I slipped the notebook beneath my cot the second I heard the metallic click of the cellar lock turning. The sound echoed through the damp, stone room, a stark reminder of my confinement. Heart lurching against my ribs like a frantic bird, I rolled over, shut my eyes, and forced my breathing to slow, willing my body to mimic sleep. Fake sleep had become second nature by now, a practiced defense against the unnerving reality of my captivity.

The door creaked open, its hinges groaning a low, mournful song.

“Good morning, love,” his voice sang out, syrupy sweet and unsettlingly soft. The saccharine tone sent a shiver crawling up my spine, a stark contrast to the cold reality of the cellar.

A pause hung in the air, thick with unspoken tension. I could practically feel his gaze on me, assessing, probing.

“I know you’re awake.”

I groaned, letting the illusion drop like a discarded mask. Slowly, with the reluctance of a condemned woman, I turned to face him, the cot creaking under my weight, the sound amplified in the suffocating silence of the room. "What do you want now?" I muttered, propping myself up against the cold, damp wall behind me, the rough concrete scraping against my skin.

He stepped inside, careful, deliberate, like he always was—never rushing, never loud. His movements were measured, controlled, almost graceful. That was part of what made him more terrifying. Ethan wasn’t violent, not outwardly, not in the way I imagined a kidnapper would be. He was methodical, tender, disturbingly gentle, like he genuinely believed this whole thing was some twisted, romantic fantasy.

He carried a tray in his hands, balanced with a practiced ease. Its contents were deceptively normal: scrambled eggs, buttered toast, a glass of orange juice. A single, pale yellow daisy sat in a chipped, ceramic mug, its stem bent slightly. The gesture might’ve been sweet, even touching, if it hadn’t come from my captor, the man who held me prisoner in this subterranean cage.

“I made your favorite,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. They remained cold, distant, a chilling disconnect from the warmth he tried to project. “You need to eat, Lily. You’re getting too thin.” His gaze lingered on my frame, assessing, and I felt a surge of disgust and violation.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, even though my stomach gnawed with a persistent, aching hunger. The aroma of the food, usually comforting, now felt like a deliberate form of torture. Hunger was the only power I still had—the simple, brutal power to refuse something, to deny him control over my body, at least in this small way.

His smile flickered, just slightly, like a candle flame caught in a sudden gust of wind. The momentary lapse revealed a glimpse of something darker, something fragile and unsettling beneath the carefully constructed facade. "You have to take care of yourself," he said, setting the tray down on the rickety wooden crate beside the cot. “You’ll feel better after you eat. Then we can talk about last night. About what you wrote.”

My stomach twisted into a tight knot, a wave of nausea washing over me. He read it. He actually read it. The realization hit me like a physical blow, stealing my breath.

“Don’t look so scared,” he added gently, crouching beside me now, his nearness suffocating. His movements were slow, deliberate, like he was approaching a wild animal, careful not to spook it. “I just want to understand you better, Lily. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

My throat tightened, constricting around unspoken fears. He read it. He actually read it. The entry had been nothing more than a few scribbled lines, hastily scrawled in the dim light of a stolen candle. Raw, angry words I hadn’t dared say out loud, even to myself. Words like trapped, manipulative, delusional. I hadn’t even used his name, referring to him only as "He." I thought I’d hidden it well enough, tucked away beneath layers of normalcy, buried deep within the pages of the innocuous-looking notebook.

“There's nothing to understand,” I said flatly, forcing my voice to remain steady, devoid of emotion. “It’s just a journal. People write to vent. That’s all it was.”

Ethan tilted his head, his brow furrowed, like a confused dog struggling to comprehend a complex command. “No, Lily. That’s not all it was. You called me a monster.”

The way he said it—soft, wounded, almost childlike—it sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the dampness of the cellar. He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t angry. And that made it infinitely worse. The controlled calm was a thousand times more terrifying than any outburst of rage.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I lied, inching away, pressing my back harder against the cold, rough concrete wall, wishing desperately that I could simply disappear into the stone.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from my face with a disturbingly tender gesture. I flinched before I could stop myself, the instinctive reaction betraying my fear. His hand froze in the air, suspended between us like a silent accusation. “I saved you. Remember? From everything out there. From the people who don’t appreciate you. The ones who left you.”

My jaw clenched, the muscles tightening until they ached. “That’s not saving, Ethan. You took me.”

His smile cracked for the first time, revealing a glimpse of the raw, fractured reality beneath the carefully constructed delusion. “They used you. I saw it. I was there. Your dad, your so-called friends—how many times did they let you down?” His voice was rising now, trembling with a barely suppressed emotion that bordered on hysteria. “But I never did. I chose you, Lily! I chose you!”

I looked at the tray—the cold, congealing eggs, the dry, crumbly toast, the limp, pathetic flower—and then back at him, at the desperate, pleading look in his eyes.

“You chose this,” I said quietly, my voice barely a whisper, but filled with a chilling certainty. “This cage. This fantasy.”

He stood then, quick and stiff, like the words had physically stung him, piercing his fragile facade. His expression went hollow for a second—empty, emotionless, devoid of any trace of warmth or humanity. Then he blinked, caught himself, and nodded, slow and thoughtful, like he was processing a difficult equation.

“You’re still angry,” he said, his voice regaining its previous calm, almost soothing tone. “I get it. That’s okay.” He turned toward the door, his back to me, but before leaving, he added, “I’ll give you some space. You need time to calm down. But we’ll talk later, Lily. And… don’t try hiding things from me again. It’s not healthy to keep secrets in a relationship. We need to be honest with each other.”

The door shut with a heavy thud that reverberated through the small space, and the lock clicked into place again, the sound a final, resounding declaration of my imprisonment.

I stared at the tray, my pulse still hammering in my ears, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of the cellar.

I had to get out. I had to. And now I knew, with a chilling certainty, that he was watching more closely than I thought, that my every move was being scrutinized, every word analyzed.

No more journaling. No more slips. From here on out, every move had to be calculated, every word carefully chosen. My survival depended on it.