CHAPTER 6: The game continues

I had hardly registered the woman's sudden appearance before the tension in the room reached a fever pitch.

Damien didn't take his eyes off me, an icy smirk dancing across his lips as he turned to her. 

"We're not finished yet," his voice low, but with a lot of implied promises.

The woman didn't step to us. Instead, she lurked next to the door, eyes so piercing they could slice steel. A dark, creeping sense of dread filled me, tightening every muscle in my body.

"Time for what?" I was able to ask, my voice breaking despite my effort to remain calm.

Damien's eyes flitted to me, and for just a fraction of a second, I thought I caught a glimmer of amusement in them. He reclined in his chair as if preparing to sink into some freshly twisted game. 

"You'll see soon enough."

The wait, the not knowing, drove me mad. The woman never said anything again, but just from her being there, my heart started beating harder.

My eyes fell upon my hands, clutching the edge of the table as if it were the last lifeline I had to reality. I could hear my heartbeat booming in my ears, blocking out everything else. My thoughts spiraled. Why am I still here? What is he planning?

There was something wrong about this situation, something suffocating even, but I couldn't turn away. I had no choice, did I?

I had a sinking feeling that the truth was right in front of me, and yet, I just could not bring myself to accept it. Damien had me in his grip. The question was, how deep did this web go?

The silence was long, tense, and uncomfortable. It was the calm before a storm that was about to tear through everything I thought I knew.

Finally, the woman moved, as if breaking the tension with a lightning bolt, but rather than approaching Damien, she approached me.

My heart raced as she moved closer, her footsteps measured and deliberate, each step their thread tying her closer to me. 

"Elena," she said, her voice silky but colored with an edge. "We need to talk."

I flinched, instinctively pushing back from the chair as if pulling away from her. But where would I go?

"Talk?" I managed to croak out the word thick in my throat. "About what?"

She did not respond right away. Instead, she scrutinized me, her eyes brushing my face with calculating coolness. "About the choices you're making," she finally said, her words honey-coated in poison. "The decisions that will shape everything from here on out."

It sent a cold shiver down my spine. "What are you talking about?" I could hardly speak above a whisper, but it felt as though the room was closing in on me, the walls closing in on my mind.

Damien moved in his seat, and for a moment, I thought I saw a glimmer of something in his face—sort of like... mirth.

"Everything comes at a cost," continued the woman, her voice slick but haunted by an uncomfortable undertone. "And you're about to learn just how high that price can be."

I tried to stand, to shove away from the table, but my legs were like jelly under me, like they no longer belonged to me.

Damien's voice sliced through the air, low and dangerous. "Sit down, Elena." Don't try to make this more complicated than it is.

My body froze, locking up in place. His command you could feel in your bones, and I could barely contain myself from sitting back down, having lost the battle in a way I would rather not admit to.

"Good," Damien said, his gaze still locked with mine, a predator's gleam to it. "You'll learn quickly enough. But first…"

He paused, and for a moment I imagined he was finished. And then, the unthinkable happened.

She was walking back to me, and I heard a faint rustling. It sent shivers down my back. 

A shiver ran up my spine. I turned to look over my shoulder, gasped in my throat, and at that moment, I saw her.

She wasn't carrying anything in her hands—but it was the look in her eyes that fired an alarm directly into my brain. A gaze of something much darker than I could fathom.

"Damien," she said, her voice laced with something much too calm for the circumstance. "Are we really going to prolong this longer than we need to?"

He glanced over at her; his gaze caught flame. His movements deliberate and commanding, he rose to his feet.

"Not yet," he said. "I want her to know what's going on. The choices she's making."

To tell her what my father had told me: every inch of my body screamed at me to run, to get away from both of them. But the words felt frozen on my lips. My legs wouldn't cooperate.

I thought not to share my thoughts, then to stop settling down; there was just that: a whirlpool I could not move out of and suffocating with a sense of loss.

"What are you planning?" I finally managed to push the question out, my voice part anger, part fear. Related To: "What's the point of all this?"

Damien stepped slowly toward me, the air around us weighted with peril. His eyes were cold, clinical. "The point, Elena, is that you have a choice to make. The right choice. A choice that will decide everything."

"The woman cut in before I could reply, venom creeping into her voice. "Choose wisely, because if you don't…" She left the threat hanging in the air, and a chilling silence filled the space between us.

I was about to reply when the door opened again.

The figure was tall and massive; a man walked into the room. His gaze swept across the room, pausing for a moment on the woman and then on Damien.

Damien smiled at him, a slow, menacing smile that pushed a rush of fear over me.

"This," Damien said, turning back to me, "is the third part of our little game.

The new man sat down at the table and narrowed his eyes while studying me, his expression inscrutable. The stakes had just been raised—and I had no idea how much worse things were about to get.

The woman's presence in the room was like ice, cold and sharp, as it pierced the simmering tension I felt between Damien and me. Her eyes darted momentarily to me and then fastened on him. Her dark eyes danced with something that might have been power—dominance, even—but there was no warmth to be found. No kindness. Just an icy calculation.

Damien didn't seem to notice—or didn't care. He grinned the same crooked, cocky smile that had made my stomach flip.

"This is the time, Elena," he said, leaning back in his chair, his gaze on me. "The moment when you stop pretending."

Stop pretending.

The words rang in my head like a broken record, and the sting of truth I had desperately tried to deny pierced through my heart. I was pretending. From the first moment we met, that's who I had been. But this—whatever it was, whatever game Damien was playing with me—was no longer just a game. This was real.

I met his eyes and kept my voice. 

"I'm not pretending. I don't want this." The words sounded flat, lifeless. I was deceiving myself as much as I was deceiving him. 

I wanted him to believe me, but more than that, I wanted to believe it myself."

Damien leaned in closer, his gaze deepening with a darker, predatory shine. "You want it more than you realize." His voice was low, laced with that intoxicating certainty that made everything I wanted, no, needed, to believe seem like some frail lie. "You decide this every minute you're here. You're choosing me."

I wanted to scream at him, to hurl something across the room, to shake off the shroud he placed over me, but I remained motionless, forcing myself to breathe. To think.

The woman behind him cleared her throat and brought me out of my spiral. "Damien, we don't have time for these games. 

Her voice had an edge, each word precise and clipped, as if she were accustomed to unquestioned compliance. "You need to make a decision. Now."

His gaze darted to her for an instant, then back to me. His focus had shifted, but the change was subtle, telling. There was chemistry between them. 

Something I didn't understand but that I felt—a power struggle. And I didn't know who was winning.

The woman's eyes locked with mine, and I mistook her look. It was cold and calculating. I had the sense that she was appraising me, observing what I was made of and what I could do.

I'm not one of your games, I wanted to say, but the words choked in my throat. What was I supposed to say? How could I make the case with her when I didn't even know what her role was in all of this?

Damien's voice sliced through the silence, taut as a knife. "Please don't be scared to make a decision, Elena. It isn't too late to stop pretending."

But I was afraid. Terrified. Because, deep down, I knew the truth: that to make a choice was to cross a line I didn't know if I could retreat from. If I picked Damien, I was allowing myself to fall deeper into his trap, which would be my undoing. If I didn't—I wasn't sure what would happen, but I could already feel the current of the unknown pulling me in.

"I don't want this," I said over and over, but even I could hear the doubt in my voice. I wanted to believe in those words. I wanted to feel in control again, to leave that room, and never look back. 

The truth, though, was that I couldn't. I was here, already stuck in this web of power, want, and hurt.

Damien rose, and came toward me, his form dominating the air around us, crushing, monopolizing the moment. "You're already here, Elena. And no matter how often you deny it, the truth still is."

The woman stood outside the door and cleared her throat again, but this time, her voice was different — more impatient, more demanding. "Damien, we don't have time for this. You know what has to be done."

Damien's smile dipped for a split second, and in that brief instant, everything changed. The confidence had vanished, replaced by something more sinister, something deadly. His gaze was unwavering on me as he turned to the woman with an icy tone. "I know."

Her heels sounded against the floor, sharp and deliberate, as the woman stepped forward. She was a powerful presence, impossible to ignore, impossible to tune out. "Then let's move forward." She halted alongside him, eyeing me with that same calculating glare. "You're not only here by choice. You're here because you belong."

I blinked, as if her words required some processing time. 

"Needed for what?"

Damien's mouth twisted into that smile again, but it was different this time—more sinister. 

"The question isn't why you're needed, Elena," he said, voice low, dangerous. "It's what you're willing to do to live."

Before I could respond, the woman looked back to Damien. "Time's up," she said flatly.

Damien retreated, eyes fixed on me. "We're done here for tonight. But tomorrow? You will choose tomorrow." Without waiting for an answer, he walked out of the room with his back to me, a storm still lingering in the air.

I remained in my seat, frozen, my heart pounding in my chest, thoughts racing.

What was that?

The woman's eyes lingered on me for just a moment more before she turned and followed him out of the room, and I was left alone with nothing but my fear and uncertainty.

And the one undeniable truth.

I had no choice.