MasukHe wasnāt the kind of guy who noticed girlsāat least, not in a way that meant anything. To him, they were distractions, temporary thrills, nothing worth holding onto. Until her. The moment he saw herāquiet, different, completely out of place in his chaotic worldāsomething shifted. She didnāt look at him the way everyone else did. No fear. No fascination. Just indifference⦠and that drove him insane. She tried to ignore him. Avoid him. Pretend he didnāt exist. But he had already decided. And when the bad boy wants something⦠he doesnāt ask. He takes. Now sheās caught in his worldādark, intense, and dangerously addictive. And the more she fights him, the more obsessed he becomes. Because letting her go? Is no longer an option.
Lihat lebih banyakBelle had mastered the art of being invisible.
Not the kind where people couldnāt see herāno, they saw her just fine. They just never looked twice. And honestly, she preferred it that way. At Princeton College, attention was currency. The louder you were, the richer you seemed. The more reckless, the more admired. It was a world built on noise, chaos, and reputation. Belle didnāt belong to any of that. She walked through the campus gates with her usual quiet steps, her bag slung over one shoulder, fingers loosely gripping the strap like it anchored her to something steady. Her outfit was simpleāa soft, fitted top tucked into a short skirt that brushed mid-thigh, paired with sneakers that made barely a sound against the pavement. Her glasses sat neatly on her nose, framing eyes that noticed everything⦠even if no one noticed her. Groups of students filled the courtyard, laughter echoing in bursts. Conversations overlappedāweekend parties, hookups, gossip. Especially gossip. āDid you hear what Ethan did last night?ā Belle didnāt mean to listen. It just⦠happened. āHe got into a fight again. Like, a real one. Guy ended up in the hospital.ā āOf course he did. Itās Ethan.ā A small pause. āI swear, thereās something wrong with him.ā Belle kept walking. She had heard the name before. Everyone had. It was impossible not to. Ethan wasnāt just another studentāhe was a presence. The kind that lingered in whispers and warnings, in curious glances and careful distance. But Belle had never seen him. And she wasnāt interested in changing that. By the time she slipped into her classroom, the familiar calm wrapped around her like a shield. She took her usual seat by the window, setting her bag down and pulling out her notebook. The soft scratch of her pen against paper was comforting, predictable. Safe. Students trickled in, filling seats, their voices gradually rising into a low hum. Thenā āHey, thatās his seat.ā Belle blinked, looking up slightly. The girl beside her leaned closer, lowering her voice. āYou should move.ā Belle glanced at the empty chair she had taken without thinking. It looked like every other chair in the room. āWhy?ā she asked quietly. The girl stared at her like she had just asked something ridiculous. āBecause itās his.ā Belle followed her gaze briefly, then looked back at her notebook. āHeās not here,ā she said simply. A few nearby students exchanged looks. Someone behind her muttered, āSheās new, right?ā Belle ignored them. The seat was empty. Class hadnāt started. There was no rule written anywhere saying she couldnāt sit there. So she stayed. Minutes passed. The professor hadnāt arrived yet. The noise in the room dipped and rose again, but there was a subtle shift nowāa tension Belle didnāt quite understand. Until the door opened. Silence. It didnāt happen all at once. It spread, like a ripple, until conversations died mid-sentence and heads turned toward the entrance. Belle didnāt. She was finishing a sentence in her notes, her handwriting neat and careful, when she felt itāthat strange, heavy awareness, like the air itself had changed. Footsteps. Slow. Unhurried. Confident. They echoed just enough to be noticed. Still, Belle didnāt look up. She didnāt need to. She could feel the way everyone else reactedāthe stiffness, the attention, the way the entire room seemed to revolve around whoever had just walked in. A chair scraped. Right beside her. Only then did Belle pause. Her pen hovered slightly above the page before she lifted her gazeājust briefly. Dark. That was the first thing she noticed. Not just his clothesāthough they were black, effortlessly soābut something about him. A presence. Sharp, controlled, dangerous in a way that didnāt need to prove itself. Ethan. She didnāt need anyone to say it. Their eyes didnāt meet. Not really. Because Belle only looked for a second. Then she went back to her notes. Like it didnāt matter. Like he didnāt matter. A quiet breath left her lips as she continued writing, unaffected, unbothered. Around her, the tension didnāt ease. If anything, it grew. Because everyone else had seen it. The way he stopped. The way his gaze shifted. The way, for the first time since walking inā Ethan didnāt look at the room. He looked at her. His expression didnāt change. Not noticeably. Still calm. Still unreadable. But something flickered beneath it. Something unfamiliar. Curiosity. Because every single person in that room had reacted to him. Except her. And as Belle sat there, completely unaware of the storm she had just stirred, Ethan leaned back slightly in his seat, his eyes never leaving her. A slow, almost imperceptible smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.Darkness.Complete.Absolute.The candles died so suddenly that for one terrible second I thought I had gone blind.Then something beneath the nursery floor shifted.Not a vibration.Not a tremor.Movement.Slow.Massive.Alive.Wood groaned beneath our feet.The sound echoed upward through the ancient room like the breathing of something sleeping far below.Except whatever slept beneath usāwas waking up.āBelle!āEthan's hand wrapped around my arm instantly.Hard.Protective.His voice sounded distant beneath the roar of blood pounding inside my ears.Because the child still stood in front of me.Still smiling.Still wearing Lyra's face.And GodāI wanted it to be her.Even now.Even after the impossible grin.Even after realizing she cast no shadow.Some part of me still wanted to believe.The little girl tilted her head.The movement wasn't natural.Too slow.Too deliberate.Like something unfamiliar with human bodies had studied children from a distance and decided this was close
Belleās POV The basement door stood open like a mouth. Dark. Waiting. The cold pouring from beneath the house no longer felt natural. It felt alive. Like something down there had finally realized we could hear it. No one moved. Not me. Not Ethan. Not Macy. The entire hallway remained frozen in silence while the darkness below the staircase breathed softly against the walls. Then the voice came again. Small. Fragile. āMama?ā My heart stopped. Not metaphorically. Physically. A sharp pain struck through my chest so violently I grabbed the wall beside me to steady myself. Because the voice sounded real. Too real. Not distorted. Not monstrous. A child. Just a child. Ethan stepped in front of me immediately. āNo.ā His voice came out harsher this time. Terrified. The kind of fear that only exists when someone has already survived the thing theyāre looking at once before. āYou cannot go down there.ā āButāā āThat is not Lyra.ā The words cracked through the ha
Belleās POVGrief has a memory of its own.That was the first thing I understood after learning about the child.After learning about her.Not some faceless tragedy hidden inside an ancient kingdom.Not just another loss buried in Seleneās past.My daughter.The words alone felt impossible.Wrong.I was seventeen years old.I had never even held someoneās hand long enough to call it love.And yet nowāthere were moments when my chest physically ached with the memory of carrying a child who no longer existed.Some nights I woke up crying before I even remembered why.Other nights I woke hearing laughter.Soft.Tiny.Coming from somewhere beneath the house.Always beneath.The basement remained closed for three days after the notebook changed.Three days of silence.Three days of pretending none of us heard footsteps below the floorboards after midnight.Ethan barely left my side anymore.Macy barely slept.And meāI was falling apart quietly.Because memories were no longer arriving li
Belleās POVThere are some truths that do not arrive all at once.They bloom slowly inside you.Like poison learning your bloodstream.After the throne room disappeared, nothing felt real anymore.Not my house.Not Ethan.Not even my own reflection.Because every time I looked at my face nowāI saw traces of someone older staring back.Selene.The name followed me everywhere after that night.Inside my thoughts.Inside my dreams.Inside the silence between heartbeats.And the worst part wasāit no longer felt unfamiliar.It felt remembered.The basement door had been sealed again by morning.Not physically.The wood remained cracked open slightly.But none of us could force it wider.Every time Ethan tried, the door refused to move.Like the darkness beneath it had become heavier than matter itself.Masonāor Macy, as Selene once called himāstood near the kitchen window in exhausted silence while rain slid softly down the glass.He looked different now that I remembered him.Not phys
Belle POVShe didnāt remember leaving the school.Not the hallway.Not the doors.Not the moment her feet carried her past the gates.One second she was thereāsurrounded by whispers, suffocating under memories that refused to stay buriedāAnd the nextāSilence.Real silence.The kind that didnāt be
Belle POVThe house didnāt feel like home anymore.It hadnāt for a long time.Belle stepped inside quietly, closing the door behind her with the same care she used for everything else in her lifeāgentle, controlled, unnoticed.Her phone buzzed in her hand.She didnāt need to look.She
Ethan wasnāt used to being ignored.It wasnāt arroganceāit was fact. From the moment he stepped into a room, attention followed. Not always openly. Sometimes it came in stolen glances, hushed whispers, or the way conversations died too quickly. But it was always there. People noticed him. They re
Belle had mastered the art of being invisible. Not the kind where people couldnāt see herāno, they saw her just fine. They just never looked twice. And honestly, she preferred it that way. At Princeton College, attention was currency. The louder you were, the richer you seemed. The more reckless,
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