Page 4 of Mystic's Sunrise

THE ROOMwas always cold, even when my skin burned.

Not from fever.

From fists.

From the press of fear that never left, even when the walls stood silent.

The air stank of mold and something older, something rotten that had settled deep in the cracks of the concrete. There was no window. No clock. Just a single bulb above me that buzzed likeit was mocking my breath, flickering enough to make shadows dance on the walls.

I didn’t cry anymore. That luxury had been stripped away the first night.

Now I sat still. Silent. Like a prop in a room no one wanted to visit.

My knees were tucked to my chest, arms wound tightly around them. Every muscle in my body had learned how to stay small, to disappear into corners, to go unnoticed until the door opened and I had no choice but to exist again. Sometimes I wondered if that was what death felt like, not pain, not finality, just this unending blur of waiting.

I didn’t know what day it was. Or how long I’d been here. But I remembered the last sound that mattered. Applause. Thunderous and warm. My name on lips that loved me. My parents in the front row, my mother’s hijab shimmering under the lights, my father still dusted with flour from the bakery, smiling like the world was finally enough.

That was the last night I danced.

Now I breathed in time with the flicker of that damn bulb, counted the cracks in the ceiling, and pretended I was still Giselle.

It helped, sometimes. Until the footsteps came.

They were coming now.

I knew the rhythm of the boots, slow, confident, uncaring. My heart didn’t race anymore. It just waited. That was worse somehow. When you stop flinching, it means you’ve started accepting. That the fight is no longer a scream inside you, but a whimper buried so deep, you forget it was ever loud.

But today, the rhythm was wrong.

The boots weren’t heavy or rushed. They were measured. Controlled.

The lock clicked, and the door creaked open with that same slow crawl. But this time… I felt something different. Not fear exactly. Not safety either. Just a shift in the air, like the pressure had changed around me.

He stepped inside like he’d done it a hundred times in his mind.

Handsome. Tall. Broad. Tattoos creeping up his neck. Eyes like smoke, and not the kind that choked. The kind that stayed with you.

I knew immediately he wasn’t one of Ricca’s men.

But he looked at me like I was already his.

He crouched down in front of me, and I wanted to shrink away, but I was too tired to move. Too broken to care.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said, voice low, like he was confessing something. “They said your name is Zeynep. I watched you at the party last night and I can tell you don’t belong here”

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. My throat was tight, my lips frozen.

“You remember me, don’t you?” he asked, studying me. “Our eyes connected. Just a second. But I remember how it felt.”

I didn’t remember. Not exactly. But something about him… familiar. A ghost that had hovered just outside the nightmare.

“My name’s Drago,” he said, softer now. “And I’m getting you out of here. He doesn’t own you anymore.”

That word—own—made my chest twist.

“I have a place,” he added. “My clubhouse and I’ll take care of you”

The way he said it sent a flicker of unease through me, but I buried it deep. I had no more choices. Only hope. Only survival.

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