I watch her on the monitor, sprawled on the cold floor like something sacred that’s been desecrated—knees pulled to chest, fingers twitching, locket pressed to her lips like a holy relic she’s seeking absolution from. My locket. My girl. My ruin. And the worst part? The part that sinks its claws into my chest and twists?
She doesn’t even know she’s praying for me.
There’s something devastating in her silence, something that wasn’t there before. Something that claws under my skin and makes the pulse in my jaw throb like a warning I should heed. I should go to her. I should rip the grief from her throat and replace it with screams, sobs, moans—something loud enough to drown out this infernal echo of guilt that’s started creeping in.
But I don’t.
I stay rooted to this chair.
I watch from the safety of distance.
Because this—this is the moment I was made for. Not the taking. Not the torturing. But the haunting. The slow, meticulous hollowing of a girl who once swore she’d rather die than kneel. And now?
Now she kneels for the memory of me.
Her fingers twitch again. Her lips move, and though there’s no sound on the feed, I know exactly what she whispered. My name. Fragile. Fractured. Worshipful.
And it destroys me.
I press my hand to the glass of the monitor and smile like a sinner before the altar, a devout man poised to desecrate his god. My breath fogs the surface. My restraint feels like punishment, like penance I don’t deserve.
But I won’t go in.
Not yet.
She needs to suffer a little longer. To stew in the sickness I’ve gifted her. To miss me like a drug she can’t quit. She thinks she’s alone, but I’m everywhere. In the cold she shivers through. In the silence she screams into. In the ghost she swears is gone.
Let her think she’s winning. Let her cry for me. Because when I return, she’ll beg.
And this time, I won’t be kind.
I should walk away.
Close the screen. Bury the monster. Pretend there’s still a man inside me worth saving.
But I don’t.
I stay glued to the feed like an addict watching the last hit burn, eyes drinking her in with a thirst that tastes like blood and want and the echoes of every sin I haven’t committed yet. She doesn’t cry like most girls—no wracking sobs or hysterical wails meant to summon sympathy. No, she breaks quietly, beautifully,like a porcelain doll dropped from a height just high enough to fracture everything that mattered.
Her fingers trail along the edge of the locket, and for a moment, I swear she’s carving my name into her own skin with the sharp edge. She’s mouthing something again, and my gut clenches with violent need. I want to hear her say it. I want it recorded, replayed, etched into my skull like a tattoo. I want the sound of her whispering my name like a curse and a prayer to be louder than my guilt.
And I want to punish her for it.
My hand fists around the glass of scotch I shouldn’t be drinking at this hour, knuckles white, jaw locked, breathing shallow as I watch her curl in on herself like surrender is a ritual and pain is the altar she’s been placed upon.
She thinks I’m gone.
She thinks she’s free.
The stupid, beautiful little fool.
Doesn’t she know I was never in the room to begin with? I don’t haunt her from the outside. I’ve crawled inside her bones and made a home there. I’ve hollowed her out from the inside, and now I’m all that’s left.
She doesn’t get to mourn me.
She doesn’t get to grieve what still owns her.
My tongue runs across my teeth, sharp with the urge to bite down on something—anything—just to release the pressure mounting in my chest, in my fists, in my cock. I want her tied down and screaming. I want her laughing whilst she bleeds. I want her begging me to stop as she pulls me deeper in.
