Page 81 of Hunted to the Altar

"You were never the problem. I was. I loved you in a way that burned. And then I blamed you for the smoke."

Still silence. But I kept going.

"You have no reason to forgive me. None. I wouldn’t. If you walked out right now, I wouldn’t stop you. Hell, I’d drive you myself if that’s what you needed."

My head fell back against the wall.

"But I want to be better. I don’t want to be the reason you flinch. I don’t want to be the shadow in your memories. I want to be someone you can breathe beside."

Something shifted behind the door.

A soft rustle. Then a click.

The door opened.

Nina sat in her wheelchair, dressed in sweatpants and one of my old hoodies. Her eyes were rimmed red but dry, and her arms crossed over her chest like a barrier she dared me to try and cross.

She angled her chair forward just slightly, positioning herself in the doorway, and looked down at me.

"Words are easy, Samuel."

I nodded. "I know."

"You want to prove you’ve changed? Start by giving me my freedom."

I swallowed hard. "Then that’s what I’ll do."

She watched me, weighing my words, judging them against the endless days and nights I had caged her with good intentions sharpened into chains.

Right there, in the muted light of the hallway, I pulled out my phone and started disabling everything. Locks, trackers, cameras. She sat silent, a witness to my dismantling.

I slid a black credit card across the floor to her wheels.

"No limits. No conditions."

Her hands hovered over it but she didn’t pick it up. Not yet.

I spent the next hour showing her. Passwords. Alarm codes. Elevator access. One by one. Laying every piece of control at her feet.

She didn’t speak. But her eyes tracked every movement, cataloguing them.

Finally, she rolled forward, picked up the card, and tucked it into her hoodie pocket like a soldier pocketing a weapon.

Her throat bobbed once.

"And if I leave?" she asked, her voice sharp enough to gut me.

"Then you leave," I said. “I’d follow you.”

I meant it. Even if it killed me.

She turned away, wheeling herself back to her room. The soft click of her door shutting behind her felt like a tomb sealing.

I sat there, alone, in the growing dark, staring at the cold marble, my hands limp against my knees. I stayed until the sun bled into the sky again.

When she came out later, I watched as she methodically packed a bag. Slow. Deliberate. Every movement a goodbye she didn’t say out loud.

I didn’t stop her.