The past has a way of haunting you, like the faint, acrid scent of smoke long after the fire has consumed everything you loved. Mine clings to me, suffocating, a ghost I can't outrun.

For years, I told myself I could forget. I could bury the memories, silence the screams, and smother the ache of what I'd lost. But the past doesn't disappear. It festers, waiting for the moment you're too weak to fight it.

Zakhar Kalashnikov was that moment.

He came into my life like a shadow, dark and all-consuming, and I knew-God, I knew-there was no escape. His presence was suffocating, his gaze stripping me bare, peeling back every layer I'd built to shield myself from the world. He didn't need to ask questions to know my secrets. Somehow, he already did.

"You're mine," he said, his voice calm, like it wasn't a declaration of ownership but a simple fact of nature.

It wasn't a promise. It was a declaration.

From the moment he spoke those words, I felt my world tilt, the fragile balance I'd fought so hard to maintain crumbling beneath his weight. He wasn't a man. He was a predator, and I was the prey he'd decided to sink his claws into.

Fear isn't supposed to feel like this-paralyzing, all-consuming, a hollow pit that swallows you whole. But with Zakhar, it wasn't just fear. It was inevitability.

I can't run. I can't hide. I can't fight.

All I can do is pray that when he finally devours me, there's enough of me left to remember who I once was.