I couldn't stop shaking. Every part of me screamed to leave, but my legs were cemented to the floor.
He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching me like a scientist observing a specimen that he didn't need to save or kill, just study.
"Sit," he said. Not a request, an order.
I swallowed. My throat felt dry, really dry, like I hadn't swallowed in a week. Slowly, I lowered myself to the small chair in the corner of his apartment, the one facing the living room, where his world looked deceptively normal: books neatly stacked, a coffee table without a scratch, a single lamp casting a warm glow.
Normal. It made everything worse.
"You think I'm insane," I whispered, even though he could hear.
"I don't think anything," he said softly. "I know."
The words dug into me. I flinched.
"I….. I don't know why I'm here," I admitted. My hands were shaking as I rubbed my arms. "I didn't mean to come. I....."
"You did," he cut me off. "You came. You chose this. Don't pretend it was an accident."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him he couldn't control me. But my voice failed me. I could hear my pulse in my ears, drowning out everything else.
I hated him.
And somehow, I didn't.
He stepped closer, slow, deliberate, until I could smell the faint trace of cologne again. Something sharp under the clean scent. I shivered. He didn't move threateningly, but the air around him felt like it could crush me if I tried to run.
"You're thinking too much," he said. "Which is exactly what I want."
I couldn't tell if that was a threat or a confession.
"I don't….." I stammered. "I don't understand what you want from me."
His lips curved slightly. "I want you to see me. Not the version everyone else sees. Me, right here, right now, the truth."
I laughed nervously, it came out very loud. "The truth?" I repeated. "You? What truth?"
He bent slightly to meet my eye level, as if suddenly the power had shifted, not him towering over me, not me cowering, but some unspoken, dangerous middle.
"The truth is," he whispered, voice like silk sliding over steel, "you're mine. And you don't even know it yet."
My heart skipped, not in fear, not completely, something else, something strange and wrong.
"I'm not…." I said, but my voice broke.
"You are," he said. "And you will be. I can feel it. I see it in the way your fingers tremble, the way your eyes dart, the way your mind races a hundred steps ahead trying to escape a game you already agreed to play."
I wanted to stand, I wanted to run, I wanted to throw myself at him and yell, stop this!
Instead, I just sat there, shocked.
He circled slowly around me, silent, observing. Like he was cataloging every tiny reaction. Every flinch, every pulse, every unspoken thought.
And then, he stopped behind me. So close I could feel his breath at the back of my neck.
"You're thinking about him," he said.
I froze.
"What?" I whispered.
"Him," he said, low. "The one you can't stop worrying about. The one you think you love. The one you promised you'd never mention."
I swallowed hard. I hadn't expected him to know, not yet, not so soon.
"How..." I started.
He pressed a finger gently against my temple. Not threatening, controlling, quiet. "I see everything," he murmured. "Every lie you tell yourself. Every secret you think no one knows. And every choice you're too afraid to make."
My breath caught in my throat.
"You can't leave," he said finally, stepping back. His eyes softened, just enough to make me doubt myself. "Not yet, not until I say so."
I wanted to argue, to fight. But I couldn't. Not fully. Not yet.
Then his phone buzzed.
He glanced at it, expression tightening, and I realized he wasn't alone in this. Someone else was in his world, someone watching. Waiting.
He looked back at me, and in that second, I saw it,the faintest flicker of panic.
"You're going to regret that," he whispered.
Before I could ask what he meant, the lights flickered violently, and the apartment door, my escape, clicked locked from the inside.
I was trapped.
And then I heard it. A voice, not his. Familiar, chilling, carried through the narrow apartment hallway.
"Don't move," it said.
My stomach dropped.
Because I recognized it.
And I knew..... if it had come for me, it wouldn't leave without taking something I couldn't get back.