He appeared in the bedroom without sound, without warning.

Phei stood there for a moment—silent and unmoving like he’d been carved from shadow and glacial fury. The dim light filtering through the heavy curtains painted his face in cold slashes of silver and black.

His eyes from the moment he arrived were all on a figure and never left.

Roxanne.

She was curled beneath the covers like a shattered, discarded rag doll trying to dissolve into nothingness itself. The blanket was yanked over her head and body in a desperate, trembling cocoon, as if the flimsiest silk could somehow shield her from the monster that owned this house of endless torment.

She looked so painfully, heartbreakingly small under the useless shields of the covers.

So utterly broken.

Her entire frame convulsed with tiny, uncontrollable tremors forged in the fires of years of soul-crushing conditioning that had taught her that vanishing was the only prayer left for surviving another night in this living hell.

Hidden. Curled in bone-deep, soul-shredding terror. Helpless. No hope for escape. Only the endless, gnawing dread that clawed at her insides like razor wire.

Phei’s chest tightened with something far colder than rage.

It was ancient that it had right to be. Deeper.

A very raging fury that didn’t blaze—it froze. It crystallized into something razor-sharp, patient, and merciless beyond words.

Why would any man reduce a woman to this? What kind of worthless, soulless demon could do this for years and still dare to call himself human?

He moved closer, silent as death itself.

His eyes flicked to the empty bed on the other side of the room—Jonathan’s bed. Then back to hers. The distance between them yawned like a chasm carved by pure cruelty. They didn’t even share a bed anymore.

Whatever sick pretense of marriage had once existed had long since rotted into a hollow shell that only looked whole from the outside.

He sat on the edge of her mattress.

The bed sank slightly under his weight.

The covers exploded upward in a frantic, desperate burst.

Roxanne shot up with a raw, guttural scream and the sound that came out of her waso pure animal panic ripped from the depths of a soul that had been flayed alive for far too long.

She scrambled backward across the silk sheets like a cornered, dying creature, legs kicking wildly in blind horror, hands clawing and tearing at anything for purchase.

Her movements were jerky, frantic, fueled by years of muscle memory that howled run, hide, survive—or die trying. The sheets tangled viciously around her legs like living chains. Her nails scraped and gouged the mattress until they bled.

Her breath came in short, horrified whimpers that sounded like a broken thing begging the darkness to finally swallow her whole and end the suffering.

She thought it was Jonathan.

The terror in her eyes was so raw, so absolute, it burned itself into Phei’s memory like acid eating through flesh. Wide. Glassy. Hollow like she had long ago stopped dreaming of salvation and had simply learned to endure the abyss—night after night, bruise after bruise, scream after silent scream.

"N-no—!" Her voice cracked into a broken, high-pitched wail of pure despair. "Please—please don’t— I swear on my life— I didn’t do anything wrong, I swear— just don’t hit me again—!"

Phei moved faster.

He caught her before she could tumble off the bed into the void of her own panic, arms wrapping around her trembling, fragile body and pulling her firmly against his chest. She fought like a wild, terrified animal—survival overriding everything left of her humanity.

Her fists hammered weakly against his shoulders. Her nails raked down his arms, drawing thin, desperate lines of blood.

Her breath came in short, panicked, choking sobs that sounded like a soul being torn apart piece by piece.

"No—no—no—get off me—beast—" she wailed, voice shattering into a thousand jagged fragments. "I can’t— I can’t take it anymore— just kill me— just end this nightmare— I’ll do anything, anything, just make the pain stop—!"

But then what she felt were different hands. Different body. Warmer. Stronger. Safer... then Phei’s soothing voice, soothing her panic while his palm smoothed over her tangled hair—slow, steady, soothing strokes that said nothing and everything at once.

"It’s okay," he murmured against the top of her head, voice low and cold as winter steel. "It’s me. Just me."

She went rigid, then after a few seconds she pulled back just enough to look at his face.

For a long moment, she simply stared—eyes wide with disbelief, fresh tears spilling over as the terror slowly cracked into something fragile and trembling.

"P-Phei...?" Her voice was a broken, barely audible whisper, cracking on every syllable like brittle glass underfoot. "H-how—how are you here? He’ll... he’ll find out— he always finds out— he’ll kill you— and then he’ll hurt me worse, so much worse— he’ll make me bleed for days—!"

Her entire body shook violently in his arms, like a leaf caught in a hurricane of pure hell. Fresh tears carved clean tracks through the ugly, vicious bruises that marred her once-beautiful face—deep, livid purple blooming into sickly yellow and fresh, angry black, as if her skin itself had been painted by violence.

One eye was nearly swollen shut, a grotesque, puffy slit that wept silently.

Her lower lip was split wide open and crusted with dried blood, the wound still glistening wetly. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Dark, brutal fingerprints encircled the delicate skin of her throat like a necklace of ownership and agony, each mark a testament to the choking grip that had silenced her screams for years.

Phei didn’t let go. His hand continued its slow, gentle strokes through her hair, cradling the back of her head with surprising tenderness.

"I know," he said softly, coldly. "I know you wanted to keep this to yourself. Maintain the illusion. Maybe never leave this house of horrors again. I understand the reasons. The worry. Why you don’t want anyone to see you like this—shattered, bleeding, barely alive."

His thumb brushed lightly over a particularly dark, swollen bruise on her cheekbone, the touch feather-light against the throbbing ruin of her face.

"But Roxanne... Sierra’s safe with me Roxanne."

She flinched hard at her daughter’s name, a broken, gut-wrenching sob tearing from her throat like it had been ripped out by claws.

"If you trusted me enough to protect her, then trust me with this too. Let it be over for you too. Not just for Sierra—for both of you."