THE BLIND CLAIM

The forest was not silent tonight. It breathed-moaned-shivered, as though it felt her terror.

Samantha ran blindly through the trees, each step a bruising, desperate strike against the earth. Branches slashed her arms, roots clawed at her ankles, and the cold December wind carved through her torn clothes. Her breaths came in fractured sobs. Every exhale felt like glass slicing inside her chest.

But nothing hurt as much as the empty darkness where her eyes used to be.

Her fingers, trembling uncontrollably, pressed against the band of wet warmth running down her cheeks. Blood. Her blood. Her vision had gone black hours ago-stolen by the monster who claimed he loved her. The agony had been blinding, searing... but the real torture was knowing he had taken them because she dared to run.

Because Morris believed that if she couldn't see the world, she would have no choice but to see him.

"Samantha..."

His voice drifted through the trees like silk sliding across skin. Soft. Devoted. Deadly.

"You're hurting yourself. Stop running, sweetheart. Come back to me. I can't lose you again."

Again.

The word made bile rise in her throat.

She stumbled over a fallen branch and crashed onto her knees. Pain shot up her legs, but she forced herself up, leaning against a tree trunk slick with moss. Her hands smeared the bark with blood as she groped for balance.

The forest whispered around her. Every sound-every crack, every rustle-felt too close. Too sharp. Too Morris.

She needed to get away. She needed to get anywhere he wasn't.

Something howled in the distance-not Morris. Something darker. Larger. The sound vibrated through her bones. But she didn't stop.

She would never stop again.

"Sam... I know you're scared." Morris's voice dropped lower, drenched in a strange tenderness that made her skin crawl. "But you shouldn't fear me. I did this for us. You'll understand eventually."

Understand?

He had pinned her to the ground while she screamed, begged, thrashed. He had whispered, 'I'm fixing you. Now you'll never look at anyone the way you looked at him.'

And then everything went red. Everything went silent.

Understanding would never come.

"Go to hell," she rasped, her throat raw, her voice shaking.

Leaves crunched behind her.

Too close.

Samantha pushed forward again, the darkness swallowing her whole. Every step felt like stepping off a cliff-because she couldn't see where the ground rose or fell. She crashed into a tree trunk and cried out, then shoved herself away and kept going.

She had no direction-only instinct. Only fear.

Only the burning need to live.

"Stop running." Morris's voice was no longer soft. It sharpened, cracked. "You're mine, Samantha. Mine."

Her heart slammed wildly. Blood roared in her ears.

She ran faster.

The forest thinned. The moonlight-what little she could sense-seemed to brighten the air around her. The wind changed, colder, sharper. She felt open space ahead. No trees to slam into. No ground cover.

Her feet skidded on loose soil, pebbles scattering beneath her.