They drove me home. Not the home with warm light or soft quiet , but the one with hollow walls and names etched in contracts. I sat in the backseat like cargo. Beside me, my mother's voice never stopped, giving instructions to someone on the phone about lighting, schedules, expectations. Like I wasn't there. Like I was never gone.
The hotel, the papers, the lily. Was left behind.
---
The next morning, I was on set again.
New lights. New faces. The same feeling.
I didn't speak unless directed. The cameras flashed. The stylists tugged. My mother watched from behind the monitor like she always did , tight-lipped and ready to pounce if I stepped out of line.
After each shoot, I was led to a small dressing room. Locked in. No one spoke. No one came until it was time to shoot again. I stopped asking for the time. I even stopped asking for Arden.
He hadn't come. Not even once. I've always wished he had.
---
Days blurred. I counted them by the makeup changes, the flashes, the way my body moved without me.
Then one morning, a different name was called.
"You're paired with Mikhail today."
My stomach twisted.
Mikhail.
I remembered his eyes from a previous shoot, sharp, unkind. The way he placed his hands too firm, too long, even when the camera wasn't rolling. But I nodded.
I always nodded.
The shoot began. The theme was something ridiculous, lovers in gold, power in silk. I wore next to nothing. He touched too much. My eyes didn't blink.
When it ended, the staff packed up. I was led back to the same locked room, my muscles aching.
A new girl brought me water.
I drank it.
Minutes passed.
Or maybe longer.
My hands began to tingle.
My legs grew heavy.
I blinked slowly, the mirror in front of me doubled.
Then the door creaked open.
I tried to stand.
Mikhail.
He stepped inside, locked it behind him.
"I'm being paid well for this," he said casually.
I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn't move.
"You're still beautiful when you can't run. You're body is even more beautiful when it doesn't move" he said while looking at me from head to foot.
My scream was only in my mind.
He touched me.
I am nailed.
I can't move.
I can't speak. Not even a single word.
His lips are all around me traveling, but I can't do anything.
I teared.
I remembered the first time. The first time no one believed me. The first time I saw blood and bruises that were edited out in post.
And this time, I remembered Arden.
I screamed his name inside myself.
Arden.
Where are you?
Why didn't you come?
I needed you.
Arden.
---
The next morning, I woke up in the same locked room, blanket tossed over me like an insult. My body didn't hurt as much as I expected. Maybe the drug still lingered.
But I wasn't numb.
Not anymore.
I didn't cry. I stood slowly. I fixed my hair. I cleaned my face.
Then I waited.
The assistant came with breakfast. I smiled at her.
"Can I get some air today?" I asked. "Just twenty minutes. I'm feeling a bit faint."
She hesitated. Then nodded. "I'll ask."
She returned five minutes later with a jacket.
"They said ten minutes. Stay near."
I nodded.
But I didn't stay.
I stepped outside the lot, cold wind biting my skin.
My feet moved on their own.
I didn't know where I was going.
I just walked.
And walked.
And then,
I froze.
Across the street, especially when.
There.
A figure.
Standing beside a crosswalk, a paper bag in hand.
Arden.
He saw me before I could move.
His expression shifted in an instant. From disbelief, to ache, to something I couldn't name.
He crossed the street without looking.
Dropped the bag.
Ran.
And then, his arms.
Around me.
Tight.
Shaking.
He buried his face in my shoulder.
"I thought I lost you," he whispered. "I thought I was too late."
I didn't speak.
My hands gripped his shirt.
And I let myself be held.
Finally.
Again.
Arden's arms didn't loosen. He held me like I was made of breath and bone and the last piece of something he'd almost lost forever. His face was buried in my hair, trembling. I couldn't speak. I could only feel the way my chest pressed against his with every shallow breath, the way his tears soaked into my shoulder.
He pulled back, just far enough to look at me.
"I thought I'd never see you again," he said hoarsely.
And without another word, he opened the car door and helped me inside.
We drove for hours. No music. No destination spoken aloud. Just the blur of headlights and his hand wrapped tightly around mine, like he still wasn't sure I was real.
Eventually, the city faded behind us. The sky softened into gray.
He pulled into a long, quiet road and parked near a cabin tucked between trees. It was small, but warm. Safe. Arden helped me inside, took off my coat like I was fragile, like I might break if he moved too fast.
The moment the door closed behind us, I exhaled.
A sound that didn't feel like it belonged to me.
---
That night, he made tea, even though his hands were shaking.
We sat on the couch. Neither of us spoke for a long while.
Then, softly, he said, "I've been looking everywhere."
I turned to him. His eyes were raw, red.
"I thought you were just walking… maybe at the park. But something didn't feel right."
His voice wavered.
"I went out searching. Then this kid, maybe seven or eight, tugged at my jacket. Said he saw a woman grab you and pull you into a car." He laughed bitterly. "I didn't even ask how he knew your name. I just thanked him and ran."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out something crumpled and familiar.
The paper. The contact. The lily.
"You left this on the table," he whispered. "I took it. All of it. I thought maybe it would matter."
I looked down at the lily. It was dried now, fragile, the petals curled inward like they were trying to protect something.
He continued, "I tried tracking your phone but realized I had it."
He reached again, this time pulling my phone from his pocket.
"I figured your mom had taken you. I started tracking her instead. Took two days before I found the place. But they wouldn't let me near the agency. Not after I got kicked. I stayed nearby. Just watched. Planned. I was going to find a way in."
My throat burned.
"And then I saw you. Today. On that road." His voice broke again. "And everything in me just—"
I leaned my head on his shoulder. Not because I was okay. But because I wasn't. And because somehow, even in that brokenness, I trusted him more than anyone else.
---
Later that night, he sat across from me at the kitchen table, papers spread out in front of us.
"This isn't enough," he said quietly. "These forms… they're good. But they're just words. The agency's powerful. They can bury us if we don't have more."
"I know," I whispered.
"We need proof."
I hesitated. My voice was barely sound. "I have bruises."
He shook his head gently. "It's not enough. They'll say you fell. That you imagined things. They'll turn it all back on you."
I nodded, even as my fingers clenched around the edge of the table.
He leaned in, voice low. "Then we build the case. We gather everything. Times, names, places. We talk to the girl who left the agency last year, the one you said disappeared after she refused to do another campaign."
"She won't talk."
"She might. If she knows you're not alone."
I swallowed hard. "And the man they paid…?"
Arden's jaw tightened. "I can find him."
"No."
His eyes snapped to me.
"I don't want him near me," I said.
"You won't have to see him. But if we can catch a trail, a name, a payment—"
"It won't matter," I said flatly. "No one believes in me."
He was silent for a moment.
Then he reached for my hand.
"I do."
That undid me more than anything else had.
---
We spent hours going through every memory, every detail. When did the shoots change? Who was in the room? What names were always involved? What routines? What signs?
Each time I spoke, Arden didn't flinch.
Not when I told him how the man smiled while handing me the pills. Not when I described how I screamed his name in my head as the world spun and my limbs went numb. Not when I admitted I'd almost believed I imagined it all, because they made me doubt my own mind.
"I was awake," I said. "I couldn't move. And they knew it."
His fists were clenched white against the table, but he never raised his voice. Never interrupted. Just listened.
And when I stopped speaking, when the silence came back heavy and full, he stood and moved to sit beside me.
His arms wrapped around me again.
"I should've gotten to you sooner," he whispered.
"You did."
He shook his head. "Two days, Theia. Two days. Anything could've—"
"I'm here," I whispered. "Now."
It wasn't peace. Not yet.
But it was the beginning of a war I wasn't fighting alone anymore.