The Caged Smile — Part 7

The walls of her new apartment were painted a muted cream, but she still stared at them like they were closing in. It had been months—months since she’d run, since she’d clawed through snow and broken memories to reach a semblance of safety. But her heart still lived in that cabin, in that room with the collar.

The photograph haunted her.

It sat face down on the table, untouched for days. But she felt it every time she walked past, as though it breathed. Her therapist said she should turn it in, let the police handle it. But what could they do? They hadn't even found him.

He was a ghost. A shadow that wore the face of someone who once smiled at her across a classroom.

The nightmares didn’t stop. But now, they bled into waking life.

She saw him.

On the street.

In crowds.

In reflections.

Once, she dropped her groceries after catching a glimpse of someone with his eyes. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto the cold sidewalk, sobbing. Strangers circled her like traffic cones. One offered help. Another tried to call someone. But she couldn’t breathe. Not until the scent of snow and blood faded from her memory.

She started drinking.

Just a little, at first. A bottle of wine. A glass of whiskey. Something to help her sleep. But sleep brought dreams, and the dreams brought pain, and pain brought more drink. It spiraled quickly.

One night, she woke on the floor. Her wrist was bruised from hitting the table on the way down. Her mouth tasted like metal. Her room was spinning.

And he was there.

Not really.

But his voice echoed in her head: "Stay with me."

She screamed into her pillow until her throat was raw.

Then came the letters.

More photographs.

One of her at therapy. Another of her on the balcony.

Each one scribbled with childish handwriting: "I’m still watching. I always will."

She taped one to her mirror and stared at it every morning as she brushed her teeth. A ritual of resilience. Or madness. She couldn't tell anymore.

Some nights, she talked to him.

Alone.

In the dark.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered. “Why couldn’t you just let me go?”

The wind outside whispered back through the window cracks. The shadows danced.

But no answer came.

Until one day—there was a knock.

Firm.

Calculated.

She froze.

Not again.

She looked through the peephole.

A man in a black coat. Not him. Older. Tired eyes. Badge.

Detective Ramesh Thakur.

He was investigating a string of missing girls. Girls who vanished after befriending a quiet, reclusive boy.

When she saw the photographs, she vomited into her bathroom sink.

“Is it him?” Thakur asked.

Her silence was enough.

The detective came often. They talked. She shared what she remembered. Every sick detail. Every chained scream. Every time he wiped blood from her lip and kissed her forehead like she was porcelain.

“He hurt me,” she whispered once, “but he also… he thought he loved me.”

Thakur’s expression darkened. “That’s not love.”

“I know,” she said. But some twisted part of her wasn’t sure.

Meanwhile, across the city, he drank.

Heavily.

Liquor mixed with rage. Memories with obsession.

His knuckles were bruised from punching walls. His eyes bloodshot. But always, always, there was a shrine to her in the corner of his room—photos, trinkets, locks of hair.

He spoke to her like she was there.

“I kept you safe.”

“They were going to take you away.”

“You’re mine.”

When he read about her in the newspaper—‘Survivor Helps Police in Abduction Case’—he shattered the TV screen.

But then he wept.

Curled into himself.

Screaming her name like a prayer.

One night, drunk and delirious, he stumbled into his basement. The old collar was still there. Clean. Untouched.

He held it to his chest and whispered, “You’re still with me, aren’t you?”

Back in her apartment, she sat in her bath, a razor blade in hand. Her wrists already bore thin scars. She didn’t want to die. But she didn’t know how to live either.

Then her phone lit up.

Unknown number.

A text: "Don't forget the day you smiled at me. I never will."

She dropped the blade.

The next day, she bought a gun.

Illegal. Off the record.

She hid it beneath her bed.

Detective Thakur urged her to relocate. He feared escalation. She refused.

“I want him to come,” she said. “I want it to end.”

“You’re not bait,” he snapped. “You’re a person.”

But she’d forgotten how to be.

He came on a stormy night.

Of course he did.

Rain pounded the windows like war drums. She sat on the couch, gun in lap, candlelight flickering.

The door opened. Not knocked. Opened.

She hadn’t locked it.

He stepped inside, soaked in rain and blood and madness.

And love.

“Hello,” he said, as if they were meeting for coffee.

Her hand trembled on the gun. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I was always here.”

He walked closer.

“Stop.”

He knelt in front of her. Eyes wet—not from the rain. “I missed you. I waited so long. Every day I thought about your smile. The one you gave me when no one else ever did.”

She screamed and raised the gun. “Get away from me!”

But he didn’t.

He opened his arms.

“Then shoot me. I’d rather die by your hand than live without you.”

Her finger twitched.

He smiled.

She screamed and fired.

Blood sprayed.

He collapsed.

But not dead.

Just wounded.

She stood over him, shaking.

He looked up at her. “I’m still yours.”

The sirens wailed in the distance.