The Room Without Answers
2482 Words
CHAPTER 3
****
Maree
The silence felt heavier than the gunshots.
I stood in the middle of the room, not moving, afraid that even breathing too loudly would be a mistake. My legs were numb from fear and exhaustion, but my mind… my mind wouldn’t stop racing.
Why am I alive? Who is he? How does he know my name? Where is Lily?
Every question was sharper than the sting on my cheek.
The door behind me locked with a loud metallic click.
I flinched.
I wasn’t imagining it. I was a prisoner.
The room was nothing like the orphanage.
Nothing like anything I had ever seen.
Cold white walls.
No paintings.
No color.
No softness.
Just emptiness, arranged neatly enough to remind me that everything here had a purpose… and none of those purposes involved comfort.
A single bed stood in the corner — metal-framed, tightly made, the sheets crisp and too white, like the kind used in hospitals or interrogation rooms. The kind of bed that looked slept in by no one and watched by everyone.
A small wooden table sat against the far wall, its surface spotless, untouched, almost suspiciously clean. A tray of food rested on it — water, bread, fruit — all arranged too perfectly to feel normal. It looked less like a meal and more like a test.
The floor was smooth concrete, cold enough that it bit into the soles of my feet.
No rug.
No warmth.
Nothing to make this place feel human.
Then my eyes lifted upward — and stopped.
A thin red light blinked from the corner of the ceiling.
A camera.
My breaths grew shallow.
Of course they were watching.
Of course he was watching.
I wrapped my arms around myself instinctively, wishing I could disappear into the walls, wishing I could be invisible, wishing everything was a nightmare I could wake up from.
I backed away from the camera slowly, as if moving too fast would trigger something I couldn’t see. My legs carried me toward the bed, but I didn’t sit. I just hovered there, staring at the locked door, waiting for… I didn’t even know what.
Minutes passed.
Or maybe hours.
Fear messes with time.
The food on the table remained untouched. My stomach twisted with hunger, but something about the fruit looked too clean… too intentional. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust anything in this place.
I took a step toward the table anyway.
That was when I heard it —
a soft mechanical whir.
The lock turning.
My heart jumped into my throat.
I froze, breathing becoming shallow again as the door swung open slowly, letting in a woman I didn’t recognize.
She was nothing like the guards.
Nothing like the man who brought me here.
Slim, graceful, wearing a black dress that fit her body like it had been sewn onto her skin. Her heels clicked softly against the concrete as she walked in, carrying a small tray of folded towels and a bottle of something that looked like lotion.
Her face was unreadable — beautiful in a cold, distant way.
Sharp cheekbones.
Eyes like glass.
A mouth set in a line that didn’t know how to smile.
She shut the door behind her without looking back.
“Sit,” she said quietly.
Her voice was calm, but not gentle. The calm of someone who would slap you without raising her tone. The calm of someone sent to do a job.
I didn’t move.
She sighed, shifting her weight slightly.
“I’m Elena. I was told to check on you.”
Her eyes swept over me from head to toe.
Slow. Clinical.
Noticing everything.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” I whispered.
She blinked once… like that answer meant something important.
“Stand still,” she said, walking toward me.
I stepped back instinctively until my back hit the wall. She raised one eyebrow, unimpressed.
“Do you want medical care or not?”
I didn’t even know I needed medical care… until she reached out and touched my cheek, the bruised one. I flinched so violently she paused.
“That hit was too hard,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. “He won’t like that.”
My breath caught.
He.
The mafia boss.
The man whose eyes were colder than steel.
“He—he cares?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Elena’s eyes flicked to mine sharply.
“Care is not the word I’d use. But he doesn’t appreciate damage on things that aren’t meant to be damaged yet.”
Things.
So that’s what I was to them.
A thing.
She opened the bottle and poured something onto a cloth. The smell was sharp and minty — medicine. She lifted the cloth toward my cheek again, and this time I forced myself to stay still even though it stung.
Her expression didn’t change once.
“Do you know why you’re here?” she asked quietly.
I shook my head.
“Do you know him?” she pressed.
I shook again, faster this time.
Elena paused, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to see inside my skull.
“Interesting,” she said after a moment, stepping back. “You really don’t know anything.”
She grabbed my wrist suddenly and turned my arm upward. I gasped, trying to pull away, but her grip was firm — stronger than she looked.
“No marks,” she muttered. “No identification. No branding. No family ring.”
Her eyes lifted to mine again.
“You’re clean.”
“I—I don’t understand,” I said shakily.
“You will,” she replied simply.
She dropped my wrist and placed the towels on the bed.
Then she grabbed the food tray from the table and brought it to me.
“Eat,” she said.
“I’m not hungry.”
She stared at me for a long moment. Her expression didn’t change, but something in the room shifted — a tension I didn’t recognize.
“You don’t refuse anything in this house,” she said quietly. “Not food. Not orders. Not him.”
A shiver ran through me.
I picked up a piece of fruit with trembling fingers and took a small bite. Only then did she nod.
She walked toward the door.
Just before she stepped out, she paused and turned back to me.
“Oh,” she said, “and Maree?”
My breath hitched.
Her next words made my stomach drop:
“You should hope he doesn’t ask for you tonight.”
The door locked behind her.
And I realized something terrible:
Being alone in this room was not the worst thing that could happen to me.
Being wanted might be worse.
When Elena left, the silence came back thicker, heavier… almost alive.
I stared at the locked door for a long time, hoping it would open again and give me answers.
It didn’t.
I looked around the room again. That was when I finally noticed a small door tucked in the corner — one I hadn’t seen earlier because fear had blurred everything.
A bathroom.
I took slow, small steps toward it, my heart still racing in my chest. The door opened easily, without locks, revealing a space that felt almost unreal to someone who had grown up at an orphanage.
Grey tiles.
A sink with a shining silver tap.
A mirror too clean, too sharp.
A glass shower cubicle with steam still clinging to the inside like someone had used it recently.
For a second, I wondered if this was another test.
If the water wasn’t for bathing but for watching how I reacted.
The camera red light blinked again from the corner of the ceiling — even here.
I swallowed hard, reaching for the shower tap. My hand shook so much the metal clinked softly. Warm water rushed out immediately, hitting the tiles with a soft, steady rhythm — the only soothing sound I’d heard all day.
I stepped under it.
The moment the water touched my skin, everything I was holding in… snapped.
My knees buckled, and I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the wet floor, arms wrapped tight around my legs, water mixing with the tears I was no longer strong enough to hide.
For the first time since I was dragged from the orphanage, I let myself feel everything.
The gunshots.
The bodies.
Mama Zee.
The nursery kids.
The blood.
Lily’s scream.
Lily’s scream.
Where is she?
Is she alive?
Did they get her?
Was she hiding?
Did she see them take me?
The thoughts hit like punches.
I buried my face in my knees, trying to breathe, but each breath shook harder than the last. The water wasn’t washing anything away. Not the fear. Not the trauma. Not the cold reality.
I wasn’t going home.
I didn’t even know if I HAD a home anymore.
My fingernails dug into my arms.
Why me?
Why my name?
Why did that man look at me like he already knew something I didn’t?
I leaned my head back against the tile, letting the warm water hit my face.
And then—
A sound.
The softest click.
Not from the bathroom door.
Not from the main room door either.
A different kind of click.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Heavy.
I held my breath, every muscle in my body going rigid.
Another click.
Like boots stepping into the room.
My heart stopped and then started again, fast, painful.
Someone was in the room with me.
Watching me cry.
Watching me break.
Watching me try to hold myself together under the shower.
I wiped the water from my eyes, my pulse so loud it felt like it was echoing off the bathroom walls.
Then I heard it—
A low voice.
Calm.
Cold.
Deep enough to stop time.
“Are you done?”
My chest tightened violently.
It was him.
The man with the honey-brown eyes.
The man whose men killed everyone I knew.
The man who told me I was spared… for a reason.
His shadow stretched across the bathroom floor through the glass door.
He was standing right outside the shower.
Waiting.
Watching.
Like he had been there for longer than I realized.
I jerked forward, reaching for the towel—but his voice cut through the steam again, soft and dangerous:
“Don’t bother covering yourself, Maree.”
My breath caught.
“Nothing in this house is hidden from me.”
The steam swirled.
The water ran.
My heart pounded so hard I felt dizzy.
He stepped even closer.
The glass door fogged between us, but I could see the shape of him.
Tall.
Still.
Unmoving.
Watching.
And his next words froze me completely:
“I didn’t come here to hurt you.”
A pause.
“Not yet.”
- Writer
