Page 45 of Shy Girl

Finally, their footsteps echo down the hallway, uneven and stumbling, her heels tapping out a disjointed melody. My heart pounds harder, each beat a sharp thud against my ribs.This is it.

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But they don’t stop at the study. They stop in front of Nathan’s bedroom. The laughter fades, softens, mutates into something else—low murmurs, breathy sighs. Then the bed creaks.

The sounds that follow are unmistakable. Rhythmic. Loud. Her moans pierce the quiet, sharp and relentless, like a knife scraping against bone. The bed creaks in time, a jarring metronome I can’t escape.

I close my eyes tight, pressing them shut as if I could block it out, but the noises burrow in, filling every corner of the room. I flinch with every sound, every gasp, every guttural groan, my body recoiling even as I stay still.

It goes on forever, the minutes stretching into something unbearable. When it finally stops, the silence is sudden, ringing in my ears. Her heels click again, harder now, faster, and then the front door slams shut.

She’s gone.

Nathan’s footsteps follow, slower, heavier, his weight dragging against the house. He fiddles with the locks, and the door to the Pink Room swings open. Light floods the space, harsh and intrusive, making me squint.

“Stuck-up bitch,” he mutters, his words slurred, thick with whiskey. For a moment, I think he’s talking to me, and my body tenses, bracing for his hand, but then I realize it’s about her.

“I can’t keep her,” he says, frustration seeping through his words. “She’s not the right girl.”

I feel something shift inside me—confusion, maybe, or a flicker of relief, faint and bitter.

Nathan stumbles toward the bed and sits heavily beside me, his weight making the frame groan. He reaches out, his hand finding my head, his fingers threading clumsily through my hair.His touch is strange, sloppy, pretending tenderness but loaded with possession.

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“She’s not obedient like you, Shy Girl,” he says, his voice softening, almost warm. “I can’t find anyone like you.”

The words settle over me, thick and suffocating, pressing into my skin like a brand.You mean someone desperate enough. Someone who gave up trying to fight.

Nathan sighs, a long, heavy exhale, his breath warm against my cheek as he leans back. His head hits the pillow, and his hand stays tangled in my hair. Within minutes, his breathing evens out, slow and rhythmic, his snores filling the silence.

I stare at the ceiling, my wrists aching from the cuffs, my jaw tight against the gag. His body sprawls across the bed, his man-sized frame claiming most of it, leaving me perched on the edge like an afterthought. My limbs are stiff, my back screaming in protest, but I don’t move.

The hours stretch, the silence heavy except for the sound of his breathing, and my thoughts spiral in tight, endless loops.Who was she? What does this mean for me?

I count his breaths—one, two, three, four—until the rhythm steadies me, pulling me away from the noise in my head. I lie there, trapped in his shadow, waiting for the morning to come, waiting for anything to change. But I know it won’t. Nothing ever does.

YEAR FIVE

TWENTY-FOUR

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The pain startedsmall, a dull throb at the back of my jaw, the kind of ache you can tuck away and ignore if you’re used to worse. And I am used to worse. Pain here has its own hierarchy, and this was so low on the ladder it barely registered. But by the second week, it sharpened. Every movement of my mouth sent a jolt through my skull, white-hot and unrelenting, carving itself into the back of my head.

I didn’t tell Master Nathan. Complaining only leads to worse things, his punishments always heavier than the pain itself. I thought I could outlast it, thought the tooth might just fall out on its own. But last night, when he threw me a bowl of oatmeal, the mushy weight of it pressed against the raw nerve, and I couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t even try.

He noticed. Of course, he noticed.

“Open your mouth,” he barked, his voice already sharp with irritation.

I hesitated for half a second, and his hand shot out, grabbing my jaw, forcing it open. His nails dug into my cheeks as his eyes narrowed, scanning the swollen, angry wound at the back of my mouth.

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