Chapter 1
The world didn't come back all at once it seeped in like cold, stagnant water filling a grave.
First, there was the taste thick, metallic, and cloying, like I’d been sucking on a roll of copper pennies while sleeping in a dustbin.
My tongue felt twice its normal size, dry and coated in a furry film that made swallowing an act of pure agony.
Then came the sound: a low, electrical hum that vibrated through the very marrow of my bones, a rhythmic thrum-thrum-thrum that seemed to pulse in time with the jagged throbbing behind my eyes.
My body gave a violent, involuntary jerk, my nerves firing off like a short-circuiting wire. I tried to open my eyes, but the lids felt like they’d been glued shut with industrial adhesive.
When I finally forced them apart, the world was a dizzying kaleidoscope of sickly yellow light and blurring shadows.
My head spun on its axis, a wave of nausea rolling through my gut so fiercely I had to clench my jaw to keep from heaving right then and there.
Where the hell am I?
I reached out, my fingers trembling so hard I could barely control them. My palms connected with something cool and textured. This wasn't my high-thread-count Egyptian cotton.
Not the soft, familiar weight of my duvet back home. This was rough, thin, and smelled faintly of mothballs, cedar, and something oily like old machinery. I tried to push myself up, but my muscles screamed in protest. It felt like my blood had been replaced with lead.
Memory flickered, sharp and jagged, cutting through the fog.
I’d been home. My sanctuary in Avoyelles Parish. I’d spent the morning in my favorite yoga joggers, curled up in my office chair, editing a particularly gritty chapter for my new reverse harem project.
I remember the satisfaction of hitting my word count, the way the humid Louisiana sun had spilled across my desk, lighting up the dust motes.
I’d decided to treat myself a glass of Cabernet and a plate of creamy garlic shrimp pasta. I remembered sitting at my dining room table, the house quiet, the TV murmuring some true crime documentary in the background.
Then, the shift.
Halfway through the meal, the world had started to tilt. I remember looking at my fork and wondering why it suddenly weighed fifty pounds.
I tried to stand, but my legs... they just didn't belong to me anymore. I remember the terrifying, slow-motion slide toward the floor, the wood grain of the table being the last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me whole.
I hadn't fallen asleep. I’d been harvested.
“Hello?” I called out.
The word was a pathetic, raspy ghost of a sound. My throat was so dry it felt like it was lined with sandpaper. I tried again, louder this time, my voice cracking with a desperate, jagged edge. “Is anyone there? Help!”
As my vision finally began to stabilize, the sheer, suffocating wrongness of the room hit me like a physical blow.
I was in a box.
A literal, windowless box.
The walls were covered in a nauseating floral wallpaper pinks and faded greens, tiny rosebuds that looked like they hadn't seen the sun since the eighties.
There was no door. No seams. No handles. Just four solid walls of grandma’s-guest-room-from-hell.
The lighting came from a single, recessed bulb in the ceiling, dimmed just enough to make the corners look like they were melting. In the far corner sat a small, plastic bucket.
The bile rose in my throat again. This wasn't a mistake. This wasn't a hospital. This was a cage.
“Please! What is happening? Let me out!” I screamed, the sound echoing off the walls and vibrating painfully in my skull. I scrambled off the mattress, my legs still feeling like useless noodles, and stumbled toward the wall.
I began to claw at the wallpaper, my fingernails digging into the floral patterns, desperate to find a latch, a crack, a secret handle. “Do you hear me? You can’t do this! This is kidnapping! I’m Jess Pothier, and people are going to come looking for me!”
“I will be with you shortly. Calm down, wife.”
The voice didn't come from a person. It came from the air itself. Deep, raspy, and vibrating with an oily kind of possessiveness that made the hair on my arms stand straight up.
I whipped around, my eyes darting across the ceiling until I spotted them discreet, mesh-covered speakers tucked into the corners.
“Wife?” I whispered, the word feeling like a hot ember on my tongue. “I’m not your wife. I don't even know who the hell you are! Let me go! I have a life I have a career people will be calling the cops by morning!”
Silence. That heavy, suffocating silence that feels like it’s trying to crush the breath out of your lungs.
I started to pace the small space, three steps one way, three steps back. I was still wearing my silk robe, the one I’d put on after my shower, but it felt like a flimsy excuse for protection now. I felt exposed.
Raw.
I pinched the skin of my forearm, twisting it until I winced, desperate for the sting to wake me up from this nightmare.
The bruise bloomed purple under the yellow light. I wasn't dreaming.
A low, mechanical hum started beneath my feet, and I froze. To my left, a section of the floral wallpaper one I had just touched began to slide back with a hiss of hydraulics. Light, brighter and colder than the bulb in my cell, spilled in from a hallway beyond.
A silhouette stepped through the opening.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a way that made my brain stall out. He was wearing a dark, charcoal suit, perfectly tailored, and a crisp white shirt with a black bow tie. He looked like he was headed to a high-end gala, or a funeral, not a basement dungeon.
“Welcome h-home, Wife,” he mumble-growled.
The stutter was jarring. It was a soft, vulnerable hitch in an otherwise commanding, terrifying voice. He stepped further into the room, and the wall hissed shut behind him, sealing us in together.
Up close, he was beautiful. In a dark, sharp, aristocratic way. High cheekbones, a jawline that could cut glass, and eyes that were so dark they looked like twin pools of ink. But there was a frantic, feverish light behind them a look of pure, unadulterated devotion that made my stomach turn.
“Don't call me that,” I said, backing away until my shoulder blades hit the cool, floral paper. “I don't know you. You drugged me. You brought me here. That’s a felony. If you let me go now right now I won’t tell a soul. I’ll say I got lost in the woods. Just... please.”
He didn't seem to hear me. He was looking at me with a terrifying kind of reverence, his gaze traveling from my messy hair down the length of my silk robe, lingering on the curve of my legs.
It was the look of an artist seeing his masterpiece come to life.
“Si-silly girl,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, losing that shy edge. “This is where you belong. I’ve watched you for so long, Jess. I know your routine. I know the way you like your coffee in the morning. I know the stories you write in the dark when the rest of the world is asleep. I am your husband. I have made everything perfect for you. This is our sanctuary.”
He reached behind his back and pulled something out. My heart stopped, my breath hitching in my chest. It was a mass of white fabric, yellowed slightly by age, heavy with lace, beads, and silk. It looked like it had been preserved in a vacuum for decades, a relic of a different time.
A wedding dress.
“I got you this,” he whispered, his eyes gleaming with a sick, boyish excitement. “It’s time. Put it on, mo wife. Put it on so we can finally begin our life together. The dinner is almost ready.”
The dress was a monstrosity of 90s fashion puffy sleeves, a high, lace-choked neck, and a skirt that looked heavy enough to drown in. It smelled of cedar, mothballs, and something else... something faint and sweet, like rotting lilies.
“I’m not putting that on,” I spat, my fear finally being overtaken by a hot, white flash of pure Cajun rage. “I am not your doll. I am not your wife. And I sure as hell am not going to play house in some dead woman’s clothes. You hear me?”
He flinched, as if I’d physically struck him. His face contorted, his lips peeling back to reveal white, even teeth. The air in the room suddenly felt electric, charged with his burgeoning fury.
“You will not b-be disrespectful,” he growled, closing the distance between us in two long, predatory strides. He loomed over me, his shadow swallowing me whole. I could smell his cologne something expensive, woody, and cold, like a forest in winter. “I have done everything for you. I have built this world for us, Jess. You will wear the dress. You will be my beautiful bride. You will be everything she was and more.”
He shoved the dress against my chest, the scratchy lace catching on the silk of my robe. The weight of it was oppressive, a heavy, ivory burden.
“I said no!” I screamed, shoving the dress back at him with all the strength I had.
His hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around my upper arm like a vice. He didn't just hold me; he squeezed, his thumb digging into the muscle until I gasped in pain. He pulled me flush against his hard chest, his dark eyes boring into mine.
“Don't make me p-punish you before the honeymoon has even begun,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. I could see the tiny pulse jumping in his temple, the raw, jagged edge of his sanity fraying before my eyes. “Put it on. Or I will strip that robe off you and dress you myself. I’ve seen it all anyway, Jess. I’ve watched you through the glass. Don't make this ugly.”
I looked into those ink-black eyes and realized I was looking at a man who had completely severed his ties with the real world. To him, these walls weren't a prison they were a gift. And I wasn't a victim. I was the prize he’d finally claimed.
My breath hitched as his grip tightened even further, his fingers likely leaving bruises that would match the purple of the dress’s shadows. The choice was clear: play along and look for a way out, or let this monster put his hands on me right now.
“I’ll... I’ll put it on,” I whispered, my voice trembling with a mix of terror and the first sparks of a cold, calculating resolve.
A slow, terrifyingly sweet smile spread across his face. “Good girl. I knew you’d understand, Wife. I’ll leave you to dress. Don't take too long. I’m eager to see my bride at the table.”
He let go of my arm, the skin already beginning to throb and heat. He turned, the wall sliding open as if by magic, and he stepped out into the cold light of the hallway, leaving the heavy, white shroud of the dress in my shaking hands.
I was alone again, but the silence was gone. Now, all I could hear was the frantic, terrified drumming of my own heart against the floral walls. I looked at the dress, the lace mocking me.
Fine, I thought, my eyes narrowing. I'll wear your dress. But I'm going to burn this house down around you before I'm through.
