Page 6 of Hunted to the Altar
If I found someone sniffing around what was mine, it wouldn’t be good. My notifications beeped again, and I muffled a curse as I stalked out of her home.
Until next time, my sweet little bunny.
CHAPTER TWO
Nina
I grabbedmy phone off the counter and stared at the screen, my fingers trembling slightly as they hovered over the familiar number. Mya. She’d always been there for me, the one person who could unravel the knots in my mind and offer clarity. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Mya didn’t know how to let me just be.
I felt as if I was being watched all the time. I tried to fix my routine and change my daily habits. But the feeling followed me even inside my apartment. I couldn’t find things that were lying around.
Panties were missing, my coffee tasted strange, and I could swear I felt someone standing over me in my bedroom a few nights in a row.
If I called her, she’d put on her psychiatrist hat, dissect every word I said, and try to fix me. She’d want to talk about my trauma, walk me through it piece by piece until it made sense.But some things made little sense, and I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want to be fixed. Not yet. Maybe never.
I wasn’t going crazy.
There was something strangely comforting about being broken, about not having to hold myself to impossible standards. Mya wouldn’t understand that. She’d see my brokenness as a challenge, a puzzle to solve. She’d try to glue the pieces back together, even if I told her I liked the way the fissures looked in the light. At least, that’s what I told myself. But things were happening I couldn’t explain.
For months, I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on the back of my neck. The smell of smoke in my house, even though I didn’t like the smell of cigarettes. Sometimes things were moved. But I was certain I’d just forgotten them. I’d misplaced them for sure. There was a logical explanation, even though, as each day passed, I became more fearful, which was why I couldn’t call Mya. She would tell me to move or call the police, and that wouldn’t come off well.
And what would I even say to her? That I was too scared to leave my apartment for more than a few minutes? That I flinched at shadows and had nightmares so vivid I sometimes woke up screaming? That I didn’t want to talk about what had happened because talking about it would make it real all over again?
Or how I saw movement in the shadows. That I thought someone was watching me at all hours of the day. That I felt like there were wires in my house. I was going crazy. When groceries were scarce, sometimes an order would be on my doorstep. Who complained about something as lovely as that?
I could picture her voice now, soft but firm, coaxing but unyielding. She’d want me to unpack it all, to dig into the memories I was trying so desperately to bury. And she wouldn’t stop there. She’d push me to get help, to see someone who wasn’t her, someone who could do what she couldn’t becauseshe’d be too close to it all. The thought made my chest tighten. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be.
I didn’t want Mya to fix me, because fixing me would mean confronting everything I was trying to avoid. It would mean admitting that I wasn’t okay, that I might never be. And I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Not yet.
Mya had always reminded me of home. Not the place I lived now, but the warm, vibrant home I’d known growing up. The Spanish spoken so casually in the kitchen, the smell ofarroz con pollowafting through the air, and my mother’s bright laughter ringing in my ears. That was before the world shattered around me. Before everything changed.
My Hispanic roots were a part of me, woven into every fiber of my being. The rich tone of my skin and my striking gray-blue eyes—a gift from my maternalabuela—had always made people pause. I used to think of them as a blessing, but now they felt like a curse, drawing attention I didn’t want.
Sometimes, when I glimpsed myself in the mirror, I could almost see the girl I used to be. Carefree. Loud. Joyous, as my family used to call me. But that girl felt like a distant memory, a ghost haunting the person I was now. That girl was fearless. And I?
I was anything but.
Hours passed, and the city outside my window seemed to fall into an uneasy silence. I pulled the curtains shut, locking out the world and the eyes I couldn’t see but knew were there. The air inside felt stifling, heavy with the weight of my thoughts. My apartment, once a sanctuary, now felt like a cage. Every creak of the floorboards, every faint rustle of wind against the windows, set my nerves on edge.
But I wasn’t entirely helpless. Despite the panic that constantly lurked beneath the surface, I’d forced myself to rebuild. The trauma center, where I volunteered, became a place where I could give purpose to the pain, channeling the brokennessI carried into something that might help others. Sometimes, it felt like an anchor. Other times, it felt like a thin thread keeping me tied to the person I used to be.
Even there, I wasn’t free from the shadows of my past. The man I now knew had been watching me had appeared in those faint moments when my guard slipped. I’d catch glimpses of someone out of the corner of my eye, feel the prickle of unease on my skin as I left the center late at night. How long had it been? Weeks? Months? The realization made my skin crawl. He wasn’t just a man; he was a shadow that followed me, an unrelenting reminder that safety was a lie I told myself to keep.
And he had been watching me. For how long, I wasn’t sure, but the signs were there. The way my apartment sometimes felt like it wasn’t entirely mine, the subtle rearrangements of objects I knew I hadn’t touched, the faint feeling of being observed when I left the trauma center or walked home. It wasn’t paranoia; it was instinct. He’d been there, lurking in the shadows, studying me like a predator waiting for the right moment to strike.
I paced the small space of my apartment, my arms wrapped tightly around myself as if to hold the pieces together. My movements were sharp, jittery—a reflection of the chaos in my mind. My fingers picked at the hem of my sweater, a nervous habit I’d developed during the long nights in captivity when silence was the only thing keeping me alive.
I’d spent almost a year clawing my way back to some semblance of normalcy, only to find that normal wasn’t something I could grasp anymore. I had escaped once, and I had sworn never to let anyone put chains on me again. But this man wasn’t like them. He was a nameless, faceless monster in the dark.
The realization made my skin crawl. My throat tightened as the weight of it pressed down on me, a reminder that freedom was fragile and easily shattered. He was terrifying, his presencelike a suffocating shroud, but he wasn’t the monster who had stolen a year of my life. No, that monster had been worse, and the memory of him was a scar that would never fade.
There was one place I’d found solace. The church on the corner of my block had become a sanctuary, its high ceilings and dim light offering a rare moment of peace. Owned by Father Marcello Caputo, the priest presiding over a new church, was one of the few people who didn’t look at me like I was fragile. He listened without pushing, his dark eyes full of quiet understanding. He never asked for details about my past, but I could tell he saw through me anyway.
“You’re stronger than you think,” he’d said once, his voice steady. “But even the strong need rest.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to respond. Marcello didn’t coddle me, and that was something I appreciated. He treated me like a person, not a victim. But even his calm reassurances couldn’t silence the voice in my head that whispered I’d never truly escape the shadows.
I was more paranoid now than ever before. I tugged at the ends of my hair, wishing my brain would give me a break. The last nightmare I had was so bad, I threw my phone and cracked the screen.
