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The rain had returned, painting the windows with streaks of gray as thunder hummed in the distance.
Maya sat in Elias's room, wrapped in one of his black hoodies, knees drawn to her chest. The silence between them was thick, but not empty. It was heavy — like all the words she hadn't spoken were waiting for the storm to break.
Elias stood by the window, watching the street below as if daring the world to take her away from him.
> "You shouldn't have followed me to the gym," she said quietly.
> "I had to," he replied. "You looked at Jax like he still had a piece of you. I wanted to cut that piece out."
Maya closed her eyes.
> "He brought me more pages," she whispered. "From Mira's diary. It's worse than we thought."
> "I don't care what she wrote."
> "You should. She wanted to destroy me, Elias."
He turned slowly, his expression unreadable.
> "And she failed."
He crossed the room in two steps, kneeling in front of her, hands resting on either side of her thighs.
> "You're not broken because of Mira," he murmured. "You're broken because this world never gave you space to survive her."
His hands slid up her sides, slow and claiming.
> "But I did."
Maya looked down at him — at the boy who'd hated her, hurt her, saved her. And for the first time, she realized something brutal.
She was no longer waiting to be rescued.
She was already home.
> "Elias…" she whispered. "What if I don't like who I'm becoming?"
> "You do," he said darkly. "You like it when I say you're mine. When I kiss you hard enough to erase the past. When I take control so you don't have to think."
> "I don't want to belong to someone like this."
> "Liar," he said, voice low and wicked. "You don't want to belong to anyone else like this."
And he was right.
Because as his lips found her neck, as his fingers slipped under the hoodie and traced the line of her ribs, she didn't pull away.
She leaned into the cage.
> "I wake up every morning wondering if you'll leave," he whispered. "And I go to sleep planning how to stop you."
> "That's not love, Elias."
> "No," he said, kissing the spot just below her jaw. "It's possession. It's fear. It's the only thing keeping me human."
She gasped as he bit down — just enough to leave a mark.
> "You belong to me," he said against her skin. "Not because I took you. Because you let me."
Tears welled in her eyes.
> "What if I never wanted to be in this cage?"
He looked up at her then, eyes burning.
> "Then why did you bring the key?"
Maya broke.
Right there — in his arms, in his grip, in the dark.
She clung to him like he was both her salvation and her punishment.
And in a way, he was.
Because maybe the worst part of being caged…
Was realizing you'd chosen it.
And maybe the worst kind of love…
Was the one you didn't want to be saved from.
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