Page 144 of Can You Take It?

“Only if my queen promises to keep her royal tits under my personal guard,” I tease back, my fingers playfully pinching her side.

She swats at my hand, feigning offense. “Careful, my lord, or I’ll have you beheaded—or worse, banished from the bedroom.”

“Fuck, not the bedroom.” I pretend to shudder. “Anything but that. I’d be lost without access to my queen’s... royal chambers.”

She laughs, her laughter echoing in the room like music to my ears. God, I love that sound. It makes me want to say something equally trivial again just to hear her laugh once more.

“Yeah, so the basement wasn’t exactly the palace of Versailles, but Mom and I, we made it ours. We also had this game where we’d pretend we were in different parts of the world each week,” she chuckles. “We made up stories about the places we’d go, things we’d see.”

“Sounds like she was a hell of a woman, your mom,” I remark, genuinely impressed by the strength and creativity it must have taken to make a life out of such limited circumstances.

“She was... she was everything,” she replies softly. “Taught me all about the world from a stack of old books and her imagination.”

“Tell me more about this place you and your mom made your own. What was it like?”

“Oh, well, every night, we’d have dinner under the stars. We had this old, beat-up table in the basement, and it was our little slice of the world. We’d set it up with candles and pretend we were dining in some far-off place.”

“Under the stars?” I repeat, envisioning it in my mind. A basement doesn’t exactly scream starlit dinners.

She nods, and there’s a distant look in her eyes as she continues. “Victor had these rare moments of... I don’t know, kindness, I guess. One day, he brought us these glow-in-the-dark stars. He even helped stick them on the ceiling. So, every night, we’d switch off the lights, and the stars would come out.”

“That’s...” I start, not sure how to respond, but I’m glad Izel beats me to it.

“It was one of the few things that kept us sane back then,” she admits.

“And now?” I ask, unable to stop myself. “Do you ever think back to those nights? The stars?”

“I try not to. It’s hard to reconcile those memories with everything else. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can still see them. And it reminds me that no matter how dark things got, there was always a little light.”

I feel my muscles tense under her fingertips as she continues. Tomorrow, I’ll have to look at the place that caged her, the real-life dungeon version of her ‘world’.

“What was it like when you got out?”

She doesn’t answer right away, just traces patterns on my chest with her fingertips. I can feel her hesitate, like she’s sifting through memories she’d rather forget.

“It was... overwhelming,” she finally says. “You’d think getting out of there would be the end of the nightmare, but in some ways, it was just the beginning of another one.”

I feel my heart tighten in my chest. “What do you mean?”

“Imagine spending seventeen years in a place where the only light you see is artificial, where the air is always stale, and the only sounds are your own footsteps and the occasional voice telling you what to do. Then suddenly, you’re thrust into a world that’s too bright, too loud, too everything.”

I try to picture it, but it’s impossible to fully grasp. “It must have been terrifying.”

“Terrifying doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she says with a bitter laugh. “The first time I stepped outside, I couldn’t even look up at the sky without feeling like it was going to swallow me whole. The sun was too bright, the noise of the city was deafening... it was like sensory overload. And then there were the people.”

She pauses, and I can see the pain in her eyes. I tighten my arms around her, grounding her in the present. “What about the people?”

“They stared at me like I was some kind of freak,” she says. “I guess I looked like one too. I mean, seventeen years without sunlight or proper nutrition, I was practically a ghost. I didn’t know how to interact with anyone. I didn’t even know how to be human again.”

The way she describes it, I can hardly breathe. The thought of her stepping out into a world that must have felt like a completely different planet—it makes my chest ache with a pain that’s hard to explain. But she’s not done. I can feel it in the way she stiffens against me, like she’s bracing herself for what comes next.

“And above all that,” she continues, “Victor wanted me to take over Isla’s life. He wanted me to become her. She was everythingI wasn’t—perfect, polished, the kind of woman who could move through society without raising an eyebrow. I was the shadow, and he needed me to step into her light. So, when he felt like people were starting to get suspicious, he made up a story that Isla was going to London for her studies. That gave him two years to train me—to make me her.”

“He taught me how to live around people, how to act like I belonged. But it wasn’t just lessons. It came with punishments. If I slipped up, if I showed even a hint of rebellion... Charles was in charge of making sure I learned my lesson.”

The name “Charles” sounds familiar. I’ve heard it before.

“Charles,” I repeat. “Charles from the Janson’s Antiques?”

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