The darkness had teeth.

She'd learned that over the past forty eight hours, or was it longer? Time had become something fluid and unreliable in this place, measured only by the intervals between consciousness and the black void that kept pulling her under. The room smelled of mildew and rust, of forgotten things left to rot. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped with maddening consistency, each drop marking another second of her captivity.

Her wrists burned. The rope had chafed through the first layer of skin hours ago, and now every small movement sent fresh waves of pain radiating up her arms. She'd stopped screaming after the first day. No one was coming. No one could hear her in this godforsaken place, wherever it was.

The goons, that's what they were, really, just local thugs who'd probably grabbed her for ransom or worse, had stopped checking on her as frequently. Their voices drifted through the walls sometimes, lazy and unconcerned. They thought she was broken. They thought she'd given up.

They were wrong.

She forced her eyes open, though the effort felt herculean. Her head pounded, her vision swimming in and out of focus. The single bulb overhead had burned out sometime during the night, leaving only the weak gray light that filtered through the cracks in the boarded window. Dawn, maybe. Or dusk. She couldn't tell anymore.

Her clothes hung off her frame in tatters, the fabric ripped and barely clinging to her body. She'd stopped caring about modesty days ago. Survival trumped dignity. Survival trumped everything.

But beneath the fear, beneath the desperate animal instinct to escape, there was something else. A whisper in the back of her mind, persistent and unwelcome.

He will come.

She hated that thought. Hated the small, traitorous part of her that still believed it. That still wanted it, despite everything. Despite knowing what it would mean.

The blackness took her again.

-------------------------------------------

When she woke, something was different.

Her wrists were free.

She lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for the trap to spring. But there was nothing, no footsteps, no voices, no hands grabbing at her in the dark. Slowly, carefully, she brought her hands forward, staring at them as if they belonged to someone else. The rope lay coiled on the floor beside her, cut clean through.

Who had done this? One of the goons having a crisis of conscience? Or something worse, a new game, a hunt where she was the prey given a false head start?

It didn't matter. This was her chance, perhaps her only one.

Moving hurt. Everything hurt. Her muscles had atrophied from being bound in the same position for so long, and when she tried to stand, her legs nearly gave out beneath her. She caught herself against the wall, breathing hard, forcing her body to obey. The room spun. She ignored it.

Near the door, she spotted it, a metal rod, probably left behind by one of her captors. Her fingers closed around it, the cool weight of it grounding her, giving her something solid to hold onto. A weapon. A chance.

She pressed her ear to the door. Voices. Two of them, maybe three feet away, talking about nothing important. A cricket match. Someone's sister. The mundane conversation of men who didn't think they had anything to worry about.

She counted to three in her head.

Then she moved.

The door wasn't locked, another sign that they'd underestimated her completely. She pushed it open slowly, inches at a time, until she could see them. Two men, their backs to her, slouched against the opposite wall. Neither was paying attention.

She swung the rod with everything she had.

The first man went down without a sound, crumpling to the floor like a puppet with cut strings. The second one started to turn, his eyes widening, mouth opening to shout, but she was already moving. The rod connected with the side of his head with a sickening crack, and he dropped beside his companion.

For a moment, she just stood there, the rod shaking in her grip, waiting for more of them to come. Waiting for the alarm to sound. But there was only silence.

She ran.

The building, whatever it was, gave way to darkness, a narrow hallway that seemed to stretch on forever. Her bare feet slapped against the concrete, each step jolting pain up through her legs, but she didn't slow down. Couldn't slow down. Behind her, she heard a shout. They'd found the bodies. They were coming.

An exit appeared ahead, a door hanging half off its hinges, and she burst through it into the night.

The air hit her like a physical force, cool and clean and impossible. She gulped it down, her lungs burning, as she stumbled forward into what looked like a forest. Trees pressed in from all sides, their branches creating a canopy that blocked out most of the moonlight. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear water running.

She ran toward it.

Branches tore at her skin, at the remnants of her clothing. Roots tried to trip her. The forest seemed alive, malevolent, but it was nothing compared to what lay behind her. She could hear them now, crashing through the undergrowth, their flashlights cutting through the darkness like searchlights.

Her lungs were on fire. Her legs were screaming. But she kept going, driven by pure adrenaline and the primal need to survive.

The trees began to thin. She could see something ahead, a break in the darkness. A road.

She burst out of the forest and onto the asphalt, the smooth surface shocking after the rough terrain. For a moment, she just stood there, swaying, trying to orient herself. The road stretched in both directions, cutting through the jungle like a scar. Empty. Completely empty.

No cars. No lights. Nothing.

Her legs gave out.

She hit the pavement hard, her knees scraping against the rough surface, but she barely felt it. Everything was catching up to her now, the exhaustion, the fear, the pain. Her body had nothing left to give. Her vision was starting to gray at the edges, consciousness slipping away like water through her fingers.

And then she heard them. Footsteps. Heavy and deliberate, coming from behind her.

No.

Every instinct screamed at her to get up, to run, to fight. But her body wouldn't cooperate. She could barely lift her head, her arms shaking as she tried to push herself up off the ground. The footsteps grew louder. Closer.

She thought about the goons, about being dragged back to that room. About what they would do to her for trying to escape. The thought sent a fresh wave of terror through her, enough to force her head up, to make her look at her approaching captor.

But it wasn't the goons.

The world seemed to tilt sideways.

Standing there, silhouetted against the darkness, was Jeon Jungkook.

For a second, she thought she was hallucinating. That her mind had finally broken and was showing her the one thing she'd feared and God help her, hoped for in equal measure. But no. This was real. He was real. She could see every detail of him in the pale moonlight, the sharp line of his jaw, the expensive cut of his suit that somehow remained pristine despite the late hour and the remote location, the way his dark eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

Her nightmare had found her.

But wasn't this what some sick part of her had wanted? To be saved, even if salvation came with chains of its own? She'd imagined someone else finding her, someone who cared about her heart instead of possessing it. Someone gentle. Someone kind.

Instead, she got him.

Pain exploded across her scalp as his hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. She tried to cry out, but her throat was too dry, the sound coming out as barely more than a rasp. He crouched down slowly, deliberately, until they were at eye level. Until she could see every detail of the smirk that curved his lips.

That smirk terrified her more than anything the goons had done.

"Caught you, little Angel," he said softly, his voice a dark caress that slid over her skin like silk and razor wire.

The past crashed over her in waves, flashes of memory that she'd tried so hard to bury. His ruthlessness. His obsession. The way he'd looked at her like she was something to be owned, possessed, kept. She'd run from him two days ago, had thought she'd finally escaped, had dared to hope for something resembling freedom.

She should have known better.

His grip tightened in her hair, and she couldn't stop the small sound of pain that escaped her lips. His smirk widened, something dark and satisfied flickering in his eyes. He looked at her like a cat that had finally cornered a particularly elusive mouse, pleased with himself, amused by her attempts at escape.

"Did you really think you could run from me?" His voice was quiet, conversational, which somehow made it worse. "Did you really think I wouldn't find you?"

She tried to speak, to form some kind of response, but her voice wouldn't cooperate. Her body was shutting down, pushing her toward unconsciousness whether she wanted it or not. The adrenaline that had kept her going was fading fast, leaving only exhaustion and pain in its wake.

"I've been protecting you," he continued, his free hand coming up to trace the line of her jaw with a gentleness that contradicted the brutal grip he had on her hair. "Keeping you safe from exactly this kind of situation. And what did you do? You ran. You hide. You forced me to waste my time tracking you down when you could have just stayed where you belonged."

His thumb pressed against her lower lip, and she flinched.

"Who gave you permission to leave, Angel?" The question was soft, dangerous. "When did I say you could go?"

The world was spinning now, darkness creeping in from all sides. She could feel her body going limp, her muscles finally giving up the fight. The last thing she saw was his expression shifting, the smirk becoming something darker, more possessive. Something that promised this was far from over.

She felt him lift her, his arms sliding under her knees and around her back, pulling her against his chest in a mockery of a romantic gesture. Bridal style, like she was something precious. Like she was his.

"Sleep, little Angel," she heard him murmur, his voice seeming to come from very far away. "When you wake up, we're going to have a very long conversation about what happens to girls who try to fly away."

The darkness took her completely, pulling her under like a riptide. Her last coherent thought was bitter and defeated.

In her obsidian's arms.

~Ink Of Epiphany🖤