Willow's POV
"You will marry him."
My father's voice carried through the room with a calm certainty that made it worse than if he had shouted. It settled over me like something heavy and suffocating, pressing down on my chest until it became harder to breathe. I stood there, staring at him, my fingers tightening in the fabric of my dress as if holding onto something physical might stop everything from slipping out of my control.
I waited, just for a second, hoping he would say something else—anything to prove this wasn't real—but he didn't. His expression remained cold, unmoved, as though he had already decided my future and there was nothing left for me to say about it.
"I won't," I said, my voice quieter than I intended but steady enough to make the words real.
The moment they left my lips, I knew I had crossed a line I couldn't step back from, yet a strange sense of relief followed, like I had finally allowed myself to breathe after being held underwater for too long.
For a brief second, the room went completely still, the kind of silence that makes your skin prickle because you know something is about to happen.
I saw the shift in his eyes before I could react, but it was too late to take anything back.
His hand struck my face with enough force to send me stumbling sideways, my vision blurring as I lost my balance and hit the edge of the desk before collapsing onto the floor. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs, and for a moment I could only focus on the sharp ringing in my ears and the burning pain spreading across my cheek.
I tasted blood almost immediately, metallic and warm, and I pressed my lips together to keep from letting any sound escape. Crying would only make it worse, and I had learned that lesson long ago.
"You don't get to refuse me," he said, his tone returning to that same controlled calm as if nothing had happened, which somehow made it more terrifying.
I forced myself to look up at him, even though my vision was still slightly unfocused, and saw no hesitation, no regret—just the same cold authority he had always carried.
"Everything you have belongs to me, including your future."
I pushed myself up slowly, my hands trembling slightly as I steadied myself, but I refused to stay on the ground in front of him. My cheek throbbed with every movement, and I could feel the warmth of swelling skin, yet none of it mattered as much as the realization settling deep in my chest.
"You're selling me," I said, the words coming out softer now, but they carried more weight than anything I had said before. It wasn't a question, and we both knew it.
"This is how power works," he replied without hesitation, as if that explained everything.
A hollow feeling spread through me at his answer, and I shook my head slightly, unable to accept it even if I understood it.
"No," I said quietly, meeting his gaze despite the fear trying to crawl its way back in, "this is how control works." The change in his expression was subtle but unmistakable, a warning I would have listened to any other day, but not now.
"Careful, Willow," he said, his voice lowering just enough to send a chill down my spine.
But something inside me had already shifted, something that refused to be silenced again.
"I would rather die than marry a man I've never even met," I said, and this time my voice didn't waver at all. The words hung between us, heavy and irreversible, and for the first time, I didn't feel afraid of them.
He studied me for a moment before speaking again, and when he did, his voice was colder than anything I had heard before. "You won't," he said simply. "Because you're not strong enough for that."
That should have broken me, but instead, it did the opposite.
Something inside me snapped into place, not violently, but with a quiet certainty that I couldn't ignore. Maybe I wasn't strong enough to die, but I was strong enough to leave, and suddenly that felt like the only thing that mattered.
I didn't say another word. I turned and walked out of the room, my steps steady despite the storm building inside me, and I didn't look back even once.
The silence that followed me through the halls felt unnatural, almost staged, as if the house itself was holding its breath. No one stopped me as I passed, not the staff who avoided my eyes or the guards stationed at the doors, and that alone was enough to make unease settle deep in my stomach.
It was too easy, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that meant something, but I couldn't afford to think about it now.
When I pushed the front doors open, the cold night air hit me immediately, sharp and real, filling my lungs in a way that made everything inside me tighten.
Rain had already started to fall, light at first but quickly growing heavier, soaking into my hair and clothes within seconds. I hesitated just briefly on the steps, staring out into the darkness beyond the gates, because for the first time in my life, there was nothing in front of me but the unknown.
Then I stepped forward.
The sound of my heels against the stone echoed too loudly in the quiet, making my pulse spike as I hurried down the long driveway. Halfway through, I stopped, the sudden stillness around me pressing in from all sides as a single thought forced its way to the surface—why hadn't anyone tried to stop me?
The question lingered just long enough to make doubt creep in, but I pushed it away, because thinking about it would only slow me down.
I slipped off my heels without hesitation and broke into a run, the cold ground beneath my feet barely registering as adrenaline took over.
The rain fell harder now, blurring my vision and making every step uncertain, but I didn't stop, not even when my lungs began to burn or my legs started to ache.
I kept going, faster and further, driven by something stronger than fear, something that refused to let me turn back.
By the time I reached the gates and crossed them, it felt like stepping into a completely different world, one that was louder, colder, and infinitely more real than anything I had ever known.
I didn't slow down, not even then, because the fragile sense of freedom settling over me felt like it could disappear at any moment if I wasn't careful.
I didn't know that someone had been watching me the entire time.
I didn't see the black car parked across the street, its presence hidden by darkness and rain, or the man sitting inside it, his gaze fixed on me as if I were something worth remembering.
I didn't feel the weight of his attention or understand that while I was running, trying to escape everything I had ever known, I had already been noticed.
And somehow, that would matter more than anything else.
The first night after I left, I didn't stop moving. I didn't let myself think about where I was going or what would happen next, because thinking meant slowing down, and slowing down meant being caught.
The rain followed me for hours, soaking through my clothes until everything clung to my skin, heavy and cold, but I barely felt it. All I could feel was the distance behind me and the certainty that it wasn't enough, that no matter how far I ran, it wouldn't be far enough to disappear from him.
I didn't have a plan, not a real one, just instinct and fear driving me forward, pushing me through streets I didn't know and places I had never seen. Every shadow felt like something waiting, every passing car like it might stop, every sound like footsteps that didn't belong to me.
I kept looking over my shoulder without meaning to, my body reacting before my mind could catch up, and even when there was nothing there, the feeling didn't go away because I knew him and I knew he wouldn't let me go.
The first time they found me, it had only been three days. I had taken a bus out of the city, far enough that everything started to blur into something unfamiliar, somewhere I thought would be safe simply because it wasn't home.
I stayed in a small motel on the edge of a quiet town, the kind of place no one looked twice at, where people came and went without asking questions. For a moment, I thought I had done it, that I had made enough distance to disappear, that maybe I had actually escaped.
I was wrong. It started with a knock on the door, soft at first, almost polite, and I froze immediately, my breath catching as I stood in the middle of the room, staring at the door like it might disappear if I didn't move.
No one knew I was there, no one should have known, because I had paid in cash, given a different name, kept my head down, done everything I could think of to stay unnoticed.
The knock came again, harder this time, followed by a voice from the other side, calm and controlled in a way that made it worse, and something inside me dropped instantly because I understood before I needed proof.
I didn't answer, I didn't move, I just waited, counting the seconds in silence as my heart pounded harder with each one.
Then I saw the shadow beneath the door shift slightly, and something inside me snapped into place, not panic, but certainty. They had found me.
I didn't open the door, I didn't think, I just grabbed my bag and moved toward the window, my hands shaking as I forced it open and climbed out without hesitation.
The cold air hit me sharply as my feet touched the ground, but I didn't look back, I just ran, the gravel cutting into my skin as I pushed forward, faster, harder, my breath uneven as adrenaline took over.
Behind me, I heard the door break open, the sound loud and final, followed by voices that confirmed everything I already knew, and that was enough to make me run harder, through the parking lot, through the narrow street behind the building, through places I couldn't even see properly because I didn't dare slow down.
I didn't know where I was, but I knew how close I had been to being taken back, and that stayed with me longer than anything else. It wasn't the last time. They found me again a week later, and then again a month after that, each time closer than the last, each time more precise, like they were learning, adapting, narrowing the distance between us.
I stopped staying in one place for too long, stopped trusting anything that felt even slightly safe, because safety wasn't real anymore. I learned to move differently, to disappear in ways I hadn't needed to before, to become something smaller, quieter, less noticeable.
I changed my name more times than I could count, cut my hair once just to feel like I had control over something, started wearing clothes that didn't fit properly, anything that made me harder to recognize, harder to remember, harder to follow.
But it didn't matter, because somehow they still found me. The worst time was six months in, when I had finally stayed somewhere long enough to feel something close to calm, a small apartment above a closed shop, quiet and hidden, the kind of place no one would think to look.
For a few days, I let myself believe it might be enough, that maybe I had learned how to stay out of reach, that maybe I had finally done it.
Then I saw them across the street, standing still, watching, and my entire body went cold before my mind could even process what I was seeing. I didn't wait that time, I didn't question it, I just grabbed what I could carry and left through the back before they could even reach the door.
I slipped into the alley, my heart racing as I forced myself to stay quiet, to move fast without making noise, not running immediately, not until I turned the corner, not until I was sure they couldn't see me anymore.
Then I ran, faster than before, harder than before, until my legs gave out and my lungs burned and the world around me blurred into something distant and unreal. Even when I stopped, even when the sounds faded, the fear didn't leave, it stayed with me, settling into something deeper, something constant, something that didn't disappear no matter how far I went. That was when I understood that it wasn't about escaping once, it was about surviving over and over again without ever being caught.
It took me a year to disappear properly, a year of running, hiding, changing everything about myself until there was nothing left that connected me to who I had been before. I learned how to blend in, how to move without being noticed, how to exist in a way that didn't draw attention, how to become forgettable on purpose.
I stopped looking like someone worth finding, stopped acting like someone who could be remembered, and eventually they stopped coming, or maybe they didn't and they just couldn't find me anymore. I didn't question it, I didn't go back, I didn't také risks, because I had learned what happened when I did.
I built a life that looked normal enough to be safe, quiet enough to stay hidden, simple enough that no one would think to look deeper, and for the first time in a long time, I believed it had worked. I believed I had finally disappeared, that I had become something invisible in a world that had once been too dangerous to exist in.
I didn't know then that being invisible only works until someone decides to look directly at you, and when that happens, everything you built to protect yourself stops being enough. Than the time for running comes again and this time it will be worse.