Damien’s jaw clenches with a sickening crack, his thumb dragging hard across my lip, pinning the sound in my throat like he’s reminding me I promised to stay. His eyes are fixed on the monitor, pupils blown so wide the hazel is gone.
The next line appears.
Do you remember when she used to beg you to stay quiet?
My throat tightens, the taste of incense and dust coating my tongue.
Do you remember when she told you to keep your eyes closed?
The cursor blinks. A steady, mocking heartbeat.
Do you remember the quiet place?
The chain pulls tighter around my ankle, a sharp, metallic yank that forces me flush against him. Damien’s pulse snaps against my spine, a rapid-fire staccato of terror. I feel his breath stagger against my temple, hot and wet, but I don’t think he’s breathing right anymore. It’s the shallow, ragged air of someone about to drown.
Should I remind her what she promised?
I shake my head, my breath cracking into a low, broken moan. Damien’s hands slam the keyboard, the plastic keys clattering under his frantic strength as he tries to trace the source, trying to break the feed, trying to kill the ghost in the machine, but it’s no use. The screen is a mirror of a nightmare. The next message punches through.
You were supposed to save me.
The air freezes, the temperature in the room plummeting as if someone just opened a door to a winter that never ends.
You forgot me.
My pulse fractures, a thousand needle-pricks of heat radiating from the scar on my ribs. Damien’s hands freeze mid-strike, hovering over the glowing keys. The words don’t make sense. They’re not for me. They’re not for him. But they are. They are the missing syllables of a prayer we both stopped saying. The cursor blinks.
She left me in the quiet place.
I stagger back, my chest convulsing as if a physical hand just reached inside and gripped my lungs. My breath is slipping, a ghost leaving my body. Damien catches me by the chain, a violent, desperate pull that drags me into his lap like he’s trying to hold me here in the physical world, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish into the static if he lets me go.
“You’re mine,” he breathes, his voice cracking into a jagged, raw splinter. “You’re not his.”
I can’t speak. I can’t move. I can’t look away from the screen, where the letters are burned into the glass like scars.
She told me to stay quiet.
The words slam against my ribs, echoing the rhythm of a heartbeat I haven’t heard in years.
She told me he would pick someone else if I was good.
Damien’s hand slides to my throat, not cruel, not tight—just there. A heavy, warm weight. Just enough to keep me still. Just enough to make me his prisoner.
“You promised,” he whispers against my skin, his voice a ragged fracture. His thumb presses to my lip, seal and key all at once. “You promised you’d keep me.”
Another message blinks.
You forgot me, Raven.
My stomach caves, a sickening drop into an abyss of guilt I can’t name.
You promised.
Damien’s breath shudders against my ear, a broken, weeping sound that makes the chain rattle.
“You promised.”
The cursor blinks.
