Page 25 of Bound By Blood and Lies

“I hope we can bring her home,” he says.

“Oh, don’t worry, I intend to.”

I turn and walk out of the office without waiting for dismissal. The rage that carried me into this house no longer burns as hot. As I descend the stairs, the marble is cool beneath my hand and I realise with brutal clarity that if she is pregnant, then it isn’t just her life on the line and the margin for error is gone.

Every decision from this point forward either brings her home or buries us all.

CHAPTER 8

FAE

The wood splinters softly beneath my fingers as I work the slat loose, easing it upward millimetre by millimetre so the frame doesn’t groan. The mattress dips as Robyn shifts her weight to counterbalance mine; her palm is pressed flat against the metal to absorb the vibration. We’ve done this twice already in the last hour, testing how much pressure the structure can take before it makes noise.

It’s been three days since I stopped fighting him. Three days since I chose softness instead of defiance and the difference was immediate. He walks into the room without scanning every corner. He talks more freely. He shares his theories on obedience and conditioning like they are life lessons instead of delusions. Fisher thinks he is teaching me, but more importantly, he thinks I’m absorbing it.

Robyn hasn’t been dragged across the floor either. His guards barely touch her unless it is to reposition her or remind her she exists, and if they so much as interrupt what he considers our time, they are the ones reprimanded. His attention is obsessively fixed on me and that fixation has changed the shape of the violence. It isn’t gone it’s just been redirected. Every time he unlocks the door, I’m already on my knees with my palmsresting neatly on my thighs. Every time he speaks, I answer without edge and saydaddy. It makes him feral for me, yet every time he tests how far I’ll go, I let him believe he’s the one moving the line.

The slat finally gives with a crack and slides into my hands. It’s lighter than I expected but solid enough. The rough splinters scrape against my palm where the screws tore through the wood and left the grain jagged. There’s nothing elegant about it, just stripped timber and blunt force, yet the weight of it feels like the first tangible shift in our favour. For the first time since the door locked behind us, I’m holding something that feels like possibility.

I pass it carefully to Robyn. Our fingers brush as she turns it over in her hands, testing the balance like she’s assessing a weapon then lifts a brow at me.

“You always did say you wanted to do a DIY project,” she murmurs.

A breath slips out of me before I can stop it, half laugh, half disbelief that we’re standing here dismantling a bed frame in a warehouse.

“Shut up,” I whisper back. “You’re the one who nearly electrocuted us trying to fix that lamp.”

Robyn’s lips twitch as she looks up at me. “In my defence, the YouTube tutorial was misleading.”

“You ignored the instructions.”

“I was innovating.”

The light catches on Robyn’s wrist as she adjusts her grip and the tiny gold sun charm swings against her skin. The sight of it hits me as I look to my empty wrist. I lost mine the night I was dragged here. It must have snapped when they kidnapped me, the chain too thin to bear the weight of what was happening. We made them at the end of first year, drunk on expensive wine and sentimentality. Deep into the night I declared that she was likemy sun, bright and warm whilst she demanded that I was her moon. It was one of our most successful art projects and I hadn’t taken mine of since the night she tied it around my wrist. My skin feels wrong without it.

Sighing, I reach for the next slat as my stomach rolls again. I pause, breathing through it quietly so Robyn doesn’t notice. It’s been happening more over the last two days. Waves of nausea that come from nowhere and leave just as quickly.

Robyn catches my hesitation. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” I steady my voice, “just dizzy.”

“Eat the biscuit he left.”

“I’d rather chew the mattress.”

That earns a smirk from her.

The slat comes loose in my hands with a soft click and I freeze, but the hallway beyond remains silent, filled only with the low hum of old electrics and the faint rattle of wind against the metal exterior. We have two slats now, one for each of us, and a slow breath slips from my lungs. I’ve run through this with Robyn as many times as possible. At night, when the lights cut out and the building settles, we curl into each other and trade whispered variations of the plan; adjusting small details, testing possibilities, and refining the edges of it until it felt less like desperation and more like intent.

But now there’s wood in my hand and the shift from imagination to reality is dizzying. This isn’t just a theory anymore. It has weight. It has consequence. It is something that could actually change the outcome of what happens in this room. My pulse kicks harder at the thought, a sharp, electric thud against my ribs that feels dangerously close to hope, and I force myself to steady it because hope, in places like this, can make you reckless.

I slide the slat beneath the quilt, positioning it along the edge where my hand can reach it without looking obvious. Robynmirrors the movement on her side, smoothing the fabric back into place with careful fingers until the bed looks as untouched as it did before we started dismantling it.

From a distance, nothing has changed, but for me, everything has.

Robyn crosses to the bucket in the corner and kneels beside it, dipping the cloth into the cold water and wringing it out before pressing it to her face. I sit back against the wall as I watch her, the only sound being the water splashing into the bucket. Her bruises have faded now and my ribs hurt less but every now and then my body hits something and I’m reminded of our suffering.

I watch Robyn rinse the cloth and press it to the back of her neck as water trails down her collarbone before she wipes it away. Roman floods my mind without warning. The way steam used to gather on the bathroom mirror when we showered together. How he would stand behind me, with slow and deliberate hands as he rinsed the shampoo from my hair like I was something precious.