Shadows Of Stardom

Chapter 59

How many days? Too many to count.

It had been two weeks since I was taken there, two weeks of constant fear. My body was covered in bruises from their abuse, but the worst pain was worrying about my baby, Taehyung’s baby.

They could do anything to me, but I knew they wouldn’t hurt my child. That thought kept me from completely falling apart.

Taeil. His betrayal hurt the most. He was once my friend, someone I trusted. Now, he felt like just another monster in my nightmares, but his betrayal hurt deeper. His touch made me feel empty, like I wasn’t really me anymore. He seemed to enjoy making me pass out, every single time.

That day started like any other. A door creaked open, and my heart raced, almost choking me. Taeil walked in, his eyes cold and unkind.

After he left, I lay there, feeling broken and numb, wishing I could disappear.

The air in the room was heavy, filled with the smell of cheap cologne and something else that tasted like despair. It stuck in my throat, a bitter feeling I couldn’t shake.

When he rolled away from me, I felt a strange relief, but it quickly turned into the cold emptiness that had become my constant companion. I didn’t react as he moved; I didn’t cry out or plead anymore. My cries had stopped days ago, leaving just a deep ache where hope used to be.

His hand moved down my wet skin, resting on my inner thigh. A familiar, sick feeling twisted in my stomach. But it wasn’t just fear anymore; it was a numb acceptance. Had Auntie finally won? Had she really broken me?

He kissed me in a way that used to make me feel disgusted. Now? I felt nothing, just a dull pressure, another violation in a sea of wrongness.

He must have noticed the change—the lack of resistance, the fight gone from my eyes. His grip tightened, and I saw a flicker of disappointment on his face. He had enjoyed my struggle, my desperate pleas, my attempts to fight back. Now, I gave him nothing, and that seemed to make him angrier than anything else.

He shifted, lying next to me and pulling me close until my head rested on his chest. His heartbeat was a dull sound in my ear, a mocking reminder of the life still in him, a life that felt so far from my own fading existence.

"Your hair is getting darker. I hate it," he said, running his fingers through my hair, which was matted with sweat and other things.

I made a sound, a meaningless hum that took no effort.

Silence hung heavily between us, thick and stifling. It was during these moments, in the aftermath, that memories clawed their way back—fragments of a life that felt like a distant dream, a life that had been taken from me and replaced by this twisted nightmare.

"What do you and Taehyung do after sex?"

The question cut through the haze in my mind, a shocking interruption. Taehyung. His name felt like a phantom pain, a ghostly ache of a loss I could hardly comprehend.

Nothing. I could feel myself starting to shake, but no tears came. I don’t remember, I told him.

His grip tightened in my hair, pulling my head back sharply and painfully. A growl rumbled in his chest. "Answer me!"

His words echoed in the void where my spirit used to reside. "I… I don’t remember." The admission tasted like ash in my mouth—a mix of truth and deception. I didn’t want to remember.

He sighed, frustration lacing his voice. "So, every time we do this, I’ll be right here with you. I’m sorry, but I won’t go easy on you." He pressed his lips to my hair in a way that felt both possessive and suffocating.