Page 22

The night air was cold. Sharp. The kind of cold that settled into your bones, making every breath feel like ice cutting through your lungs. Despite having my jacket wrapped around me, the chill seeped through, numbing my fingers, but I didn’t move.

I sat on the edge of the motel rooftop, legs dangling over the ledge, staring out at the town below, sleeping.

Streetlights flickered in a distance, casting long, distorted shadows against the pavements.

For a moment, I watched as those shadows stretched and twisted, almost human-like, before fading back into the darkness.

My stomach clenched at the sight. It reminded me too much of something I didn’t want to think about.

But my mind had other plans.

I hated nights like this.

Nights when the past came crawling back, sinking its claws into my thoughts and dragging me down, forcing me to relive things I’d spent years trying to forget.

Tonight, it wasn’t just the game.

It was him.

The neon-lit battlefield had blurred into something far worse.

The game’s dark corridors had become my prison, and the glowing weapon had been more than just a prop—it had been real.

His face. His eyes. That eerie, unnatural glow.

The way he lifted the weapon and fired without hesitation.

I could still feel it, the phantom pain in my chest where the shot had landed.

I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the edge of the rooftop so tightly my knuckles turned white. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

1, 2, 3, 4—breathe. But it didn’t work.

I thought about it.

I thought about every moment. Every nightmare. Every sickening second of that life.

I thought about waking up in that pitch-black cellar, stomach twisted in knots from hunger, limbs sore from the bruises that never had time to heal before new ones took their place.

I thought about my mother. Trapped in her room. Forced to listen. Never able to help.

I thought about his voice—low, guttural, distorted beyond recognition. That growl that sent chills down my spine every time he spoke. The way he leaned in close, eyes burning like embers, whispering threats that were never empty.

He always followed through.

And then, there were the numbers.

The equations scrawled in chalk on the cold stone walls. The pages upon pages of unsolved problems, scattered across the floor like discarded puzzle pieces. The way he would loom over me, expectant, watching as I solved them. No mistakes. No hesitation.

"Brilliant," he would murmur, ruffling my hair with a hand too heavy to be gentle. "You could be a professor one day. Smarter than all of them. Smarter than me."

But the praise never felt like praise. It was a leash, a shackle. A way to keep me there. A way to keep me for himself.

Because if I didn’t solve them fast enough, if I ever faltered—

Pain.

No food. No light. No voice, only silence.

“If you ever try to escape,” he told me once, voice eerily calm, “I’ll make sure she suffers first.”

And I believed him.

Because I had no choice.

I lived in fear. I lived with the pain. It became normal. Expected. The bruises, the hunger, the isolation—it was my reality.

Until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

One day, he left.

One day, it was over.

A car crash. A fire. His death all over the news. “One of the most glorified professors is gone.”

The world called it tragic.

I called it relief.

Rescue teams found me first—half-starved, barely conscious in the basement. My mother was upstairs, alive but barely holding on. They called it a miracle. They called us lucky.

Lucky.

I laughed bitterly at the word.

There was nothing lucky about it.

He was dead.

That was it.

That was the only reason we were free.

I should have felt safe after that. I should have been able to move on.

But how do you move on when the world outside is still filled with demons? When you have to see them every day, passing by like ordinary people, as if they weren’t capable of becoming monsters?

They were everywhere. In the markets. In the schools. Walking the streets. Living their lives like normal citizens.

And I was expected to just… accept it.

To live alongside them.

To pretend like I wasn’t terrified.

Like I wasn’t angry.

Like I didn’t see him in every single one of them.

But I had no choice.

So, I learned to cope.

To exist.

To keep my distance.

To keep conversations shallow and impersonal.

To remind myself, over and over again, that they weren’t him.

That they weren’t all like him.

That not every demon was a monster.

But deep down—

I never really believed that.

And so, I threw myself into something I could control.

School.

But not the way he wanted me to.

He had spent years making my intelligence his.

Forcing me to solve equations no child should understand, drilling me with problems that even other university professors struggled with.

A wrong answer meant consequences. A slow answer meant disappointment.

I had learned to think fast not out of passion, but out of survival.

He had shaped my mind into a weapon. And I refused to let it be his anymore.

I didn’t want to be the prodigy. The boy genius. The academic marvel people whispered about in hushed tones. I didn’t want to stand at the top of the world with a mind sharpened by years of fear.

I just wanted to be normal.

Not at the bottom, but not at the peak. Not the 100% types but the 96%. Just… slightly above the rest. Enough to be impressive, but not enough to stand out. Enough to be free, but not enough to attract the wrong kind of attention.

Because being the smartest in the room never saved me.

It only kept me caged.

So now, my intelligence was mine. My success was mine. My future—mine.

And no one, not even him, would ever use it against me again.

I heard the door creak open behind me, but I didn’t turn around. The air was still, carrying only the distant hum of passing cars and the occasional rustling of trees below. I knew who it was before he even spoke.

"Didn’t take you for the rooftop-brooding type," Ethan’s voice broke through the quiet, laced with amusement. "Very dramatic of you, Ghost Boy."

I exhaled slowly, pressing my lips together to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. I should have seen this coming.

"I couldn't sleep," I muttered, still staring out at the town.

"Yeah, no kidding." He walked closer, his footsteps quiet but deliberate. "Woke up and didn’t find you in your bed. Thought maybe you’d finally run off to become a lone traveler or something. Or joined a monastery."

"Tempting," I admitted. "But monks don’t have Wi-Fi."

"Tragic." Ethan sighed dramatically before plopping down beside me.

I tensed.

Not enough for him to notice—at least, I hoped not—but just enough to remind myself to breathe. He had a way of getting too close—not in a way of making me feel like I was backed into a corner, but in a way of making me feel like I was the one who made the choice to stay.

I could just get up and leave, but I didn't.

I stole a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was fixed on the view, the neon lights of the town reflecting in his irises. He was pretending not to care that he’d found me here, alone in the middle of the night. Pretending he wasn’t curious.

But I wasn’t stupid.

It was written all over his face.

"So," Ethan started, stretching his arms behind his head, "what’s got you up here looking like a rejected poet?"

A scoff escaped me before I could stop it. "Did you come up here just to bother me?" "Absolutely." He grinned. "That, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t planning to throw yourself off the roof or something. You know, responsibility and all that."

I shot him a dry look. "That’s dark, even for you."

He shrugged. "Hey, you’re the one staring dramatically at the skyline. I’m just saying, if you start reciting bad poetry, I’m calling for backup."

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to hold back the smallest hint of a smile. But I failed.

Ethan noticed. Of course, he did.

"Was that a giggle?" He gasped, clutching his chest like I’d just declared my undying love for him. "Ghost Boy, are you warming up to me? Be honest."

"Shut up," I muttered, shoving his shoulder.

He only laughed, completely unfazed.

The conversation shifted, softening into something less forced. The banter gave way to real talk, real thoughts. We talked about ourselves—not in the deep, vulnerable way, but in the way two people do when they’re testing the waters.

Ethan asked what I saw for myself in the future. I didn’t know.

I asked him the same. He dodged the question.

He never mentioned his father. I never mentioned my stepfather.

The things we didn’t say lingered between us, unspoken but heavy.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, the cold didn’t feel as sharp.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I found my head resting on his shoulder.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t move.

He just let it happen.

And for the first time in a long time, I let the moment take over.