Page 5 of Silent as Sin
Emerald green. Dark, deep, alive.
Not hungry. Not cruel. Not Venom.
Something else.
Something that made my chest ache.
My hands faltered, the paper bird slipping in my lap, but I caught it, pressing the crease sharp. If I kept folding, maybe they wouldn’t touch me. Maybe they’d decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.
The green-eyed one spoke. Soft. Grounded. His voice was rough, but not harsh, not cruel.
“You’re coming with me.”
The words struck something deep, a place Venom hadn’t managed to burn hollow.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My throat locked the way it always did when I thought of speaking. Venom had taught me silence was safer. Every time I’d tried to scream, his hands had made sure I remembered.
But I looked at this man, and for the first time in years, I thought maybe there was a man who didn’t want to hurt me.
They pulled me from the hole. Step by step, I followed. My bare feet hit splintered boards, jagged against skin too soft from years without shoes. My fingers brushed the doorframe one last time, a goodbye to the cage that had nearly become my coffin.
The house groaned around us, as if it hated letting me go. I could still feel Venom in the stains on the floor, in the sour taste of the air.
My prayer was answered, he was gone. I’d heard it, the final gunshot, the silence after. But his shadow clung. His obsession. The way he looked at me like silence made me his.
But I remembered.
Too many names. Too many faces. Too many secrets whispered in rooms where they forgot I was listening.
That was why he’d locked me away. Not just because he was obsessed with hurting me. But because I knew too much. Because I was dangerous if I ever spoke.
Outside, the light stabbed my eyes.
Not the blaze of noon, but the low, dying sun. Gold stretched across the desert, shadows long and sharp. Twilight. I lifted my hand to shield my face, my skin prickling from the sudden exposure.
The green-eyed man—Ashen—pressed dark glasses into my palm. Too big, but when I slid them on, the knot in my chest loosened. The world dimmed. Manageable.
Two motorcycles waited, engines I knew only from echoes through walls. They had always meant danger before. Now, one waited for me.
Ashen stopped and looked at me closely. “You okay with going back to our clubhouse?” he asked, his voice careful, his eyes worried as he ran his hand through his dark brown hair. “We only want to help you.”
What he didn’t say, I saw it in his eyes, was that there was no going to the cops. Not for me. Not for them.
I didn’t hesitate. Just gave the smallest nod. Because I understood. It was the only option.
He dug through his saddlebags, pulled out a jacket and helmet, and held them out. “You’ll ride with me. Put these on.”
My fingers twitched before curling around the weight of the leather and steel. The jacket swallowed me whole when I slid into it. The helmet settled heavy on my head, my hands clumsy at the strap until Ashen crouched in front of me. His fingers brushed mine away, steady and sure, clipping it into place.
His knuckles grazed my skin. Warm. Real. And I didn’t flinch.
“Good,” he murmured.
He offered his hand. Large. Calloused. Waiting.
Venom had taken everything, my voice, my freedom, years I’d never get back. He thought silence made me powerless.
But when I placed my hand in Ashen’s, it wasn’t obedience. It was choice.
