I watched through hooded eyes as she pulled her hand away and stood up slowly. I liked that she towered over me, each click of her heel sounding like a timer about to go off.

She stopped in front of me, then put her knee down on my seat, between my thighs. She maintained eye contact as she pushed closer, spreading my legs apart. 

“Ms. Duval…” My voice was hoarse, my hips arching off the seat, seeking the pressure she so willingly gave. 

Her thumb was back on my lip. “My pathetic little girl…” She pushed her thumb into my warm mouth and I sucked on it like it was communion and I was a disgraced sinner.

“Good girl,” she muttered, pressing her knee closer. I knew she could feel the heat from my pulsating center. 

I let my hands run up her legs and looked up at her. “I need you…” I sounded like a broken record. “I’ve always needed you.”


.
.
.
.
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She died running from the truth and woke up inside the story she wrote to survive it.

Mary was never meant to exist.

Found half-dead in a ditch and admitted to a secluded Catholic girls’ school that should not have taken her, Mary slowly realizes the impossible: this world, this school, this life—she created it. Every rule, every punishment, every prayer was once hers on the page.

The only thing she didn’t write was Sister Madeleine.

Calm, distant, and unnervingly attentive, Madeleine is both Mary’s literature teacher and therapist—and the one person who seems to see through her. When Mary insists she doesn’t belong to this world and begs for help to return home, Madeleine agrees to “help”… in ways that feel less like rescue and more like confinement.

As Mary uncovers truths she should not know—about the school, a girl who died, and the hunger Madeleine refuses to name—the story begins to change. Pages no longer obey her memory. The ending is no longer hers to control.

In a place built on silence, obedience, and confession, Mary must decide what is more dangerous:

Escaping the world she wrote—
or staying in the care of a woman who refuses to let her go.

I half expected Madeleine to storm out of the room or scold me for how I spoke to her. But she did neither. Her hand remained loosely on my legs. 


I heard her shuffling around before coming back to my side. "I'll leave after applying this ointment all over your body to prevent scaring. There isn't much burn but let's not take any chances."


I heard the sound of cabinets opening and getting slammed shut. Before the bed dipped again with her weight.


Carefully, her fingers rubbed the soothing balm into my skin, making me hiss in discomfort before the burn trickled into a certain cold that didn't hurt as much.


"You don't have to pretend to care anymore," I said, my voice coming out hoarse. "Where are the nurses? They should be the one tending to me."


I felt her hands on the buttons of my shirt, slowly undoing the buttons. "I don't want anyone to see you like this." She pushed my shirt off, exposing my chest. 


Chapter 46 - is this it?