The first sensation to hit me upon returning to reality wasn’t pain—it was a piercing cold.
The sharp, bitter stench of chemical disinfectant rushed straight up my sinuses, mingling with the dry, burning scent of pine wood in the sputtering built-in fireplace. I opened my eyes. The room was bathed in the sickly, greyish light of a snow-covered twilight. There was no city noise. No blaring car horns, no hurried footsteps on the sidewalk. Only the howling wind outside, clawing at the thick windowpanes like a wild beast.
I raised my right arm. The vein on the back of my hand bulged reluctantly beneath pale, purplish skin. A butterfly needle was lodged firmly inside, connected to a clear plastic tube leading up to a IV bag hanging from a polished steel pole. A drop of liquid fell. One drop. Two drops. Slow. Rhythmic. Like the invisible countdown of a clock.
“Don’t move too fast, my love.”
A deep, gentle voice echoed from a dark corner of the room. The soft press of leather shoes against the sheepskin rug made an eerily silent sound. A man stepped out from the shadows. He wore a high-end, cream-colored cashmere sweater and held a glass of warm water. His features were sharply carved, as if sculpted from marble: a high, straight nose, deep hazel eyes, and lips pressed into a polite yet unyielding line.
Julian.
The name slid through my mind like a jagged piece of ice. I knew this man. My fog-shrouded brain identified him as my husband. A successful businessman who had pulled me from the wreckage of a horrific accident a few weeks ago—an accident that had wiped out my short-term memory, leaving me a fragile, bewildered soul in the heart of Aspen, Colorado.
Julian approached, dropping to one knee beside the bed. He placed the glass on a cedar nightstand, reached out, and gently stroked the matted strands of hair clinging to my temple. His fingers were warm, yet his touch sent a chill straight down my neck.
“The snow out there can freeze the living world solid, but as long as you stay safe in my arms, our world will always be warm.”
He whispered, a lingering smile gracing his lips. His gaze locked onto mine—intense, protective, yet carrying a suffocating weight that made it hard to breathe. He took my IV-bound hand and pressed a soft kiss to it.
“You’ve been asleep for sixteen hours, Emily,” Julian said softly. “The doctor said the toxins from the accident haven’t fully left your system. You need rest. Don’t force yourself to think about the past.”
“Julian…” I managed to speak, my voice raspy and dry like sand. “Where is my phone? I… I need to call the gallery. The exhibition contract…”
“Hush now,” Julian interrupted without a trace of anger, his composure unnervingly calm. He reached for a small brown medicine bottle on the table, drew a cloudy liquid into a syringe, and injected it directly into the port of my IV line. “The blizzard outside knocked out all the cable lines. Aspen is completely isolated. You don’t need to worry about the gallery or anyone else. Right now, I’m the only one you have. And you’re the only one I need.”
I watched the cloudy drop dissolve into the clear saline, flowing straight into my vein. A numb sensation radiated from the back of my hand, tracing up my arm and creeping into the nape of my neck. My eyelids grew heavy once more. The fog inside my head thickened by another layer.
Julian smiled, gently closing my eyes. He stood up, adjusted the expensive rabbit-fur blanket snugly around me, and walked out of the room. The sound of the door locking echoed from the outside.
Click.
It was a small noise, but it detonated inside my brain like a gunshot.
I wasn’t asleep.
I forced my eyes open the second Julian’s footsteps faded down the wooden staircase. The numbness from the fresh dose was still gnawing at my nervous system, but survival terror—a primal, ruthless instinct stronger than any drug—was screaming through every cell in my body.
I sat up and yanked the IV needle out of my hand. A drop of fresh red blood splattered onto the pristine white bedsheet. I didn’t bother wiping it away. I watched it soak into the fabric, blooming like an ironical flower.
I swung my legs over the edge. My bare feet hit the freezing hardwood floor, sending shivers through me. I moved toward the grand window overlooking the canyon.
The villa sat precariously on an Aspen canyon cliff. Outside, everything was swallowed in white. Dark pine trees bent heavily under the weight of the snow. The blizzard roared, turning the landscape into a chaotic bowl of ice and wind. But when I reached out to push the glass open for a breath of real air, my hand struck a rigid surface.
The window wouldn’t open.
I pressed my face close to inspect it. The glass was at least three centimeters thick, reinforced safety glass typical of luxury estates. But the frame was what truly terrified me: the locking mechanisms had been bolted shut from the outside. This wasn’t designed to keep the cold out. It was a cage. A ultra-luxurious glass cage built in a snowy wasteland to hold an injured animal captive.
I backed away, my heart hammering against my ribs. Suffocation washed over me. Gaslighting. Lockdowns. Isolation.
I began searching the room. Everything seemed unnaturally, forcefully perfect. High-end designer clothes from Chanel and Dior hung neatly in the closet; expensive perfume bottles stood in precise rows on the vanity; art history books on Monet and Picasso were flawlessly aligned on the shelf. It all felt like a rushed film set staged for a play called Amnesia.
I moved to the large built-in wardrobe in the corner. Dropping to my knees, I pulled out the rows of leather shoeboxes at the bottom. Tucked behind a oak partition in the darkest corner where the nightlight couldn’t reach, I spotted a narrow gap.
My trembling fingers reached in, touching something hard, rough, and cold.
A black leather notebook.
I pulled it out, covered in a thin layer of dust. When I opened the first page, an icy shock ran down my spine. Written across the yellowed paper were jagged, chaotic lines of dark brown ink—the distinct color of oxidized blood.
I recognized the handwriting. Sharp, angular, slanted to the right. It was my own. The exact handwriting I had practiced thousands of times on my sketches.
Written in dry blood from my index finger was a warning:
“He is poisoning you every day. He is not your husband. Don’t trust Julian. GET OUT OF HERE NOW!”
My head exploded into a roar.
Shattered memories crashed into my brain. An overturned car. The screech of tearing metal. Tires skidding on ice. The overpowering smell of gasoline. And a hand… a hand pulling me from the wreckage, but it wasn’t wearing the wedding band engraved with E&E that I vaguely remembered.
Julian didn’t save me. He imprisoned me. Every glass of milk he served, every dose he injected into my IV wasn’t meant to heal me—it was to wipe my mind, turning me into a obedient ragdoll in the picture-perfect world he had crafted.
I snapped the notebook shut and tucked it inside my sweater. I had to escape. Tonight.
Two in the morning.
The villa was drowned in a suffocating silence. The fireplace on the ground floor had died down to a few crackling embers.
I threw on a knee-length black puffer coat and slipped into an old pair of snow boots. In my hand, I clutched a heavy metal pencil sharpener from the drafting table—the only pitiful weapon I could find.
I carefully eased the door open. The well-oiled hinges didn’t make a sound. I slipped into the hallway, sticking close to the velvet-wrapped wall. Downstairs, the living room was pitch black. Julian was likely asleep in his study in the east wing.
My target was the garage. Attempting to trek through an Aspen blizzard at night on foot was a guaranteed death sentence. I needed a car, or at least a two-way radio typically equipped in off-road vehicles.
I navigated down the servants’ stairs leading straight to the basement and garage. The air grew colder with every step down. The smell of grease, burnt rubber, and damp enclosure replaced the artificial pine scent upstairs.
The garage was vast, built to hold four cars. But in the center sat only Julian’s sleek black Range Rover SUV—the vehicle he used for supply runs. It was locked tight, its red security light blinking behind the tinted glass.
However, tucked in the furthest corner behind stacks of cardboard boxes and old tires, something was hidden beneath a dirty, blue-grey tarp.
Curiosity—a dark instinct surging in my veins—compelled my feet toward it.
I grabbed the edge of the tarp and yanked it off.
Swish!
A thick cloud of dust erupted, making me cough. Unveiled beneath the flickering flashlight of the cell phone I had swiped (which had no signal) was an old, grey Volvo sedan. The driver’s side was caved in badly, deep scratches running from front to back, exposing rusted metal underneath.
This was the car from the crash.
The car I was riding in before waking up in Julian’s glass cage.
The blood in my veins ran cold. Why had Julian hidden the wrecked car here? Why hadn’t he scrapped or destroyed it? Why keep this piece of junk?
I moved closer. The front door was completely crushed, impossible to open. But the rear door was only jammed. Summoning every ounce of strength from a cornered animal, I heaved on the handle.
Creak… snap!
The door popped open. A foul stench of dried blood and heavy rot hit my face, forcing me to cover my nose.
I aimed the beam inside. On the backseat, amid sharp shards of shattered glass, lay a popped-open brown leather briefcase. Documents were scattered everywhere.
I reached in and picked up a paper stained with dark, dried blood.
It was a DIVORCE PETITION.
Petitioner: Ethan Carter. Respondent: Emily Carter.
My signature was clearly stamped on the page. But what made my pupils contract was a 4×6 photograph that slipped out from the folder. In the picture, I was smiling radiantly—a warm, natural smile I hadn’t seen on my face since I woke up. My arms were wrapped around the neck of a man.
A man with wavy dark hair, a lean square jawline, and a small birthmark on the left side of his chin.
It wasn’t Julian.
Julian wasn’t my husband. The man in the photo was Ethan Carter—my legal husband on paper!
The truth struck me like a brutal blow to the back of the neck. My entire world crumbled. Julian was an imposter. A stalker, a twisted lunatic who took advantage of our car accident to kidnap me, bring me to this isolated mansion, and drug me to turn me into his ideal wife!
Panic peaked inside me. I backed away, turning to run for the garage’s side exit.
Just then, a faint sound echoed from the rear of the Volvo.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was very soft, like someone tapping a weak finger against the metal inside the trunk.
I froze dead in my tracks. My body went rigid. The howling wind outside seemed to vanish, replaced by the thumping of my heart in my chest.
Thump… thump…
The noise came again, accompanied by a muffled, painful gasp from inside the enclosed space.
There was something… or someone… inside the trunk.
I swallowed a mouthful of bitter saliva. An invisible force dragged my feet back toward the rear of the car. Step by step, my boots crunched against the dusty concrete floor.
I reached for the trunk latch. It was wrapped in iron chains, but the padlock hadn’t been fully snapped shut. Julian must have been in a hurry when he hid the car here.
I exerted all my strength to pull the chains free.
The trunk popped open with a dry click. Under the flickering flashlight, the face from the wedding photo wasn’t Julian… it was the man lying semi-conscious in the cramped space, dried blood smeared across his forehead.
He wasn’t on the backseat. He was curled up in the tight, foul-smelling confines of the trunk!
His face was gaunt, battered and bruised. Black duct tape was slapped tightly over his mouth. His hands were bound tightly behind his back with zip ties that cut into his skin until it bled.
When my flashlight beam hit his face, the man’s eyes snapped open. His grey eyes were filled with terror, utter desperation… and a wild spark of hope when he saw me.
Ethan. My real husband. He hadn’t died in the crash. Julian hadn’t just kidnapped me—he had locked my real husband inside the trunk of the wrecked car, hiding him in the basement to rot away in isolation and cold!
Ethan thrashed, desperate to break free. He let out muffled groans behind the tape, his eyes pleading, signaling for me to untie him.
I stood frozen. The metal pencil sharpener slipped from my hand, hitting the concrete floor with a harsh clatter.
In that exact moment, the overhead fluorescent lights in the garage flickered intensely and buzzed to life.
The blinding white light dazzled my eyes. A tall shadow blocked the garage’s only exit.
Julian stood at the top of the stairs. He was no longer wearing his cozy cashmere sweater. Over his shoulders hung a long black trench coat, and he held a silver tray bearing a steaming cup of warm milk.
His marble-carved smile remained as gentle as ever. But his eyes… those hazel eyes had completely lost all humanity. They were hollow, lifeless, filled with a terrifying, obsessive madness.
“You promised me you’d be a good girl, Emily,” Julian said, stepping down the stairs one by one. The rhythmic crunch of his leather soles sounded like a death toll. “I told you… curiosity is the blade that slits the throat of a caged bird.”
He looked at me, then glanced at the man struggling in the trunk. No surprise. No panic. He merely let out a soft sigh, like a disappointed father dealing with a stubborn child.
“Now…” Julian placed the silver tray on a nearby wooden crate, slowly pulling a syringe filled with cloudy liquid from his coat pocket. “We’ll just have to start all over again, my love.”
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