Marco’s family vanished into the sweep of weekend shoppers, swallowed by the movement and noise.

  Seraphine’s smile faded with them.

  Her body stayed rooted where she stood, but her mind slipped backward—twelve years in a single breath—into a house filled with detergent, boiling stew, and secrets that seeped into the walls no matter how often they were scrubbed.

  Back Then

  Seraphine was ten.

  Small. Quiet. Trying desperately to shrink herself into corners.

  Marco was eighteen, all lazy grin and lazy limbs, with a kind of carelessness that hid something darker beneath the skin.

  The air inside the house always felt too warm, too close.

  Auntie hummed songs from old movies.

  Uncle smoked and murmured to himself.

  Everyone pretended nothing bad could ever happen in a home where the floor gleamed after mopping.

  Except the bad had already taken root.

  Seraphine folded laundry on the living room floor one day—shirts too big for her, socks too small for him, blankets that smelled of sun.

  Marco leaned against the doorway, blocking her only way out.

  “Come here,” he told her.

  Two harmless words wrapped around a hook she didn’t see coming.

  She hesitated—nothing more than a pause in her breathing—and Marco stepped forward. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her behind the washing machine, into shadow that smelled like damp concrete and rust.

  A hand crushed over her mouth.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears like a trapped animal.

  The world collapsed to heat, sweat, and the sickening realization that no one could hear her— and no one would come.

  “Don’t make noise,” he whispered in her ear, breath sour and confident.

  “We don’t want anyone thinking you’re naughty.”

  Her body froze.

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  Her lungs felt too small.

  Sound died in her throat.

  When he finished, he let her go as easily as dropping a rag.

  She slid to the cold tile, knees hugged to her chest, eyes too wide, breath shaking in her throat.

  Marco straightened his clothes like nothing happened.

  “You should thank me,” he said lightly.

  “Guys will line up for you when you’re older.”

  He walked away whistling.

  Seraphine stayed curled where he left her, childhood spilling out of her like sand through a torn bag.

  Marco didn’t need tricks anymore.

  She was smaller somehow—shrunk into herself, folded tight like laundry that never quite dried.

  He caught her wherever he felt like it:

  the bathroom when she brushed her teeth,

  the kitchen when she reached for a glass,

  his bedroom when Auntie sent her to fetch something.

  And when she tried to scream—just once—his palm clamped down so hard her jaw throbbed for days.

  “You want Auntie to think you’re a liar?” he hissed.

  The fear sealed her lips better than his hand.

  The house became a maze designed to trap her:

  every hallway a loop,

  every room a dead end,

  every night a threat.

  Marco snapped his fingers, and she went stiff.

  He gestured, and her knees weakened.

  Seraphine learned to leave her own body behind— counting backward from one hundred, staring at paint flecks on the ceiling, pretending she had wings, praying to a silent God.

  Afterward, Marco would pat her head.

  Sometimes he laughed.

  Sometimes he whistled.

  Always, he walked away like nothing had happened.

  Like she was nothing.

  One time Marco dragged her into shadow, he wasn’t alone.

  His father followed.

  Not shouting.

  Not stopping.

  Just there.

  Seraphine froze, hope flaring painfully—because surely an adult would make it stop.

  But the uncle closed the door behind him.

  Marco pinned her arms easily, like he was holding down a kitten.

  The uncle crouched to her level, eyes glassy, voice almost gentle.

  “Pretty little thing,” he murmured, thumb brushing her cheek.

  “Knew you’d grow up fast.”

  Seraphine’s stomach twisted.

  Marco laughed low in her ear.

  “Relax,” he said.

  “We’re family.”

  The uncle’s hands were nothing like a guardian’s.

  They were greedy, confident, ready.

  He touched her like she belonged to him.

  Like being ten meant nothing at all.

  And when they finished— when she curled on the tile, gasping like something dying— they didn’t look guilty.

  They looked satisfied.

  Marco nudged her with his foot.

  “Don’t pout,” he teased.

  “You’re just practicing for the real world.”

  His father chuckled.

  “We’ll make a woman out of you yet.”

  They walked away together, joking quietly.

  The door stayed open behind them.

  She remained where she fell.

  After that night, the rules of the house changed.

  Marco came alone sometimes.

  His father sometimes.

  Often both.

  They stopped pretending secrecy mattered.

  Her Auntie never noticed. Seraphine was too scared to tell.

  Silence was the family’s favorite meal.

  Between Marco and his father, they carved pieces from her: safety, dignity, trust, sleep.

  They ate her childhood slowly, one slice at a time.

  And the world outside kept spinning like everything was fine.

  Seraphine learned two lessons:

  Monsters don’t hide under beds.

  They sit at the dinner table.

  Sometimes the house helps them feed.

  Seraphine blinked, and the mall came back into focus.

  Bright lights.

  Cold air.

  People laughing, shopping, eating fries.

  Marco walked away with a wife and child in tow—smiling like a man who had never destroyed anything.

  His daughter skipped beside him, ribbons bouncing.

  Safe only by timing and luck.

  Seraphine drew in a slow breath.

  Not as prey.

  Not as a child.

  As someone remade.

  They taught her helplessness.

  But she learned power.

  And one day soon, she'll make them pay.