Kayla's POV
The walls of the apartments seemed to be closing in on me, and squashing by a few inches an hour, until the lungs were almost difficult to breathe. Those are the shadows of the light of the lamp, long, twitching, that cast themselves upon the floor in shapes which moved and stretched out toward me like fingers.
Every sound from the hallway...footsteps, a door slamming, a muffled laugh...sent my pulse skittering. Every creak of the floorboards above me made my skin crawl. I clutched my phone tighter, my knuckles white, staring at the two messages that had already shattered what little peace I'd had left.
You can run, but you can't hide.
Tell him yourself before someone else does.
The words glowed on the screen, stark and merciless. My hands trembled as though the phone itself had turned to ice. Whoever it was, they weren't bluffing. They knew. They knew about the baby.
I pulled my knees to my chest, rocking slightly as fear coursed through me, hot and cold all at once. For years, my worst nightmare had been Liam's indifference. His coldness had hollowed me out until there was nothing left to break.
But now? Now I feared his obsession.
If he discovered I was pregnant, I knew-no, I felt-he'd never let me leave. He would tighten his grip until there was no escape, until the baby inside me became the chain around my neck.
The sound of water running snapped me out of my spiral. Damien was in the kitchen, rinsing the broom after cleaning the broken cup. The ordinary sound should have soothed me. It didn't. It only made the room feel smaller, the air heavier.
My mind betrayed me with a dark thought: what if Damien wasn't who I thought he was?
He was the only person I had trusted with the truth. The only one who had seen my test results, who knew about the tiny heartbeat inside me. What if... what if he wasn't protecting me, but watching me?
The thought slid under my skin like a splinter. I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head violently, trying to push it away. No. No, that was paranoia talking. Damien had always been kind, steady, safe. He wasn't like Liam. He couldn't be.
"Kayla?"
Damien's voice was soft, breaking into my thoughts. I opened my eyes to find him standing in the doorway, drying his hands on a towel. His dark eyes swept over me, sharp and concerned. "You look pale. You need to rest."
Rest? The word felt foreign. How could I rest when shadows were tightening around me, when danger was crawling closer with every hour?
"I... I can't," I whispered, my voice barely more than air.
He crossed the room without hesitation and crouched in front of me again, bringing himself to my level. His eyes locked on mine, steady and grounding. "Then let me carry some of the weight for you."
Something in his tone-firm yet gentle-made my chest ache. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to hand over all my fear, all my secrets, and let him shield me. But trust felt dangerous now. Every instinct in me screamed that anyone could be a threat.
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed again.
My heart leapt into my throat.
Another message.
My fingers shook as I raised the phone. This time, it wasn't words. It was a photo.
My blood ran cold.
It was me...taken just a few hours ago. Sitting on Damien's couch, my hand resting on my stomach, exactly the way I was sitting before the cup shattered.
A sob tore from my throat. "They're watching me," I whispered, horror lacing every syllable. "Damien, they're watching me right now."
His face darkened, fury flashing in his eyes like lightning. He snatched the phone from me, his jaw tightening as he stared at the screen. "Whoever this is, they won't touch you. I'll find them, Kayla. I swear I will."
But his words barely reached me. My pulse roared in my ears, a low thunder drowning everything else out. My eyes darted to the window, the corners of the room, the shadows shifting across the ceiling.
Someone was out there. Watching. Waiting.
My breath came faster, each inhale sharp and shallow. I pressed my back to the couch, curling in on myself as if I could make my body smaller, invisible.
Damien crouched down again, his hand brushing mine. "Kayla, look at me."
I forced my eyes up to his. They were steady, dark, fierce. "You're safe," he said quietly, but there was an edge under the softness, a storm gathering behind his calm. "You're safe with me."
I wanted to believe him so badly it hurt. But the photo burned behind my eyelids. Someone had been close enough to take that picture without me knowing. Someone had seen me touch my stomach. Someone had turned my secret into their weapon.
I swallowed hard, my voice shaking. "What if they're not after Liam? What if they're not even after you?"
His brows drew together. "Kayla-"
"They're after me," I whispered, my voice cracking. "And my baby."
Silence fell like a curtain.
Damien's jaw clenched, his eyes darkening with something I couldn't name. For a heartbeat, the world shrank to the space between us-my trembling hands, his steady ones, the flicker of fear in both our eyes.
Then his phone buzzed, the sound sharp as a gunshot. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and his expression shifted just enough for me to see it-surprise, then anger, then something almost like dread.
"Who is it?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. "Work," he said quickly. "Nothing you need to worry about."
But the way his jaw tightened told me it wasn't nothing.
I wrapped my arms around myself, the apartment suddenly colder. The shadows seemed to stretch longer across the floor.
Somewhere beyond these walls, someone was playing a game I didn't understand. And the prize wasn't Damien. It wasn't Liam.
It was me.
And the tiny life inside me.