Page 39 of Shared Obsession

Nine.

I can picture every twist in this road, every dip and curve.

Eight.

The air in the trunk is thick and stale, my pulse pounding in my ears.

Seven.

The ride gets rougher, the car bumping and swaying, dust swirling in the beam of light around the edges of the trunk lid.

Six.

Five.

My stomach drops—the gravel is nearly over, and I know what comes next.

Four.

Three.

The car slows.

Two.

One.

The car rolls to a stop at exactly the moment I reach one, and my heart stutters, dread curling tight in my chest. The trunk flies open, cold air rushing in. Charles looms over me, blocking out the sky. I slam my eyes shut, but it doesn’t matter. “Open your fucking eyes, girl,” my father growls. I do as I’m told, because there’s no fucking fight left in me.

He hauls me out, draping me over his shoulder, carrying me into the one place I swore I’d never see again: the so-called "castle clubhouse." But it’s no castle—just a house where nightmares are built into the walls. A house where love was twisted into pain, torture, and the loss of everything that made me a child.

Charles dumps me in a room I know too well. Painted like a dollhouse: white picket fences, blue skies, painted windows, and flowers. The twin bed is made up in pink lace, sickly sweet and wrong. Nathan follows, his eyes cold as ice, his words flat as stone. “Do you have any idea how much money you cost me? How much time and effort was wasted because you wanted to run from your agreements like a fucking bitch? Out there slutting around with those men.” By the end, he’s shouting, but then his face smooths over—calm, predatory. “You’re going to earn that back. Quickly.”

Charles comes in with a camera and a tripod, setting up his computer. Dread fills my veins, a living, clawing thing. I can’t stop the tears. Nathan rips the tape from my mouth, and I scream, but his hand lashes out—a slap so hard it rings in my skull, shocking me still. As he unties my wrists, I thrash again, desperate, but he pins me down easily. “You don’t want to fight me, Ayla. This will be a lot less painful if you don’t.” Cold, final. He unties my legs; I try to kick, but agony rips through me as the taser touches my skin, fire exploding across my nerves. My body sags, helpless.

Charles tosses a little pink dress at me—light pink, puffy sleeves, white collar. “Listen, princess,” he sneers, bile rising in my throat, “we have an audience waiting. They’ve missed you. Now be a good fucking girl.”

Nathan’s voice is flat, empty. “Earn what you cost me, whore.”

My mind drifts far away as Charles sets up the camera, narrating the show for an audience I can’t see. I detach, floating somewhere the monsters can’t follow, trying to anchor myself in memories of Alex holding me, even though the echo of Dean’s last words—"I love you, Ayla. Don’t let him break you"—won’t let me truly escape. I clutch those words like a lifeline, praying I’ll survive long enough for them to mean something again.

Both Nathan and Charles are now masked, their voices oily and performative as they turn to the camera. “Alright, we’ve got the princess here with us again,” Nathan announces, and Charles follows, “What should we do to her tonight? I know how much you all have missed her.” I change into the dress off camera, my hands trembling as Nathan directs me. When he leads me to the bed in front of the camera, tears stream down my face.

“Please,” I whisper, but it falls on deaf ears.

They don’t care. “The requests are rolling in, princess,” Charles taunts. “You know how this goes. You didn’t forget, did you? Just like riding a bike. Now lie back for Daddy.”

I close my eyes, desperate to escape, to drift somewhere—anywhere—far from this nightmare. But reality claws me back when the sharp scent of smoke hits my nose. Charles inhales deeply from his cigarette, the embers glowing in the dim light. “No, please, don’t,” I beg, scooting away, panic tightening my chest. Nathan grabs my ankle and drags me flat on my back before I can get away. Charles grinds the burning cigarette into the soft skin of my inner thigh—white-hot agony explodes, tearing a scream from my throat. He lights another, takes a long drag, then blows it out in my face. He takes another drag and puts it out on my other thigh, the pain so intense it nearly blanks out the world. “Please,” I whimper, my voice breaking, but they ignore me. Charles turns to the computer. “They want to see your pretty little cunt, princess. Lay back and show them.” When I don’t move, Nathan and Charles each grab a leg, forcing them open and shoving the dress up. I squeeze my eyes shut and picture a sunset, willing my soul to escape my body, even if just for a moment.

After they’re finished with my body—because that’s all they can ever have, not my soul, never my heart—I lie there, empty, pain radiating from every inch of me but stubbornness still flickering in my chest. Nathan lets out a low, satisfied chuckle as he pulls my phone out of his pocket, waving it in front of me like a threat. My eyes go wide. Dean will track it! Dean will—then the hope flickers and dims because I don’t even know if Dean is alive. The relief I feel is so fleeting it barely exists; it’s swallowed by the fear and grief clawing at my insides.

“Should we send this to your little friends, Ayla?” Nathan sneers, his voice cold and cruel.

My father—my abuser, my nightmare—grins, the sight making my skin crawl. “I think that’s a brilliant idea,” Charles says, his voice full of twisted pride. Then he adds, “Actually, let’s wait until we have more videos to share with them. Don’t want to give away the best show too soon.”

Instantly, my mind flashes to Alex, to Zayn, to Dean—watching, helpless, seeing everything they did to me and will do. The humiliation, the rage, the heartbreak—it’s too much. I sob harder, my whole body on fire with shame and fear, but I refuse to let them see me break entirely. The only thing that keeps me from slipping away, from giving up, is a tiny, stubborn sliver of hope: that someone will find me, that someone will come.

Charles leans in, voice mocking. “You’ve got a lot more shows ahead of you, princess. Get some rest.”