Instead, I stand there, torn between wrapping myself around her and pretending this is one of the dreams I let myself have.
A life where she is safe. A life I could never give her.
It doesn’t matter.
I can’t escape what I am.
I am a monster, born in a lab, shaped by my father. I have an expiration date. My instinct is to kill and survive by killing. Love was never part of the design.
She was never part of the plan.
She just happened.
And that makes everything more complicated.
She is the complication I should get rid of.
She is also the reason I want to be someone else.
I want a different life. One where choice exists. And if there is even the smallest chance that life could give me another path, she is the only one I would ever choose.
For ten years, I have followed her. Every step. Every turn she made.
Somehow, she makes me feel alive. Now I can’t stay away.
If I leave, the monster walks away untouched.
If I stay, it tears itself apart trying not to hurt her.
ELEVEN
Emily
It feels like a dream. My eyes are closed.
I turn onto my side, my breathing slowly rising and falling. My whole body hurts, yet I remain calm. I dream that I drown, and that he saves me. That Zayne Mercer, the one killing everyone, actually saves me.
I dream that I am floating at the surface of the water, drifting away, but he pulls me toward the shore.
If one of my patients said this to me, I would say that because of their lack of self-control, they began to drift away, to detach from situations, craving someone to save them from themselves and bring control back. But for me, the meaning feels different. The monster saves me because the world that should have saved me did not. I have felt alone for so long that him bringing that control back to me makes me feel safe.
Dreams always have meaning. There is always a reason we dream, even when we dream within dreams.
I think the worst part is not the water in my lungs. It is that no one notices I am sinking. Not once do I imagine hands reachingfor me from the surface, voices calling my name, panic breaking the air. In my dream, the world stays exactly the same while I disappear beneath it.
That is how I know it’s not really about drowning.
It’s about how easy it is to go. How familiar it feels to let myself slip away without being missed. I have lived so long carrying my own weight that the idea of someone else noticing, deciding I matter enough to pull me back, feels almost unbearable.
He is the only one who sees me leave.
And maybe that is why something inside me breaks. The simple, devastating fact that someone notices I am gone.
For all these years, I was afraid that no one would miss me if I closed my eyes forever.
I feel him lying down in bed with me. He moves one hand beneath me while the other rests on top, pulling me closer. I feel the weight of him behind me.
Even if this is a dream, it feels real.
