Taken by the monster they made

I heard my name, and I turned. Headlights. Big, bright, and coming right at me. For a second, the whole world just… stopped. I could feel the cold air on my face. I heard the tires screaming against the asphalt, a sound that goes right through you. And the noise—people yelling, a woman shrieking. It all just blurred together. Then the car hit. It wasn’t like in the movies. There was no graceful flying through the air. It was a blunt, sickening slam. Pain exploded everywhere—in my side, my legs, my head—a white-hot burst that swallowed everything, and then… nothing. Just a heavy, fuzzy numbness. Next thing I knew, I was on my back on the cold road, staring up at a streetlight haloed by fog. Shapes moved around me, voices talking over each other, but they sounded like they were underwater. Muffled. Unreal. And then I saw him. Alexander. Even with my vision swimming, those eyes were unmistakable. Dark, intense, cold. He was pushing through the crowd of people, his face… God, his face. After keeping me locked up for months, he looked absolutely terrified. He looked like he was about to lose something precious. I wanted to laugh. It was so messed up, so twisted, that the urge to just cackle right there on the asphalt bubbled up in my throat. Or maybe scream. Honestly, I wanted to do both. I tried to move, to push myself up, but my body wasn’t listening. My chest was on fire. My head felt like it was full of wet cement, too heavy to lift. I just lay there, watching as he reached me, kneeling down beside the paramedics. His expression was darker, more severe than I’d ever seen. He said something to a medic, his voice low and urgent, but the words were lost in the ringing in my ears. Then everything went black. ------ Bright light. That was the first thing I saw. I blinked, my eyes stinging. White ceiling. White walls. Blinding white curtains pulled tight. “Great,” I whispered, my voice a dry crackle. “So this is hell? I always pictured it darker.” The smell hit me next—that sharp, clean, awful smell of antiseptic and sickness. Hospital. I was in a hospital. But… that didn’t make sense. The car… the impact… I was supposed to be dead. Or at the very least, broken beyond fixing. Confusion swamped me, thick and slow. I turned my head on the stiff pillow, every movement sending a fresh ache through my neck. And I froze. Him. He was right there. Asleep in an ugly plastic chair pulled up to my bedside, still in his expensive coat, looking rumpled. He was holding my hand. Not just holding it—his fingers were laced through mine, gripping so tight his knuckles were white, like he thought I’d float away if he let go. His head was bowed, resting on the edge of the mattress near my hip. He looked exhausted. Worn out. A wave of panic, hot and sour, rose up from my stomach. I tried to yank my hand back, to put any distance between us, but my arm was a dead weight. My muscles just… wouldn’t. All I managed was a weak twitch and a strained, pathetic sound in the back of my throat. It was enough. His eyes snapped open. Instant. Alert. They locked onto mine. For a long moment, he just stared. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He just stared at me like I was a ghost. Like he was seeing a miracle. Then he was moving. He dropped my hand, bolted out of the chair, and was out the door without a word. He returned a minute later with a doctor and two nurses in tow. They flocked around the bed, checking monitors, taking my pulse, shining a light in my eyes, talking in low, quick medical terms I couldn’t follow. “Remarkable,” the doctor murmured, more to himself than to anyone. He was looking at a chart. “Vitals are strong. The healing is… surprisingly fast, given the trauma.” I saw Alexander’s reflection in the glass of the monitor. At the doctor’s words, a smile touched his lips. Not a big one. A small, private, satisfied thing that made my blood run cold. Then they were gone, and it was just the two of us again in the quiet, beeping room. He moved back to the chair, but he didn’t sit. He just looked at me. Really looked. His gaze traveled over my face like he was memorizing it. Then he reached out. His fingertips brushed a strand of hair from my forehead, then trailed down my cheekbone. The touch was gentle. Almost tender. It made my skin crawl. I tried to turn my head away, but I was so tired and it felt so heavy. A soft, awful smile played on his lips. He leaned in closer, his voice a low murmur meant just for me. “See, Bunny?” he whispered. The old pet name, the one I hated, slithered into my ear. “Even in death, I’ll find you.” The fear that shot through me then was pure and icy. It dripped down my spine and pooled in my stomach and I lost consciousness once more. When I opened my eyes again, I knew. I didn’t need to see the white walls or the beeping monitors. The air felt different. It was still, quiet, and smelled like lemon polish and him. I was back. Back in the cage. A bitter, hysterical laugh tried to claw its way out of my throat. Of course. Of course I was back here. Months. I’d spent months in this beautiful room, and in the end, it didn’t matter. The world outside had swallowed me up and spit me right back into his hands. No police had come knocking. No rescue teams had stormed the gates. It was like I’d never left. Like I’d never existed anywhere else. The familiar sound of the lock disengaging pulled me from the thought. A sharp click-hiss. My whole body went rigid. The door opened, and Alexander walked in. Calm as anything. Like he was just coming home from a business meeting. He was carrying a tray—steam rising from a bowl, a glass of water. His sharp eyes found me the second he stepped inside. He took me in, propped up against the pillows, awake and glaring. “Well,” he said, his voice dry. He set the tray down on the bedside table with a soft clink. “For someone so fragile, I must admit I’m impressed. I thought you’d be out for a year, at least.” I didn’t say a word. I just looked at him, pouring every ounce of hate and fear I had into my stare. A low chuckle escaped him as he straightened up. “There it is. There’s that fighting spirit I missed.” He gestured to the tray. “Eat. You need to regain your strength.” I didn’t move. I didn’t even look at the food. Did he seriously think, after all of this, that I would just sit here and obey? That I’d play along with his little game of house? My silence hung in the air. I saw a flicker of irritation cross his face, quickly smoothed away. “Lilian,” he said, the name a command. Nothing. The room grew tighter, the air thinner. The tension was a live wire between us. With a sigh that was more annoyance than patience, he picked up the glass of water from the tray. He stepped closer to the bed, holding it out. “Drink. You’re dehydrated.” I turned my face away, staring stubbornly at the wall. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t,” he said, his voice dropping, gaining an edge. “Don’t start this.” I kept my eyes on the wall, on a tiny, almost invisible crack in the paint. My own little rebellion. The silence stretched, thin and dangerous. Then, fast as a snake strike, his free hand shot out. His fingers dug into my jaw, hard, forcing my head back to face him. The grip hurt. “Drink. The. Water.” Fear, sharp and immediate, flashed through me. But beneath it, a stubborn anger burned. I pressed my lips together, locking my jaw against his fingers. His eyes darkened, pure frustration and something hotter, uglier, swirling in them. For one terrifying heartbeat, I saw it. I saw his other hand twitch, saw his body coil. I braced myself, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was sure he was going to hit me. But he didn’t. He stopped. He closed his eyes, took a sharp breath, and his grip on my jaw loosened, then fell away entirely. He took a full step back, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of pure, furious agitation. He looked at the glass of water in his hand like it offended him, then placed it back on the tray with a sharp clack. Without another word, without even looking at me again, he turned and strode out of the room. The door didn’t just close. He slammed it. The sound was a physical shockwave, a BANG that made the walls shudder and my whole body flinch violently. I heard the lock engage, a final, heavy thunk. The echo of the slam hung in the air long after he was gone. And just like that, all the fight drained out of me. The tense, rigid fear melted, leaving behind a hollow, shaky exhaustion. A sob hitched in my chest. I brought my hands up, covering my face, and finally let the silent tears come. My shoulders shook. Why? The question was a broken record in my head. Why won’t he just let me go? I still remember the day it all started. The last normal day. Back then, my life was… just a life. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine. I remember laughing with my dad at breakfast, him trying to tell a joke from work and messing up the punchline. I remember calling my best friend Katie that evening, listening to her rant for twenty minutes about her boyfriend, Mark, and his weird hatred of her wanting a second cat. “He says one is enough, Lily! Can you believe the tyranny?” Everything felt ordinary. Safe. Dull in the best possible way. Then, just… darkness. I never even saw who took me. One minute I was walking home from the corner store, my arms aching from the grocery bags, thinking about what to make for dinner. The next… a sharp smell, like sickly-sweet chemicals. A cloth over my face. A strong arm around me. And then nothing. I woke up here. In this room. No explanation. No answers. Just these four walls and him. Days bled into weeks. Weeks into months. I watched the seasons change through unopenable glass. And the scariest part, the thing that kept me up at night more than his visits? Nobody came. No missing person posters with my face. No urgent news bulletins. No police knocking on doors. My dad, who called me every Sunday at 7 PM like clockwork, just… stopped. Katie’s texts and memes dried up. It was like I’d been erased. Like I’d never been Lily at all. The world accepted I was gone and just kept on turning. A single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path down my temple and into my hair as I stared at the locked door. It wasn’t just a door. It was the edge of the world. And I was trapped on the wrong side of it.