Episode 8
630 Words
EPISODE 8: The First Strike
I’d been living on edge for days.
The kind of edge where you startle at every knock, every phone vibration, every time Liam’s gaze lingers a second too long.
The game had become unbearable—his traps getting more elaborate, Cameron more reckless.
And I… I was running out of places to hide my guilt.
It was a rainy Tuesday when it finally happened.
Liam suggested we take a drive into town. “Just us,” he’d said, like it was a date.
The storm outside turned the roads into slick ribbons of gray, the wipers thumping in steady rhythm.
We didn’t speak much.
He had one hand on the wheel, the other resting casually on his thigh. But every so often, I’d feel his eyes on me.
Measuring.
We didn’t stop in town.
Instead, he pulled off onto an old country road I didn’t recognize, the rain pattering harder against the roof.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He didn’t answer—just drove until we reached a small overlook. From here, the valley below was blurred by rain, the sky low and heavy.
He cut the engine.
Silence fell, broken only by the steady hiss of the storm.
Then he turned to me.
“When were you going to tell me?”
My blood went cold. “Tell you… what?”
His lips curved—not in a smile, but in something sharper.
“Don’t play dumb, Rory. I’m not Cameron. I don’t need to guess to know where you’ve been.”
I forced myself to hold his gaze. “I don’t know what you think you know—”
“I think,” he said, voice quiet but unyielding, “that my fiancée has been kissing my brother in my mother’s house.”
The words landed like a physical blow.
I wanted to deny it. I almost did.
But there was no bluffing with Liam.
He wasn’t fishing for information—he already had it.
“You’re wrong,” I whispered, even though my pulse was pounding so hard it drowned out my thoughts.
He leaned closer, his tone deceptively calm.
“You’re good at lying. You keep your face still, your voice steady. But your hands…” He glanced down. “Your hands give you away.”
I realized too late my fingers were twisting the hem of my sweater.
“I trusted you,” Liam continued. “I was ready to give you a life most people only dream of. And you—” His jaw flexed. “You wanted danger. You wanted him.”
“Liam, it’s not—”
“Don’t.” His voice was ice now. “Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t still want him.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
He studied me for a long moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled something out.
It was the silver cufflink I’d found in the hallway.
“I dropped this on purpose,” he said, watching my reaction. “Wanted to see if you’d bring it up. But you didn’t. You just… hid it.”
My chest was tight. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know,” he said, his voice low and deliberate, “that I’m not letting you go. Not to him. Not to anyone. You are mine, Rory.”
He started the car again, the engine growling under the rain.
But as we drove back, I realized the part that scared me most wasn’t his anger.
It was how calm he was.
Because Liam wasn’t going to explode in a fit of rage.
He was going to dismantle me—slowly, carefully—until there was nothing left for Cameron to save.
- Writer
