Aveline
The night was silent — too silent — the kind of silence that hummed behind your ears and made you feel like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something to go terribly wrong.
Aveline clutched her coat tighter around her thin frame, fingers stiff from the cold as she stepped off the last bus of the night. The streets were half-lit, shadowed, and cracked — a forgotten part of the city where people like her disappeared, and no one asked why.
She used to be someone. Not important, not rich, not special — but someone. She had a place. A name that people smiled at. A bed to return to. A reason to wake up.
Now she was just... surviving.
The bruises on her ribs were finally fading. The nightmares, not so much.
She walked past flickering streetlamps and boarded-up shops, the soles of her shoes worn nearly flat. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it. Hunger had become a companion — quieter than loneliness, softer than pain. Easier to manage.
"Keep walking," she whispered to herself, like a prayer. "Just until tomorrow. Just until something changes."
But nothing ever did.
Until it did.
—
She noticed the car before she noticed the man.
It was too clean. Too new. The kind of car that didn't belong here — matte black with tinted windows and silent wheels. Parked just a little too neatly beside the alley she always cut through.
Aveline slowed. Her instincts whispered no, but her feet hesitated too long.
A shadow moved inside the car.
And then the door opened.
The man who stepped out was tall, dressed in sharp lines and darker shades. He looked like money. Danger. Control. He didn't speak right away. He just watched her, like he already knew her name.
"Miss."
His voice was smooth — low, but clear. Polite, but not gentle.
She froze. "I—I don't have anything."
"I didn't ask for anything."
Her throat tightened.
He didn't move closer. Just stood there, calm and still, as if he were used to being obeyed.
"You've been sleeping behind the Westbridge clinic," he said. Not a question.
Aveline's heart skipped. She took a step back. "How do you—?"
"I also know the man you're running from is still looking."
Her breath caught. The streetlight above them buzzed, casting shadows across his face, but she could see his eyes. Cold. Sharp. Like he was taking her apart with every second.
"Who are you?"
"A solution."
She hated how much that tempted her.
"You need food. Shelter. A place he'll never find you. I can offer all of that."
"No one does that for free."
His expression didn't change. "You're right. But I'm not asking for money."
She felt the trap snap shut — not around her wrists or her ankles, but somewhere in her chest.
"What do you want, then?"
There was a pause.
He didn't smile. Didn't soften.
"I want your obedience."
The silence stretched long and aching between them.
Aveline could have turned and run. She could have called him crazy and disappeared into the dark, like she always did.
But the bruises still throbbed when she breathed too hard. Her feet had blisters. Her hope was cracked and hollow.
And maybe… just maybe… she was tired of choosing the kind of freedom that still felt like dying.
So she said nothing.
And climbed into the car.
—
The windows were tinted so deeply the city disappeared behind them. Inside, the air smelled like leather and something colder — expensive cologne and something too sharp to name.
He didn't speak.
Neither did she.
But he handed her a bottle of water, and she drank it like it was the first thing she'd tasted in days. It probably was.
The silence between them stretched until it felt like a second skin. She could feel him watching her, even when he wasn't looking.
"I didn't catch your name," she finally said.
He glanced over, just once.
"I didn't give it."
And that was that.
—
The mansion was on a hill.
Not just a house — a fortress. Black gates taller than her dreams. Glass windows that reflected moonlight like mirrors. It was the kind of place people in her world only ever saw from the outside.
Now she stood in its marble entrance, soaked in warmth, her breath catching in her throat.
"This will be your room," he said simply, pushing open a heavy door.
The room was too large. Too soft. Too clean. It smelled like lavender and safety and lies.
He turned to leave, but paused in the doorway.
"Don't try to leave," he said, with no threat in his tone. "You won't like what happens if you do."
Then he was gone.
And Aveline was alone — again — except this time, it wasn't the dark that scared her.
It was how much she didn't want to run.