Fear

32

My arms and legs were pinned again — that's the first thing I noticed when I woke up. The straps dug into my wrists and ankles.

The Act room.

My eyes slowly blinked open, my head throbbing with pressure. I tried to move but couldn't even shift my weight.

I didn't remember getting here.

Was I sedated?
Had someone brought me here?

For a few seconds, I thought maybe this was a dream — another hallucination in the endless chain of them — but then I heard the door unlock with that unmistakable mechanical click, and I knew exactly what it meant.

He stepped in like he'd never been gone.

No fanfare. No guards. Just Tyler — dressed in black, calm, professional, detached.

He walked up to the table, hands behind his back, and looked at me with all the expression of a man studying a painting he didn't particularly like. He tilted his head.

"Missed me, princess?"

The first thing he said to me after three weeks of absence. Like a joke.

"No," I lied, looking away from him in a sulk.

"Liar."

He let the silence stretch just long enough for me to become uncomfortable with it. He stood there, watching me, letting the weight of his presence settle back into the room — into me — like smoke.

"You've been quiet lately," he finally said. "James told me you've been sulking."

"Recovering," I said, my voice betraying a hint of a snarl.

He raised a brow, amused. "From what?"

"You disappeared. Three weeks, Tyler."

"I was giving you space."

I scoffed. "How thoughtful."

He circled the table, fingertips trailing the edge like he was checking for dust. "You looked unwell. Disoriented. Detached from reality. I figured a break would do you good."

"You figured wrong."

He stopped by my head, looking down at me with mock sympathy. "I can see that."

Then he looked past me, to the wall. "You're erratic. Unstable. You need space... So do I."

I laughed, bitter and humourless. "Right. Because emotional manipulation is exhausting for you."

His jaw tensed. He glanced down at me. Then he strolled around the table. His fingers dragged lightly along the metal, slow enough to make me feel every inch of the space between us.

"I know you remember it," I said, watching for a reaction.

Silence. He stopped moving.

He came up to me then, and crouched down beside me. He studied my face for a bit — the fury in it. The frustration. The hurt.

"You're not making this easy for yourself," he said.

"You can't pretend it didn't happen, Tyler. It was real."

"Real," he repeated softly with a slight nod, his hand resting gently on my knee.

Then his voice dropped. Colder. His eyes darkened. "Is that what you think this is? You think anything that happens in here is real?"

But intimidation didn't work on me anymore. Not with him. I wasn't scared of him anymore. I held his stare.

"I think you're scared."