Mine. The one that lives in my skull. The one that came back the last time I forgot how to trust locked doors.
“You left the window open.”
I didn’t.
Not last night. I remember sliding it shut. Locking it. I even double-checked it before I crawled into bed.
I turn my head slowly, eyes flicking towards it now.
Closed.
But someone flipped the lock down.
And I know I didn’t do that.
My throat tightens.
He was here.
Damien.
I swing my legs out of bed, trying not to make a sound. I feel it in my bones. The chill of a presence. The echo of breath that isn’t mine still hangs in the air.
And when my foot hits the floor, I freeze.
My notebook’s out of place.
Just barely.
A half-inch too far to the left on the bedside table. Angled wrong. My fingers tremble as I reach for it.
The line I wrote last night is still there.
I don’t think anyone’s ever really loved me without trying to possess me.
I blink.
It’s smeared.
A fingerprint.
My own? Maybe.
But my stomach twists. My instincts are screaming.
“He touched it.”
I back away from the table. I want to scream, but there’s no one to hear me.
I walk to the wardrobe and grab the sweater I wore yesterday—my comfort sweater, the one I always use to ground myself. But when I hold it to my chest…
I smell something faint. Masculine. Smoke, metal, leather.
Damien.
His scent is on my clothes.
Not in my imagination. Not a hallucination.
