Took

Prologue - Taken

The first thing I noticed about her was that she did not hurry.

She stood at the top of our basement stairs, framed by light that did not belong in our house, hands folded neatly in front of her as if she had all the time in the world. Around her, everything was chaos—boots thudding against concrete, voices overlapping, my sister screaming my name—but she was still. Watching.

Waiting.

I knew then that my life, as it had been, was already over.

Hands closed around my arms. Strong. Unyielding. I was dragged past my father's body without looking down. I couldn't. The smell of blood and antiseptic tangled in my throat, thick enough to choke on. Somewhere behind me, Luna fought, cried, called for me until the sound cut off abruptly.

The Woman's gaze followed me as they pulled me away.

Not cruel. Not kind.

Assessing.

The place they took me to did not exist. I knew that the moment the doors sealed behind us and the world above disappeared. The air changed—too clean, too sharp—layered with something older beneath it. Damp earth. Concrete. A place buried on purpose.

White swallowed everything.

Walls, floors, ceilings—seamless and blinding, the light so bright it made my head spin. I stumbled as they rushed me down winding halls that bent and turned until I lost all sense of direction. My footsteps echoed too loudly, like the space was hollowed out just for me.

They didn't speak.

They didn't need to.

The room they brought me into was colder than the rest. An operating room. I knew it by the table in the centre, the metal gleaming beneath the lights. I tried to pull back then, tried to dig my heels into the floor, but they were already lifting me, already strapping me down.

Belts cinched tight across my wrists. My ankles. My chest.

Too tight.

My fingers tingled, then went numb. My toes followed. Panic surged, sharp and useless, as I strained against the restraints. The table was unforgiving beneath me, every breath shallow and fast.

The Woman stepped closer.

She didn't touch me. She didn't have to.

Her face hovered at the edge of my vision as I stared up at the fluorescent lights, each one a perfect, blinding square. I tried to focus on their edges, on anything that wasn't the realisation pressing in on me like a weight.

That no one was coming.

That no one could.

At first, there was nothing. Just light. Just the sound of my own breathing and the hum of the room around me.

Then my eyes slid shut.

And my small, hidden world—lavender and shadows and stolen glances at the moon—split wide open.

It got much, much bigger.

And I was taken with it.