Exactly two weeks and three days since I was taken from that house, and honestly, I still don't know if I should say I want to go back... or if I want to stay.
That thought had been living in my head for days now, sitting there like an unanswered question I didn't dare touch too often. Because the truth was ugly and confusing at the same time. That house had never really been a home. Not to me. It had only ever been a place where I slept, worked, got insulted, and learned how to stay out of everybody's way.
And this place?
This place was strange. Dangerous. Beautiful. Silent in the wrong places and tense in the ones that mattered. But somehow, in the middle of all that, it had also become familiar.
After the encounter in the hallway that night with Malakai, I hadn't really seen much of him. It was as if he had vanished back into the walls of this house, swallowed by whatever business men like him handled in secret rooms and low voices. Most of my days had been spent with Bridget, unless she was at school, in which case I was usually alone — wandering between my room and the kitchen, sometimes trying to help with small things like dishes until one of the maids politely chased me away.
I was currently downstairs, sitting at the breakfast table with a plate of eggs, bacon, toast, and a glass of milk in front of me.
And I was enjoying it.
That still felt odd to admit, even to myself. There was a small part of me that still looked at food like this — hot, neatly arranged, enough for me without anyone complaining that I was taking too much — and didn't quite know what to do with it. But my stomach had long since stopped arguing with blessings it hadn't asked for.
I had just bitten into a piece of toast when Bridget walked in.
She looked annoyingly good for someone who claimed she had no morning patience.
Her hair was neatly done, black with those streaks of blue catching in the light. She wore a mid-thigh pleated skirt and a fitted top tucked in just enough to make it look effortless, with her school bag hanging off one shoulder like she had somewhere far more interesting to be. She breezed into the room like she belonged to speed and motion and chaos all at once.
The moment she saw me, her face lit up.
"Hey, girl. Good morning."
Before I could even answer, she bent down, gave me a quick side hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then pulled back.
I laughed softly. "Hi, girl. You look good. Off to school?"
"Unfortunately, yes." She made a face, dropping her bag onto one of the dining chairs. "I woke up late, so I don't even have time for breakfast."
I glanced at her. "That sounds like a you problem."
She gasped dramatically, hand going to her chest. "Wow. Two weeks in this house and suddenly you're throwing insults before ten in the morning?"
I smiled despite myself. "You started it."
She narrowed her eyes playfully. "You're lucky I like you."
"That's good," I said, picking up my glass of milk. "Because I'd hate to lose such an unstable friendship."
Bridget barked out a laugh and leaned against the back of my chair. "Unstable? Me? Kiera, I am one of the most emotionally balanced people in this house."
I stared at her.
She stared back.
Then both of us burst into laughter.
"Okay, maybe not," she admitted.
"Maybe?"
"Rude."
We kept talking like that for another minute or two — small, easy conversation, the kind that had started becoming natural between us in a way that still surprised me. She asked if I'd slept well. I asked if she had done her homework. She said absolutely not. I told her she was going to fail with confidence. She said that was still failing in style.
Then, before I could stop her, she reached down, stole a strip of bacon straight from my plate, and started backing toward the door.
"Bridget—"
"Love you!" she called, already halfway gone, waving the bacon like a prize.
"Thief," I muttered.
"Victimless crime!"
And that was when Malakai walked in.
The whole atmosphere changed.
Not loudly. Not obviously. Just... enough.
He was already dressed for work, and for one ridiculous second my brain noticed the same thing it had noticed every time I had ever seen him outside of sleepwear or casual clothes:
black.
Always black.
A fitted black button-up shirt, the sleeves smooth and tailored against his arms. Black trousers. Dark watch. Dark shoes. Everything about him sharp, controlled, and expensive in that quiet way rich people carried. I found myself wondering, not for the first time, if his entire wardrobe looked like a funeral procession.
I did not say that out loud.
His gaze went first to Bridget.
"You're off to school?"
Bridget straightened like she hadn't just committed bacon theft. "Yes. I'm going to school."
He nodded once. "Behave."
She snorted. "I'll try."
Then she stepped toward him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek like this was the most normal thing in the world, and honestly, it probably was. There was something almost jarring about the softness in the gesture. It reminded me that before he was all the other things — feared, cold, dangerous, unreadable — he was also somebody's brother.
Bridget picked up her bag again and flashed me a grin. "Try not to miss me too much."
"No promises," I said.
She winked and disappeared out the door.
Then it was just me and him.
And the silence.
He moved to the table and took his usual seat like it had been assigned by the gods of intimidation themselves. I didn't look up. I kept my eyes on my plate, cutting my toast into smaller pieces that didn't need cutting, pretending that I was deeply invested in breakfast.
I heard the quiet sound of his phone in his hand. The faint shift of a chair. A cup being set down.
Then his voice cut through the silence.
"You'll be resuming school tomorrow."
My hand paused halfway to my mouth.
I looked up.
He wasn't even looking at me. Just scrolling through something on his phone like he had said the weather was changing.
"What?"
Now his eyes lifted, only briefly. "You're going back to school tomorrow."
I swallowed. "Tomorrow?"
"You have exams coming up." His tone was flat, practical. "So you'll return tomorrow. You'll give Mama Rose your full class schedule, the names of your teachers, and anything else relevant. She'll pass it on to me."
I blinked, still trying to process the fact that I was apparently going back to school.
He continued, "The same driver who takes Bridget every morning will take you both and pick you both up."
Then his voice lowered, just slightly.
"My rule is simple. When you are dropped at school, you go nowhere else. You leave with no one. You don't follow anyone. You don't wander. You go to school, you get picked up, and you come straight back here." His gaze settled on me fully now. "Do not go anywhere else, or there will be consequences."
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny. More because the idea of me running off to some exciting social life after school was so absurd that it brushed against humor. Go where, exactly? To whose house? With which friends? School had never been that kind of place for me. It had only ever been a temporary escape route, somewhere to breathe before going back home to Tina's voice and Alyssa's smug face.
But instead of saying any of that, I just nodded.
"Okay."
The silence stretched for a second.
Then, in that same low voice, he said, "Good."
And that was it.
Just one word. Calm. Final.
I finished my breakfast quietly after that, though inside me something had already shifted. School. Tomorrow. Two whole weeks away, and now I was going back.
I didn't know whether to be nervous, excited, or deeply concerned.
Probably all three.
When I was done, I picked up my plate and took it into the kitchen.
I maid was there. Her name was Rachel. Rachel was there, wiping down the counter. Over the last two weeks, I had finally learned the names of most of the staff, and Rachel was one of the few who had warmed up to me enough to smile without seeming afraid she was doing too much.
"Morning, Rachel."
She smiled immediately. "Good morning, Miss Kiera."
I moved toward the sink. "I'm just going to wash this—"
Rachel practically rushed over. "No, ma'am. No, ma'am, please, give it to me."
I paused. "Oh, no, don't worry. It's fine. I can wash my own plate."
Rachel shook her head so fast it almost made me laugh. "No, please. Let me handle it."
"It's just one plate."
"The boss might get angry."
I glanced toward the dining area, where Malakai was still seated, phone in hand, coffee near his elbow. Then I looked back at Rachel.
"I'm not sure he'd get angry over one plate."
Rachel leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. "Please. Let me just do it."
I looked at her for another second, then gave in and handed her the plate.
"Okay."
"Thank you, ma'am."
I washed my hands instead, drying them carefully with the towel by the sink and mentally preparing myself to go back upstairs — back to the only space in this entire mansion that felt remotely mine.
I had just turned to leave when Rachel called after me.
"Miss Kiera?"
I looked back. "Yeah?"
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm going to get groceries later today. Is there anything specific you'd like me to get for you?"
I frowned, honestly confused. "For me?"
"Yes." She smiled politely. "The boss said specifically to ask you if there's anything you might want."
That made me pause.
Slowly, I looked past her into the dining area.
Malakai had just lifted his coffee cup. He took a sip, set it back down, and didn't say a word.
I looked back at Rachel.
The thing was, I didn't even know what to ask for. A lot of the things people casually wanted were things I had barely ever had. There were too many choices inside a question that simple. Too many things I had never taught myself to want out loud.
So I went with the smallest, safest answer.
"A pack of gummy worms," I said after a second. "Or gummy bears. Either one is fine."
Rachel nodded immediately. "Of course."
"Thank you."
Then I left the kitchen.
The moment I got back to my room and shut the door behind me, I threw myself onto the bed and let out the kind of squeal I would absolutely deny if anybody asked.
I was going back to school.
That should not have excited me the way it did, but it did.
Maybe because unlike most people my age, I had never hated school.
People, yes. Some people, absolutely. Alisa and her little followers had made sure of that. But school itself? The classes, the books, the possibility of learning something new — that had always been mine. Even when everything else felt ugly, school had still represented a future. A way out. If I got good enough grades, if I worked hard enough, if I managed to pull off scholarships and recommendations and everything else, then maybe one day I wouldn't have to depend on anybody.
Because if I waited for the people I called family to send me to college, I would die waiting.
Any money they ever had would go straight into Alyssa's future or Tina's skincare routine before it ever touched my tuition. Probably before it even touched my father's medication, if I was being honest.
So yes, school mattered.
And so did the dreams I barely let myself say out loud.
One of them had started in the attic.
I grew up spending so much time up there that it began to feel like another version of me lived in the shadows between those boxes and old furniture. I had a lot of time to myself there. A lot of silence. A lot of nights where everyone else was asleep and I'd sneak downstairs just to watch television with the volume turned almost all the way down.
One night, when I was about nine, I stumbled onto something that changed me.
It was some late-night program — crime-related, medical, I don't even know what exactly. But they were examining a body. Not in a horror-movie way. Not in a way that made me want to run. It was the opposite. I was fascinated. They were explaining injuries, dissecting layers, talking about organs and evidence and how the body could tell a story long after a person could no longer speak.
It completely gripped me.
I didn't know it then, but later I found the name for what had caught my attention: forensic pathology.
From that moment on, I was hooked.
The human body. Biology. Investigation. The way science and truth could work together. I started burying myself in biology textbooks, reading every little thing I could find, memorizing organs, body systems, tissues, anything that explained how people were put together and how those same details could reveal what happened to them.
Tina caught me one night watching another similar program and beat me so badly I couldn't sleep properly for two days.
She told me girls shouldn't fill their heads with things like that.
It didn't stop me from loving it.
Then there was tech.
That had started when I was thirteen and my dad gave me one of his old laptops — slow, slightly broken, outdated, but mine. I had spent hours on it, first teaching myself basic coding, then moving into deeper systems, security, and things I probably should not have been learning that young.
Eventually basic turned into advanced.
Advanced turned into dangerous.
And one day, after Tina had pushed me too far, I used what I knew. I hacked into her devices, found out she'd been sending nudes to men who definitely were not my father, and leaked everything straight into one of her group chats... and to Dad.
That was an unforgettable week.
Not long after, Alyssa started snooping around and eventually they figured out it had been me, which was the end of both my laptop and my peace for a while.
I still missed that laptop.
I missed the way it made me feel — sharp, capable, in control of at least one thing in my life.
I just hoped that if I ever got another one, that part of me wouldn't be gone. That skill didn't just disappear because circumstances changed.
And then there was one more thing.
Hair.
It sounded basic, almost stupid, compared to forensic science and hacking. But it mattered to me.
I had always loved hair. Styling it, braiding it, experimenting with looks, trying little things that made me feel pretty. Not for boys. Not for attention. Just for myself. For the tiny, private joy of looking in the mirror and seeing effort, softness, beauty.
But every time I tried, Alyssa laughed. The girls at school laughed. Tina made comments about me "trying too hard" when no one wanted me anyway. So eventually I stopped. Left my hair plain. Left everything plain.
And the funny thing was, they still insulted me.
Too basic. Too boring. Too plain. Too forgettable.
That was when I started realizing something important:
People will always find something to criticize if cruelty is what they enjoy.
So really, what was the point in shrinking for them?
I rolled onto my back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, smiling despite myself.
Tomorrow was going to be weird. There was no way around that. In two weeks, the whole story had probably spread like wildfire — Kiera got taken away, Kiera got sold off, Kiera this, Kiera that. And Alyssa? She definitely would have told everyone the ugliest version possible.
But underneath the dread was excitement.
Curiosity.
Maybe even hope.
I sat up suddenly, my mind already running ahead.
Outfit.
I pushed myself off the bed and walked to the closet, sliding it open to look at the things Bridget and I had bought during our shopping trip two weeks ago. The memory of that day made something warm flicker in my chest. Bridget had been loud, opinionated, dramatic, and completely determined to make sure I owned at least a few things that didn't look like they had lost a fight with life.
My fingers moved through hangers until I found it.
A short summer dress.
White, with little red flowers and cherries printed across it. Soft fabric. Off-the-shoulder design. An elastic waist that cinched gently instead of squeezing. A slit that ended at mid-thigh. Cute without trying too hard. Pretty without begging for permission.
I pulled it out and held it against myself in the mirror.
Then I found the shoes I wanted — simple, neat, feminine.
I looked at my reflection and went very still.
Because for the first time in a long time, the girl looking back at me did not immediately remind me of survival.
She looked... young.
Soft.
Pretty.
Almost hopeful.
My hair had grown fuller in the short time I'd been here, or maybe it just looked healthier now that I wasn't constantly stressed and underfed. My skin had color again. My eyes didn't look as sunken. There was still caution in my face, still old hurt living there if you knew how to look for it, but there was something else too. The bruises are almost completely gone and I added a bit more flesh. I'm still skinny but now, I don't look malnourished as I used to . A little hint of blush around my nose and cheeks indicating life.
Something new.
Something rising.
I touched the dress lightly and looked at myself for another second.
Then I smiled.
Small at first.
Then wider.
"Okay," I whispered to my reflection.
Tomorrow, I was going back.
Oh Help Me Lord.