They didn’t exactly post a guard outside my door, but it didn’t matter, there was always someone there. Most times I so much as cracked it open, I was met with the immediate presence of one of them. Sometimes it was Bronze, leaning against the wall like a bored bouncer, flipping a coin or tapping his fingers against his arm. His eyes might have been half-lidded, but I knew he wasn’t zoning out. I could feel his attention snag on my every move, like a cat watching a mouse it’s pretending not to care about.
Sometimes it was Silver-Eyes. He didn’t lean. He didn’t slouch. He just… stood there, perfectly still, perfectly silent, his gaze locked on me with that predator-level patience. I could’ve walked past him without a word, but something about the way he looked at me made it impossible not to imagine him snapping into motion at the first twitch in my muscles.
And sometimes it was Grabber.
He didn’t posture like the other two. He was just there, steady, watchful, deliberate. His presence wasn’t oppressive, exactly, but it wasn’t relaxed either. It was the sort of watchfulness that made you second-guess even the casual things, like leaning against the doorframe or fiddling with your sleeves. And every time I met his eyes, I couldn’t tell if he was calculating my odds of making a break for it or if he was just… curious.
Sometimes when I was especially unlucky, he would wink at me when I peered through the door.
The few times that no one was there when I opened my door, they still lingered close by. Sometimes one of the men would be in a nearby room, always seeming to keep one eye on my door at all times. Another month of this and I think I will be officially able to call them cross-eyed.
The monitoring wasn’t subtle, but it also wasn’t aggressive. If I walked down a hall, someone followed, always a few steps behind. If I stopped, so did they. And if I changed direction suddenly, they’d reposition without a word, cutting off the route before I could even pretend I’d been going that way all along.
Fine. If they wanted to play shepherd, I could play sheep. For now.
Because while they thought they were making it impossible for me to slip away, I was learning. I counted steps between intersections, noted which doors were locked without even trying the handle, just from the way the hinges were set or the scratches in the stone around the latch. I made mental maps of which corridors stayed busy and which stayed deserted. I learned Bronze disappeared around midday, almost without fail, and that Silver-Eyes had a habit of lingering in the east wing longer than anywhere else.
I was building a picture. Piece by piece.
I was getting distracted though. Bagel just seemed… off.
Normally she was my little brick of calm. A steady weight at my side. But now she sniffed constantly at corners we passed, stared into the darker gaps under furniture, and, most unsettling, sometimes stopped dead in the middle of a hallway and just stared down it. No growl, no bark, just that soft, uneasy huff that made my skin crawl.
Once, when she pressed herself so close to my ankle I nearly tripped over her, Grabber’s gaze flicked down to her, then to me. His brows drew together for just a fraction of a second before smoothing out, but I caught it.
“You keep her close,” he said, voice pitched low, like it wasn’t meant for the others to hear.
“Always,” I replied, my own voice quieter than I meant.
He didn’t answer, but his gaze lingered an extra beat before he walked away, his footsteps a steady rhythm against the stone.
The more I watched them together, the more cracks I saw in their perfect choreography. Not in their guard work, never that, but in the way they were with each other. Bronze and Silver-Eyes bickered like brothers, trading low insults in the middle of the hall when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. Bronze ribbing him about his “obsessive knife-polishing ritual.” Silver-Eyes retaliating by taking the last bit of food at lunch, just to watch Bronze scowl at him.
And then there was Grabber, the balance point between them. He didn’t raise his voice to break up arguments; he didn’t need to. A single look was enough, and they fell in line without protest.
Sometimes, though, I’d catch him looking at me in those moments, not with suspicion, but with something that felt… complicated. Like he was weighing two things in his mind and couldn’t decide which side to set them on.
It was dangerous, seeing them this way. Dangerous to start thinking of them as something other than my captors.
Which was exactly why I kept my mental map growing, kept cataloguing their routines, kept one eye on the little moments where their guard slipped, because no matter how human they might seem in their laughter or bickering, they still had me locked inside their castle. And they still hadn’t told me everything.
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And Bagel… Bagel still hadn’t stopped watching those shadows.
· ─ ·?· ─ · ·· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
I was curled up on the edge of the canopy bed, Bagel nestled in my lap, when faint voices drifted through the corridor outside my door. Not the usual clipped, businesslike tones of my captors, these were lighter, almost playful.
“…I swear, you can’t actually juggle three knives at once,” Grabber was saying.
“I absolutely can,” Bronze shot back, laughing. “You just don’t appreciate art when it’s right in front of you.”
The sound of their chuckling carried a warmth that made my chest tighten. For a fleeting moment, it was easy to forget that these were the same men who had pulled me from my world and placed me here like some living chess piece. The hallway grew quieter, footsteps fading as they wandered off, clearly engrossed in whatever ridiculous contest they were having.
I waited until the last footstep echoed away before daring a peek out the door. The corridor stretched before me, dimly lit by wall sconces, the heavy shadows making every corner feel like a secret waiting to be discovered. Bagel twitched her ears and stayed glued to my side, her small body alert and ready.
With careful steps, I ventured into the hall. The castle was far larger than I had realized. Tapestries hung along the walls, thick and musty, depicting scenes I didn’t recognize. I kept to the shadows, moving past doors that were clearly meant to stay closed, until I stumbled upon something new: a set of doors with subtle, strange locks and metallic inlays that shimmered faintly in the candlelight. They weren’t ornate like the main hall doors, just… different. Like nothing I had ever seen before.
I ran a hand over one of the locks, feeling the cold metal, and wondered what could be behind them. A library? Armory? Or something much more… secretive? The curiosity in me sparked a dangerous mix of thrill and caution.
Bagel growled softly, low in her throat, and I froze. She wasn’t just reacting to the doors, she was reacting to me, as if warning me not to get too clever. My heart thumped, half from excitement, half from fear. But the pull of exploration was stronger.
I took one more glance down the empty corridor, then pressed closer to the doors, trying to memorize every detail: the metalwork, the faint etchings, the way the lock mechanism seemed more complicated than any normal key could open. This would be important. If I needed to run, knowing the layout, and which doors I couldn’t get through, could make the difference.
As I stepped back toward my room, Bagel darted ahead, sniffing at corners and shadowed spaces as though confirming my tentative plan. I realized, not for the first time, how much I relied on her, how much she kept me grounded when my nerves threatened to take over.
Once safely back in my room, I sank onto the bed again, heart racing, and let the quiet of the night settle over me. Somewhere down the hall, laughter and footsteps echoed faintly, a reminder that the men weren’t just captors, they were real, flawed people with routines and quirks. And if I could learn them, maybe I could find a way out.
· ─ ·?· ─ · ·· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
Morning light filtered through the heavy drapes, painting gold stripes across the carpet. Bagel stirred on the edge of the bed, giving a tiny yawn, and I stretched, careful not to make too much noise. The castle was quieter now, the echoes of last night’s laughter replaced by the soft, distant sounds of doors opening, water running, and footsteps on marble.
I had spent the night thinking, listening, letting every creak and shuffle imprint itself in my memory. If I was going to get out of here, or at least understand what I was up against, I needed to continue to pay more attention to their routines. Who came and went, when the doors clicked open or closed, which halls seemed busiest at certain times, and where shadows fell.
My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. “Morning,” Grabber’s voice called through the thick wood. “You awake?”
I tucked Bagel under my arm and opened the door. He leaned against the frame, arms crossed, one brow slightly raised. His expression said, without words, that he already knew I hadn’t spent the morning idly.
“Hey,” I said, keeping my voice light. “Could I… maybe have some paper and a pencil? I want to, uh… sketch the view from the window.”
His eyebrow climbed higher. “Sketching? Really?”
I shrugged innocently, giving my best ‘don’t question me’ smile. “Yeah. I’m artistic.”
He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath, but he stepped inside and tossed me a small stack of paper and a stubby pencil. “Here. Don’t make a mess.”
I set them down immediately and pulled Bagel onto my lap, pretending to be absorbed in doodling, though my mind was far from art. I spread the paper across the floor and started taking notes of all the observations I had made since being forced to come here:
- The sound of footsteps in the east wing is heavier around mid-morning.
- Bronze tends to pause at the main stair landing for two minutes every hour.
- Grabber leaves the kitchen door unlocked briefly while he gets coffee.
- Silver-Eyes always returns from the training hall at precisely 10:47 a.m.
I drew little arrows and circles, mapping corridors, doors, and patterns of movement. Each scribble was a clue, each note a small victory in understanding the environment I was trapped in. Bagel sniffed the paper and pawed at it as if to approve, grounding me in the reality that I wasn’t alone in this.
By the time the morning sun had fully climbed, I had a rough sketch of the nearby wings, potential hallways I might be able to slip through, and the moments when the men were least likely to notice. I didn’t fool myself, I wasn’t safe yet, but the routine gave me options. Patterns meant predictability. Predictability meant opportunity.
When Grabber checked on me again, probably suspicious of my intense scribbling, I simply smiled, hugged Bagel tighter, and said, “Just planning my next masterpiece.”
He raised both eyebrows this time but didn’t argue. He’d seen enough of me to know I wasn’t completely harmless, but he also seemed to sense I wasn’t about to break anything… yet.
And in that small window of his tolerance, I let myself feel something I hadn’t in a while: a flicker of hope that, maybe, I could figure this out.
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