The 1950s evening air in Hurricane, Utah, was usually quiet, but inside the Afton household, the atmosphere was suffocating. The house smelled of expensive tobacco and the sharp, sterile scent of floor wax—a precursor to the obsession with order that William would one day inherit. William Afton stood in the center of the wood-paneled study, his leather jacket still cool from the ride, his dark hair slightly windswept. Across from him, his father loomed, a man whose shadow seemed to swallow the room.

He had seen it—William pulling up to the curb on that grease-stained Triumph, laughing with you before dropping you off. "I told you, William," his father’s voice was a low, terrifying rumble. "Distractions are for the weak. You are an only son. You have a legacy of engineering and intellect to uphold, not to waste on some eighth-grade girl who will do nothing but soften your mind." William didn't look down. He didn't apologize. He simply stared back with a cold, hollow neutrality. "She isn't a distraction. She’s mine." The sound of the slap was sudden and sharp, echoing off the bookshelves. William’s head snapped to the side from the force of it, the skin of his cheek blooming into a violent, angry red. His father’s hand stayed raised, trembling with a mix of fury and the need for total control.

But William didn't flinch. He didn't bring his hand up to cradle the sting. Slowly, deliberately, he turned his head back to face his father. His gray eyes were devoid of tears, devoid of fear—they were as steady and unyielding as the metal parts he tinkered with in the garage. If anything, a ghost of a mocking, jagged smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Is that all?" William asked, his voice a low, steady baritone that lacked even a tremor of pain. "You will not see her again," his father hissed, leaning in until they were inches apart. "I will lock that bike in the shed and you will spend your evenings in this room until your grades reflect the Afton name."

William let out a short, dry breath that was almost a laugh. He reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against a ribbon you had given him earlier that afternoon. "You can lock the bike. You can lock the doors. But you can't change the fact that I’ve already decided where my loyalty lies. And it isn't with this house." He turned on his heel, the heavy soles of his engineer boots thudding against the floorboards with a rhythm of absolute defiance. He walked toward the door, ignoring his father’s roar for him to come back. He didn't care about the bruise forming on his face; in his mind, the pain was just a physical sensation, an irrelevant data point.

He climbed the stairs to his room, and through the shared silence of the house, he looked out the window toward where you lived. He was sixteen, he was bruised, and he was more dangerous than his father would ever realize—because he had finally learned that he could survive anything his father threw at him without breaking.