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The bedroom we'd created for my mothers hospice care was too cold. No matter how many silk blankets my father brought or how many lavender candles I burned, the chill never left. It clung to everything - my skin, my thoughts - but mostly, to her. My mother barely looked like herself anymore. The golden warmth she used to carry was gone, drained away by months of sickness. Her face, once full and soft, had hollowed out, all sharp angles and pale skin stretched too thin. I hated it. Hated how weak she seemed. Hated how the doctors looked at her like she was already a memory.
I perched on the edge of her bed, watching the slow, fragile rise of her chest. Her machines did all of the work. Without them, she would stop - just like that. And I couldn't let that happen. "She's going to get better," I whispered, as if saying it out loud would make it true.
I'd heard the doctors talking in the hospital right before my mother was put on hospice, when they thought I wasn't listening. "No viable options," they said. "No point of prolonging the inevitable," I wanted to burn those words. Tear them out of the air. Because they didn't understand - she was my mother and losing her wasn't an option.
The door creaked open behind me. I didn't bother turning around.
"Selene," my father said, his voice low and rough. "Go to bed."
"I'm not tired." My fingers curled into the blanket. If I left, what if she was gone when I came back? What if this was the last time?
"You shouldn't be here."
"She's my mother," I snapped. My throat burned, but I refused to cry in front of him. I didn't want to be one more problem he had to try and fix.
For a moment, he didn't say anything. Then the door shut quietly, and I thought he was gone.
Until I heard the voices.
Muffled. Sharp. Coming from his office.
I moved without thinking - silent and careful. Years of dance lessons had taught me how to make my footsteps vanish. When I reached the office door, I pressed my back against the wall gently and listened.
"I'm not paying for false hope," my father said, his voice harder then I'd ever heard it. "If it doesn't work-" He cut himself off, and the silence that followed made the air in my lungs go tight.
A long pause. Then, finally, he spoke again. "Fine. I'll send the payment. Just get here." I barely made it back to my mothers side before he returned. He didn't look at me when he walked in. He didn't say another word. After a brief look around of the room, he gently closed the door and left. I just knew something was going to change.
****
Two weeks later, Tobias Duskbane arrived.
It was rainy and past midnight when I heard the knock - soft, yet deliberate. The house was too quiet, the air heavy with the smell of rain. I couldn't sleep. Not when every breath felt like a countdown.
I crept downstairs, careful not to make a sound. My father stood by the door, his pale face beneath the dim glow of the half broken chandelier - and there stood a man on the doorstep.
He wasn't like the others.
He wore all black from head to toe - leather gloves, a jacket that clung to his tall frame. Water glistened down his sleeves as he stepped inside. It wasn't the way he looked that made my skin prickle, it was the way the air seemed to change around him - colder, heavier, like the house itself didn't want him there.
His eyes found me peeking from the stairs almost immediately. Dark and amused. When he smiled, I felt it in my bones.
"Your father tells me you want her to live." He says to me, his voice was smooth, almost too smooth. My father turns around and our eyes lock. His eyebrows shift, and he looks upset. Maybe he was upset I was eavesdropping, but regardless this new man in our home would've found its way to me.
I lifted my chin towards him, trying to appear stoic, but I'm swallowing the fear down my throat. "Of course I do."
"Good." His eyes are dark and calculated. The air around him is becoming increasingly heavier, and I run back upstairs to try and avoid it.
I didn't know the price my father had paid that night. Not yet at least.
And in the end, it didn't matter.
****
She died anyways.
One minute my mother was breathing - shallow but steady. The next, her heart stopped. Just like that. And no miracle Tobias promised could bring her back.
I thought that would be the end of him. I thought we'd bury her, and he'd disappear like a bad dream. I was wrong.
The debt didn't die with her. I was still pretending not to listen when Tobias made his offer.
"Your debt is due." He said. His voice was silk over steel. "But I'm a reasonable man."
"What do you want?" My fathers voice shook - a sound I never thought I'd hear. A long pause ensued, and then what Tobias said next changed everything.
"Your daughter."
I froze.
"She becomes mine," he continued, smooth as if he were discussing a business deal. "Or you die. I'm offering you a choice."
Tobias's eyes locked into mine, his expression was empty. Cold, and completely and utterly empty. His brown eyes looked almost dark as night which sent chills down my body. I fully expected my father to fight. To refuse. To do something - anything - to protect me. But he didn't even hesitate.
"She's yours."
Two words. That was all it took for him to give me away.
When Tobias took me from my fathers home, I thought nothing could be worse. That was, until, I walked into his home.
I didn't come from money. Our little house had cracked ceilings, peeling paint, and secondhand furniture. But Tobias's home was something else entirely. It was breathtaking. Dark, towering, and eerie, like out of a Victorian dream. Heavy with chandeliers hung from vaulted ceilings, casting gold light across marble floors. Ornate, antique furniture lined the halls - rich mahogany and black velvet, cold but beautiful. It felt otherworldly, like I'd stepped into a place I didn't belong. For a moment, a voice in the back of my head whispered that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't going to be so bad. That somehow my life would be better - safer - here.
I was so, so wrong. Tobias Duskbane wasn't a man. He was a monster.
Behind the beauty of his home, he hid the truth - the darkness in him ran far deeper. He was cruel. Twisted. A psychopath who took pleasure in breaking me piece by piece. Everyday he found new ways to hurt me. Mentally. Physically. Sexually.
He would tear me down with cruel words until I felt like nothing, then punish me if I didn't smile for him. If I said the wrong thing. If I breathed the wrong way. I learned quickly - Tobias's love was pain. And if I ever tried to leave, I wouldn't survive it.
I used to be Selene Everoath. That name meant something - power, legacy, belonging. Now, I was Selene Duskbane.
And there was no escape.
ns 15.158.61.18da2
