There was no sleep. Not anymore.
I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling of my cell—if I could still call it that. Asher had made sure it was no longer sterile or clinical. There were blankets now. A soft light. Even books.
Things meant to make this feel like home.
It terrified me more than the cold ever had.
His presence lingered even when he wasn’t in the room, like a scent I couldn’t wash off or a shadow that never obeyed the light. Every conversation with him peeled away a layer I didn’t know I had. I was being stripped raw, and he wasn’t doing it with violence—he was doing it with patience.
Control.
Love.
Obsession.
He came again in the middle of the night, silent as always. I didn’t even flinch anymore when the door unlatched.
“Ava,” he said softly, voice made of smoke and
