Avaleigh’s POV
The candlelight wavers as I grip the brush, my hand trembling so hard I can barely hold it.
Three canvases stand in front of me, three failures.
The first one is too dark, an ugly bruise on white cloth. The second looks dead. The third? Just another mess of colors that don’t belong together, fighting for space like they want to escape the frame.
Ana’s voice still rings in my head like a hammer.
"Paint something beautiful, Avaleigh. That’s all you have to do. Is that too hard for you?"
Beautiful. She says it like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like beauty comes on command. But painting doesn’t work like that. A painter’s soul bleeds into every stroke, whether you want it to or not. And my soul? It’s not beautiful anymore. It’s tired. Hungry. Broken.
My stomach twists so sharply I almost drop the brush. But hunger isn’t new. It’s the fog in my head that’s killing me, the way every thought drags like chains. My arms feel heavy. My wrist burns.
She locked me in here yesterday. No meals. No breaks. Just paint something beautiful.
I bite my lip so hard it tastes like metal. Beautiful? What beauty can come from misery? Every brushstroke I make screams what I feel, trapped, angry, empty.
The floor creaks outside my door. My blood freezes.
The click of heels, my 'sister'... Ana's footstep. I know that sound. Slow. Arrogant. Each step saying I own you. The knob rattles.
I push myself up so fast my chair scrapes the floor. The door swings open, and there she is, Ana Montenegro, all silk and perfection, her hair curled like she’s about to walk into a gala, not into the room where she’s been keeping me like a prisoner.
Her smile is gone. Irritation sharpens her pretty face.
“Again?” Her voice slices through the silence. Her eyes sweep over the canvases, and I feel myself shrinking under the weight of her stare. “You’re pathetic. Three canvases and you couldn’t finish even one?”
“I—I tried,” I whisper. My throat feels like sandpaper.
“Not hard enough.” She walks in like she owns the air, her perfume clinging to everything. She picks up a rag from the table, flicking it with her manicured fingers like my things disgust her. “You know what will happen when you disobey me right?”
My chest tightens until I can barely breathe. I already know.
“No dinner tonight,” she says sweetly, like she’s offering me a gift. “And if this isn’t done by midnight? You won’t sleep here.”
Cold shoots down my spine.
Her smile curves cruel. “You remember that place?" she asked me.
She's talking about 'that' storage room. I nodded with heart pain.
" Good. Maybe a night with the rats will teach you to finish faster.” she said
'And I do remember too well.'
The smell hits me first in memory, mold and rust, thick in the air like rot you can taste. The floor of that tiny storage room was damp, the boards warped, a breeding ground for insects. When Ana locked me there last year, no one asked questions. She’d just turned eighteen; no one dared to stop her.
I’d spent days sitting on the cold floor, knees to my chest, shivering. No bed. No blanket. Just darkness broken by thin strips of light sneaking through rusted holes in the wall. With my hands bound in chains, heavy and unyielding, sharp enough to cut into my skin, my eyes drifted to my wrists. They were still raw and red, old scars crossing over fresh wounds that had only just begun to heal.
Sometimes I could hear rats scurrying across the room. One brushed against my foot once, and I screamed until my voice cracked. No one came. No one ever came, except the maid who risked her job to slip me bread and water through a hole barely wide enough for her hand.
I’d counted time by those scraps. Morning? Night? I didn’t know. I just waited for the next sound of mercy. And all the while, I wondered if this was how I would die, forgotten, surrounded by vermin, my body found by whoever bothered to open the door weeks later.
Even now my chest feels tight, like the darkness is still closing in, suffocating me.
“Ana… please,” I beg, tears burning my eyes. “I—I’m so tired. I haven’t even stepped outside this room in days. I just—”
“You think I care about your little sob story? Just finish the painting. Or don’t eat. Your choice.” She rolls her eyes, her voice dripping poison.
She turns to leave. Desperation claws up my throat.
“Why are you doing this to me?” My voice cracks like glass breaking.
She glances over her shoulder, and her smile chills my blood. “Because I can.”
The door slams. The lock clicks.
I just stand there, staring at the canvases through a blur of tears. My legs shake. My empty stomach growls so loud it hurts.
But fear is stronger than pain. Fear of that place, the darkness, the rats, the hunger worse than this, drags me back to the chair.
My hand moves like it belongs to someone else. The brush slashes across the canvas, faster, harsher, until my wrist screams and the colors blur through my tears. Rage, pain, hunger, they all pour out of me, raw and violent.
I don’t care if it’s beautiful anymore. I just want it to be enough.
Time stretches and snaps. The candle burns lower, painting the room in gold and shadow. Paint fumes choke the air. My vision swims.
And then it’s done.
Not beautiful. Not the kind of painting Ana wants. But it’s alive.
Dark reds slash like open wounds. Purples bruise the corners. Streaks of gold break through like sunlight bleeding into storm clouds. It’s my soul on display, starving, furious, trapped.
A sob tears out of me. I stare at it, while shaking. The footsteps come again.
I barely have time to wipe my face before the door opens. Ana steps in, arms crossed, her smile sharp as a blade.
“Well?” Her eyes land on the canvas. Satisfaction curves her lips. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My throat aches too much.
She struts over and yanks the painting from the easel like it’s hers. “Perfect. I’ll take this. I’ll come back tomorrow for another one.”
“Please, Ana.” My voice breaks, a threadbare whisper. “Stop. I can’t keep doing this. I’m so tired. Please let me out, even for a day...”
She tilts her head like she’s actually thinking about it. Then that razor smile cuts through the hope I didn’t mean to feel. “Hmm. No.”
“I'm tired Ana, I just want to rest” I choke out. Tears burn my cheeks. “I haven’t even seen sunlight.”
“Then you’d better hope,” she says lightly, heading for the door, “that I don’t change my mind and send you to that storage tonight instead.” she said not listening to what I'm saying.
The door slams. The lock clicks again. And I fall apart.
I collapse onto the floor, sobbing until my ribs ache, my tears mixing with the dirt on the boards. The room is silent except for the sound of me breaking.
Dinner will be dry bread and stolen water, if I’m lucky. I'm Avaleigh Bryth Salazar Escalante. But mosty knows me as Avaleigh Montenegro.
And this is my story...