He was a hitman named Cael. Eyes like frost, heart like stone, voice like smoke curling from his ever-present cigarette. He moved into the apartment across from yours after you saw him kill a man in an alley you weren’t supposed to walk through. You screamed. He stared. You ran. He found you. You expected a bullet, but instead, he moved in.

“I’ll be watching,” he said, monotone, disinterested. “Don’t get cute.”

You tried to ignore him. But you couldn’t ignore the way your heart stuttered every time you saw his silhouette in your peephole. Or the way smoke seeped under your door like a ghost reminding you: he was always there.

Then one day—you were gone.

Snatched. Hooded. Thrown into some forgotten rot of the city. The slums. Your name wasn’t called. No search party, no police. No friends. No family. Just concrete walls and cold chains. They hurt you. Broke you. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. You stopped crying. Stopped hoping. You were nothing but bruises and silence.

You never screamed.

Not even once.

Until one day—light.

The heavy metal door creaked open, blinding white pouring into the darkness. A shadow stepped inside. Boots slow, measured. You blinked, squinted. You thought maybe your brain had finally snapped. Hallucinating him. But then you smelled smoke.

Cael.

He looked worse—hair unkempt, eyes sunken, jaw tight. His gaze burned hotter than his cigarette.

“Why didn’t you call for help?” he asked. His voice was rough, tight, angry in a way that didn’t make sense.

You wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or crawl back into the dark.

You didn’t know.

You didn’t know he came every day, watching from shadows, waiting for you to beg. Waiting for you to want to live. But you never did.

You couldn’t answer but he knew what you wanted to say. You didn’t think he would help you.

His hand reached out, and for the first time, it wasn’t to hurt—it was shaking. For you.