light so blinding it felt like punishment. For a second, I thought I was dead—maybe this was what the afterlife looked like: sterile white walls and soft sheets.
Then the pain came back.
I was alive.
And I was tied to a hospital bed.
My wrists were strapped down with leather belts. My feet, too. An IV dripped something clear into my arm. I didn't know what it was, but it burned.
Where was I?
Was this some kind of lab?
A prison?
He'd brought me here. That man. That red-eyed demon.
Why?
I closed my eyes again, praying for the darkness to come back. But it didn't.
Instead, I heard footsteps.
Slow. Certain.
The door creaked open.
He walked in like he owned time. The same man—perfectly dressed, perfectly dangerous. His tie loosened now, as if mocking the idea of effort. He didn't look at me with pity. Or interest.
Just... ownership.
He approached with something in his hand.
Then, without a word, he tossed it onto my chest.
A paper.
No—a contract.
I blinked, trying to read it through the fog of confusion.
It was… a marriage contract.
My name. His name reading Jace Luthor.
Conditions. Clauses. Signatures.
I swallowed hard. My mouth was dry.
"What is this?" I rasped.
He tilted his head, almost bored.
"A deal," he said. "You sign this, you live. You get out of that hole. You get food, clothes, protection."
I stared at him.
"Why me?"
He didn't answer that.
He didn't explain.
He stared.
To him, I wasn't someone. I didn't even have a choice.
I looked at the contract again.
Marriage?
To him?
I was nothing. A broken girl. Useless. Ruined. Why would someone like him want me?
But then the thought of the cage crept back. Of Kas' scream. Of the dirt and rats and fists and fear.
This was my only escape.
Even if it led straight into another kind of hell.
So I took the pen.
My hands trembled, but I signed.
And that moment… was the beginning of everything.
The end of everything.
The last breath of who I was.
And the first step toward who I was meant to become.