Page 57 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
Liana
I wake up with my heart already racing.
Not gradually, not slowly coming back into myself, but like something inside me has been pulled tight and held there, my body catching up to it a second later as my eyes open and the room comes into focus around me.
It’s darker than it was before.
That’s the first thing I notice.
The second is that I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep.
That thought lands harder than anything else, because I try to reach for something solid, when I last remember being awake, how long it’s been, how many times I’ve been under like this, and there’s nothing there. It’s just a gap, a missing stretch of time I can’t account for.
My head feels thick, like my thoughts are moving through something slow and heavy, and when I push myself upright the room shifts just enough that I have to grab the edge of the mattress to steady myself.
The chain at my ankle drags with me, the metal scraping softly against the frame, and that’s the only thing that feels sharp, clear, real.
Everything else feels dulled.
Wrong.
The smell hits me next.
Food.
Warm, cooked, something simple that shouldn’t feel threatening but does, because nothing about this is normal.
“Liana.”
His voice comes from the other room, calm and even, like this is routine.
“It’s ready.”
My stomach tightens.
I don’t answer him.
I sit there for a second longer, forcing myself to breathe through the heaviness in my chest, through the slow, dragging feeling in my limbs, because I already know what happens if I don’t move.
The last time I tried to resist him, it didn’t end well.
I swing my legs off the bed, the chain following with that same soft, unavoidable sound, and I stand carefully, waiting for the dizziness to settle before I move.
It doesn’t fully settle.
It just becomes something I can function through.
The cabin feels smaller at night. The walls closer. The air heavier.
He’s already sitting at the table when I step into the main room, a plate set out in front of the chair across from him like this is something normal, something shared, like we’re just having dinner.
I don’t sit.
“I’m not hungry.”
My voice comes out quieter than I want it to.
He looks at me, and I see it immediately, the shift.
