Chapter 03
1717 Words
**TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF AB.USE ENDURED.
CARMEN POV
Darkness surrounded me.
Not the heavy darkness of unconsciousness I’d grown used to after Arthur’s beatings. This was different—quiet, still, endless, impossible to measure time.
I didn’t feel my body.
There was no pain, no weight pressing against my ribs. No throbbing in my leg.
For the first time in years, I felt nothing.
It was uncanny—almost serene. I wanted to remain adrift in this tranquillity forever.
I drifted through the emptiness like a loose feather carried on invisible wind. I didn’t know where I was, or even if I was truly alive anymore. Part of me wondered if this was what dying felt like.
If so, it was far gentler than I expected.
A soft mist began to form in the darkness ahead of me.
Shapes slowly emerged from the void, blurry at first, then slowly sharpening into something recognizable.
I was in a forest.
Tall pine trees stretched endlessly toward a pale sky. The air looked cold and clean, the ground dusted with snow that glowed faintly in soft moonlight.
The silence here was different from the silence that I was used to. Silence in my world meant survival; this silence here and now was—living.
It was the kind of quiet that belongs to untouched wilderness.
Then I saw it.
At the edge of the trees stood a massive grizzly bear. My breath caught, even though I wasn’t sure I was actually breathing.
The creature was enormous. Larger than any bear I’d seen in pictures or documentaries. Its dense brown fur rippled in the chill, powerful shoulders rolling with deliberate grace.
Every instinct should have screamed danger, but I was rooted—not with fear, but fascination.
The bear turned its massive head toward me, and our eyes met. Even from the distance between us, I could see them clearly.
Green.
Deep green.
The same green as pine needles lit by sunlight.
The bear watched me with an intensity that made my chest tighten.
There was intelligence there. Awareness. Something ancient and powerful is resting behind those eyes.
It took a slow step forward. The ground seemed to tremble slightly beneath its massive paws, yet I couldn’t move.
I floated there like a silent observer, completely powerless to look away. And then something impossible happened.
The bear stopped.
Its form shimmered faintly in the pale light.
The thick fur began to ripple strangely, shifting like waves moving through water. The enormous body twisted and folded in on itself as though reality itself was bending around it.
I watched in stunned silence as the massive grizzly bear began to change.
The towering animal shrank. Its shape narrowed, and the bear's limbs stretched in an impossible way.
I watched as the bear's pelt melted away, revealing bare skin.
Within moments, the beast was gone, and in its place stood a man.
He was massive. Perhaps as big as the bear itself was.
The man now standing there wasn’t just tall, but built in a way that made him seem almost unreal. Broad shoulders stretched beneath a worn dark leather vest. His arms looked strong enough to break stone.
He looked wild. Untamed.
His dark beard was unkempt, grazing his chest as if he couldn’t be bothered to trim it.
But it was his eyes that held me captive.
The same green eyes.
They were unnaturally bright, radiating a keen, penetrating awareness. Predator's eyes—yet, oddly, he didn't frighten me.
With a sharp snap in my direction, his eyes locked onto mine with the exact same intensity the bear had moments ago.
My heart fluttered strangely in my chest.
I had spent my entire life surrounded by men in expensive suits.
Men like my father.
Men like Arthur.
Smooth smiles. Perfect hair. Polished shoes.
Everything about them was meticulously groomed to radiate wealth and control. Image and status ruled.
But this man was nothing like them; he was unpolished. Genuine.
He looked dangerous.
The kind of danger that didn’t lurk behind money or deals. It was the kind that thrived in muscle and raw instinct.
The kind that survived in the wild.
And yet—against all logic, something about him made my chest ache with an emotion I hadn’t felt in a year, conflicting sharply with the wariness lingering from my past.s.
Safety.
It made no sense; the safety I felt warred with my ingrained distrust, leaving me unsure which emotion to believe.
This man looked like he could crush bones with his bare hands, yet the way he stood there watching me felt strangely calm.
His presence was oddly grounding. He felt protective in a way I couldn’t define.
His gaze softened slightly as if he could sense my confusion.
A whisper drifted through the air.
“Trust.” The voice was soft.
But it wasn’t the man before me speaking. It was a hidden woman, voice soft as a breeze across my skin.
I startled slightly, trying to look around, but I couldn’t move.
My eyes remained locked with the man’s.
He hadn’t spoken yet. His lips never moved. Yet somehow the word echoed through the space between us again.
“Trust.”
My chest tightened at the thought.
Trust.
The word pressed on me—foreign, weighty, fractured.
I hadn’t trusted anyone in years—Not since Arthur.
Arthur had taken what I once gave freely and shattered it. If Arthur, with his lean frame and tailored suits, could wound me, what might a man in denim and leather, with mountain-sized muscles, do if I let him close?
This stranger with steel-hard muscles and eyes that pierced my soul? No, I couldn't let anyone close again. It was too great a risk.
Fear curled faintly in my stomach. Yet, instead of completely overtaking me, the warmth in my chest grew stronger, confusing me as I struggled to make sense of my feelings.
The man tilted his head slightly as if studying me.
His expression was serious—Almost concerned.
Like he could see every bruise Arthur had left on my body. Like he could feel every scar.
The thought made my throat tighten.
“I can’t,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if any sound came out.
Trusting again felt impossible.
The man didn’t step closer, nor did he try to reach for me.
He simply watched patiently, like he understood the battle happening inside my mind.
The female voice whispered once more.
“Trust.”
But before I could search for where it came from, the world began fading again.
The forest blurred.
The snow dissolved into darkness.
The man’s green eyes were the last thing I saw before everything disappeared.
Then voices replaced the silence.
Real voices.
Louder than the whispering woman. Close, but still muffled.
It was a man and a woman.
At first, I couldn’t tell if I was still dreaming. Everything sounded distant, as if I were underwater.
“Her leg is definitely broken,” the man said quietly.
“That’s not the only thing,” the woman replied softly.
Her voice sounded concerned. Sad even.
“I’ve never seen injuries like this outside of a trauma ward.” The woman added.
My mind struggled to focus.
The RV.
The couple.
They found me.
“She’s covered in scars,” the woman continued.
“I mean everywhere. Old welts, healed fractures—Frank, this isn’t new abuse for her. She’s endured a lot.”
My chest tightened faintly.
Of course, it wasn’t new; Arthur made sure of that. I wore a new mark of his wrath nearly every day.
The man let out a low growl of frustration.
“What the hell kind of monster does this to someone?”
Silence filled the small space for a moment before the woman spoke again, her voice quieter.
“She begged us not to take her to the hospital.”
“I know,” the man replied.
“But she needs one, Frank. I can stabilize her injuries for now,” the woman said slowly. “I’ve set the leg as best as I can, but we need proper X-rays. Internal bleeding is still a possibility, and her ribs—I’m worried about punctured lungs. Her breathing doesn’t sound right. We need to know the extent of her injuries.”
I felt something brush lightly against my arm.
Hands.
Careful, tender hands, probably cleaning wounds.
Bandaging.
I could tell you the last time someone touched me tenderly, and it was Nancy, three days before she was removed from the manor, and I never saw her again.
My body still felt distant, floating somewhere between pain and numbness.
“We need to stop somewhere neutral,” the woman continued. “Somewhere with connections. Someone who won’t ask too many questions.”
The man sighed heavily. “You really think it’s that bad?”
The woman didn’t hesitate. “If tonight’s injuries are any indication, then I can confidently state that she’s most likely been abused for years.”
Her words hung heavily in the air. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
Inside the darkness of my drifting mind, my thoughts slowly returned to the forest. To the massive grizzly bear. To the man who had stepped out of its form.
Those green eyes.
They had felt so real. So vivid.
I had never seen or met a man like him before, yet something about him lingered in my mind, like a memory rather than a dream.
I found myself wishing for something strange.
I wished I had met him first.
Before Arthur.
Before I became a prisoner in my own home. Before the years of broken bones and silent suffering.
If a man like that had found me first—Would things have been different?
The thought faded slowly as the voices near me continued discussing plans. Their words drifted in and out of my awareness, but even as I floated somewhere between sleep and consciousness…
Those green eyes remained burned into my memory.
Watching me.
Patiently waiting.
And somewhere deep inside my heart—a fragile spark of hope flickered for the very first time in a year, quietly shifting the balance of all I had learned to expect from the world.
- Writer
