Olivia POV
I was floating in a void of ink, suspended in silence, but I wasn't wet.
Then, reality crashed down. I was pinned.
A heavy weight pressed me into the mattress. I tried to move my arms, but they felt like cast iron, useless and heavy. My mind was a fog of panic and static.
"Be still."
The voice was a low vibration against the sensitive skin of my neck.
I opened my eyes. The room was swallowed by darkness, shadows stretching like skeletal claws across the ceiling.
Marcus was looming over me. His face was buried in the crook of my neck. His lips were cold, moving against my skin with a possessiveness that made my bile rise.
This wasn't love. This was consumption.
I tried to shove him away, my hands pushing weakly against his chest. It was like pushing against a marble statue.
"Stop," I gasped, air struggling to reach my lungs. "Marcus, please."
He froze. He lifted his head, his eyes glassy and unfocused in the dark.
"Isabella," he murmured.
The name was a slap.
He didn't see me. He didn't know who he was holding. He was touching me, claiming me, but in his twisted mind, I was *her*.
"No," I rasped, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. "I'm not her. I'm Olivia! Look at me!"
He paused. His brow furrowed, a flicker of confusion crossing his features. But then the mask slammed back down. The cruelty returned.
"Quiet," he ordered.
He didn't care. I was just a body. A vessel for his lust and his rage.
He didn't stop. He held me down, his grip bruising, his touch erasing every remaining shred of the girl who used to paint him.
I stopped fighting. I went limp. I became a doll.
*This isn't happening,* I chanted internally. *I am smoke. I am air.*
Eventually, the weight lifted. He rolled over, pulling me against him like a pillow. I lay there in the suffocating dark, listening to his steady breathing, tears sliding silently into my ears.
I fell into a jagged, terrified sleep.
*SCREAM.*
My eyes flew open.
Morning light stabbed through the window like a blade.
Izzy stood in the doorway. Her face was a mask of twisted fury.
"You filthy whore!" she shrieked.
I sat up, clutching the sheet to my chest. Marcus was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his temples. He looked at me, then at Izzy, his expression unreadable.
"Get out!" Izzy screamed, pointing a manicured finger at me. "You think you can steal him? You think sleeping in his bed makes you a woman?"
She stormed into the room, looming over me.
"He doesn't love you," she hissed, her spit landing on my cheek. "He pities you. You are nothing. A charity case. A little girl playing dress-up."
I looked at Marcus, desperation clawing at my throat.
"Tell her," I whispered.
He stood up, buttoning his shirt. He didn't look at me.
"Get dressed, Olivia," he said coldly. "You're a mess."
Izzy laughed. It was a sharp, jagged sound, like glass breaking.
"You hear that?" she taunted. "He's disgusted by you. I'm his wife. I'm the future. You are just... a mistake."
She leaned in close, her perfume cloying and sweet, suffocating me.
"Disappear, Olivia. Or I will make sure they find your body in a ditch."
I looked at them. The King and his Queen.
They were monsters. And I was done bleeding for them.
The room began to dissolve. The walls melted. Their faces blurred into gray smoke.
My eyes snapped open.
I was on the floor of the safe house. Alone.
The fire had burned down to dying embers.
It was a nightmare. A hallucination brought on by stress and hunger.
But the tears on my face were real. And the hole in my heart was permanent.
