The word I’m terrified I already feel.
Love.
Part Six
The Ruin
This isn’t a rescue story.
It’s a surrender.
I don’t know where the pain ends and I begin.
I don’t care.
He broke me open.
Taught me how to bleed in his language.
And now I speak it fluently.
This cage fits too well.
This love burns too clean.
I was never yours, Hook.
But you were always mine.
—T.F.
Hook
Her performance hasn’t left me.
I replay it over and over, frame by frame, as if the cameras are veins feeding me her pulse.
Naked.
Bloodied.
Defiant.
She turned the cage into a stage, her body into scripture, her scars into hymns that mocked me with every gasp. She wanted me to watch her hate me. She wanted me to choke on her silence.
And I did.
For the first time, it wasn’t her breaking. It was me. Watching her drag her nails down her chest, watching her bleed on purpose, watching her grind defiance into her own body while her mouth curled into that cracked, bloody smile—that was the first time the cage felt like it was mine and hers both.
My hand clenches around the folder of contracts, the ink long smeared, the blood still staining the pages. They don’t mean anything anymore. Paper can’t cage her. Even the scars are starting to look like crowns.
I thought resurrection would make her pliant, ruined, grateful for my love. Instead it made her sharp. It made her a weapon.
I can’t stop wanting her more.
I lean closer to the monitor, hook tapping against the desk, my mouth twisting into a smile that feels more like a wound.
“You think you’re winning, little fairy,” I murmur to the screen. “But monsters only know how to destroy. And I’ll destroy you until there’s nothing left but me inside your ruins.”
