Take Me Instead

I was still a baby the first time I saw my mother cry.

Most people don’t remember things that early. But trauma has its own memory. It doesn’t fade. It waits. Her face—pale, hollow, already apologizing for something she hadn’t done—has followed me through every year of my life. I remember the way her breath shuddered against my ear. The smell of soap on her hands. The way her thumb kept circling the same place on my arm, like she could press herself into my skin and stay.

“Be strong, Sofia,” she whispered, her voice splitting apart. “Don’t let anyone—don’t let the world—break you.”

Her tears fell onto my neck, warm and frantic.

I was two years old when she died.

He killed her.

They never said it like that. They used gentler words. Accident. Domestic dispute. Tragedy. Someone once shrugged and said, These things happen, like my mother was weather.

I don’t call him my father. A father protects. He nurtures. He loves.

The man who raised me did none of those things.

To me, he is only my mother’s murderer.

Hatred is too small a word. What I feel lives deeper than language. It coils around my lungs. It hardens behind my eyes. It sits in my bones and waits.

If I am cruel, if I am cold, if darkness feels more familiar than light—he is the one who taught me how.

He never treated me like a daughter. I was never human to him. I was something owned. Something trained. When I pleased him, I was ignored. When I disappointed him, I was punished.

Pain was his language.

Fear was his favorite tool.

The bell rang.

The sound sliced through the house—small, sharp, final. It went straight through my spine. My body learned it faster than my mind ever did. Every muscle tightened. Every thought vanished.

For seventeen years, that bell controlled my existence.

For seventeen years, I didn’t live.

I survived.

Tonight, that ends.

Tonight, I run.

I stopped outside his office door and forced my hands still. Shaking made him curious. Curiosity made things worse.

I opened the door.

He smiled.

That stretched, polite smile that never reached his eyes. The one that made my stomach turn before my mind could catch up.

“You’re late,” he said mildly, glancing at the clock.

I wasn’t. I never was.

“Sorry, Master.”

The word burned my tongue.

He handed me the paper. Long. Precise. Endless. A list designed not to be finished. He enjoyed that part—the slow erosion.

“Your duties,” he said. “I only ask for obedience. That’s not cruelty.”

“Yes, Master.”

His smirk told me he liked how empty my voice sounded.

“Good girl,” he said. “Now go. You’re distracting.”

I lowered my head and left. Defiance always cost more than it was worth.

As I scrubbed the bathroom floor, my mind drifted the way it always did when my hands worked.

Why Master?

Because the day my mother died, he decided honesty was another weapon. He told me I was adopted. Unwanted. A burden he’d been generous enough to keep. He crouched in front of me, close enough that I could smell his cologne.

“Humans deserve names,” he said softly. “Pets deserve commands.”

That was the day I stopped being a child.

That was the day something inside me went quiet and never woke up again.

By nightfall, my body felt hollow. I hadn’t eaten. One meal a day—that was his rule. He didn’t like fat girls. Hunger, he said, built discipline.

Hunger built hatred.

When the house finally fell silent, I moved.

Midnight.

My heart pounded so loudly I was sure it would betray me. I clutched the stolen key like it was alive, like it might scream. Every step felt wrong. Every breath felt like freedom trying to scare me away.

You’ll fail. You’ll come back. You always do.

No.

Even the streets would be kinder than him.

The back door opened with a soft click. Cold air cut through my clothes. October was cruel. So was he. He never bought me real clothes. Outside was forbidden.

He said it was dangerous.

He was the danger.

I reached the gate—

A sharp beep shattered the night.

For a second, I thought the sound came from inside my chest.

Footsteps thundered behind me.

I didn’t look back. Looking back meant hesitation. Hesitation meant dying.

I ran.

Into the woods. Into blackness. Branches tore at my skin. Roots caught my feet. My lungs burned like they were trying to escape my body. Fear pushed me forward when strength failed.

Then—light.

I burst out of the trees and spun around.

Nothing.

No shouting. No footsteps.

For a moment, I wondered if I had ever mattered enough to be chased.

The city stretched out before me—lights, voices, motion. Life. The truth hit me so hard I had to sit down.

I was alone.

I was homeless.

Fear tried to dress itself up as reason. It always does. But I remembered my mother’s face. I remembered her voice.

I chose the streets.

I sat on a bench, trying to disappear, when my skin prickled.

Eyes on me.

Two men approached. Smiling. Too slow. Too sure.

“You lost, sweetheart?” one asked.

“I’m waiting for someone,” I lied.

“Don’t be rude,” the other said, sitting too close. “She’s scared.”

His gaze crawled over me like a hand.

When he reached out, I ran.

They followed.

Panic carried me faster than pain ever could. I turned a corner and saw it—golden light, tall windows, safety dressed up as luxury.

ROSE RESTAURANT.

I slammed inside and locked the door.

The click sounded too small to save a life.

Crystal chandeliers. Polished floors. People wrapped in money and comfort. I stood there shaking, a bruise in the middle of beauty.

Someone was watching me.

A man. Mid-twenties. Sharp eyes. When our gazes met, confusion crossed his face. Then something quieter. Something assessing.

A knock struck the glass behind me.

My blood went cold.

They were there.

Smiling.

Waiting.

I backed away, heart lodged in my throat. If I looked away, they would take me. I had learned that lesson young.

Then I hit something solid.

Someone.