His voice dropped, ragged and low. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Acting like youknowme.”
That landed like a punch too. His eyes were dark, full of that same torment I’d glimpsed in the closet. Hunger. Guilt. Fury.
“I don’t know you,” I admitted, “but I want to.”
“Youcan’t.” His voice cracked. “I should’ve just taken you out. It would have been so easy, and so painless. I’m not built for softness like you are. You still believe in things. You still have pieces of yourself left that haven’t been broken. It would have been mercy if I had taken my shot. You can’t imagine the things those men are going to do to you if they get ahold of you, Eden. In your worst nightmares, you don’t know the half of it. ”
I shook my head slowly, eyes stinging. “You don’t mean that.”
How did I know he didn’t mean it? If he wanted to kill me he would have, even now.
“I do mean it. If you knew what they would do to you… if you knew whatI wanted to do to you,” he said hoarsely, “you’d run screaming.”
“You don’t know me either,” I responded defiantly.
His hands clenched at his sides, his whole body straining toward me like a wire pulled too tight, and for one suspended heartbeat, I thought he would give in. Instead, he turned away and braced himself on the back of the kitchen chair, shaking his head. A denial without the words.
“I haven’t showered in two days. I want you to sitright there.” He pointed to the chair he had been leaning on. “And do not move until I am done or, so help me, Eden, Iwillkill you.”
I sat for maybe twenty seconds. Maybe less. I heard the bathroom door close, heard the water hammer on and echo through the quiet apartment, and then I stood. It wasn't out of defiance, not really. I didn’t do it to provoke him or test what he'd just said. I just couldn’t stay still. Not when my heart was still dragging in broken beats from the things he'd said, the things he hadn't said, and the way he’d looked at me like I was glass he couldn’t afford to crack, and then called me naive like that made him immune to it.
I wandered instead.
I thought other rooms would be more decorated than what I had seen in my limited view the first day I was here, but his entire apartment was dim and sparse, holding only the essentials. No pictures, no clutter.A couch that looked like it had never been sat on, a table that had seen more work than food, and a couple of mismatched chairs. The walls were bare, except for a coat rack with nothing hanging on it.
It was the kind of place that didn’t ask you to stay.
I crossed the space on quiet feet. Every step felt like I was trespassing, but I couldn’t stop. Not when the only other option was replaying everything he said and wondering why it hurt so much to be told I didn’t understand or couldn’t understand.
Like I wasn’t already trying too hard.
I didn’t mean to end up in his bedroom, but the kitchen felt sterile, too quiet, too full of his silence. The whole place was minimal and undecorated, like no one had ever really lived here, but this room was different. The bed was unmade today, sheets wrinkled and twisted. There was a dent in the pillow where his head had rested. A duffel bag slumped open near the door, and beside it, a drawer left half-shut revealed neatly folded shirts, a roll of gauze, and a knife with a blackened hilt.
I sat down at the foot of the bed without thinking, hands folded tightly in my lap. It dipped under my weight and I folded my arms over my stomach, trying to keep the nausea from rising. I felt raw all over, like his words had scraped across parts of me I didn’t even realize were exposed until now.
You don’t get to rewrite what this is just because it feels good in the dark.
I glanced toward the hall. The water was still running. I knew I had a minute or two. My eyes drifted across the room again, slower this time, and I saw something just beyond the bed. A collection of boots lined up with military precision beneath a low shelf. A cracked phone screen face down on the floor, like he’dthrown it. And above it, hanging from a nail was a single dog tag. I didn’t move to read it, but I stared at it like it might answer something. Who was he before this? I wanted to know.
The water shut off.
My breath caught, and I sat up straighter, fingers twitching on my lap as I heard the creak of the floorboards just beyond the hall. His footsteps were slow, hesitant. He already knew before he saw the empty chair that I wasn’t there anymore. I heard him let out a breath, and I wondered if he thought I had bolted.
He appeared in the doorway, still wet and dripping, with a towel slung low on his hips, and absolutely nothing else. My mouth went dry and my pulse thundered in my ears. I didn’t mean to stare… God, I didn’t mean to, but I did. His body was carved by violence. Not sculpted like something pretty, but hardened like steel hammered too many times: tense, coiled, and honed by years of surviving things I probably couldn’t even name. His chest rose and fell like he was still fighting to get a grip on himself, and I watched a single drop of water slide from his collarbone down the flat plane of his abdomen and lower.
That wasn’t the worst part, though; the worst part was his tattoos.
I’d noticed them before, what I could see of them on his arms and his neck, but now I saw that his torso was covered in them too. A set of numbers, maybe coordinates. Some insignia of a spider that I thought may have been military, since it was the most faded. The phraseMemento Mori, a reaper with a scythe and a rifle, a set of cracked dog tags. Lady Justice, scales broken, eyes blindfolded. A clock with no hands. When he turned his body I could see that he had what might have been wings across his back. I couldn’t look at them all, I didn’t have time. The ones that had me staring were the tally marks: jagged, deliberate, cruel lines, inked like scars across the left side of his lower stomach and up his hip, curling towards his flank.
My stomach turned at what I thought they implied.
His voice was quieter this time, but still strained. “I told you to stay in the kitchen.”
I hadn’t looked away from the tallies. Dozens of them, too many. I wasn’t counting them consciously, but I caught myself thinking: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 100, 105… Jesus, there were more. Two hundred? Could someone even possibly kill that many people? Two of them were fresher, evidenced by the pinkish flesh that rimmed each black line.
