“And I knew,” he says, “that if he found you first, he’d take what I’d never forgive myself for losing.”
I stare at him, heart hammering against my ribs, because I don’t even know who he is but I know exactly who Damien means. The man with the shoes. The one from the chapel. The one who left the rosary. Damien cups the side of my face, his thumb brushing just under my eye, and his touch is too gentle for someone who’s done the things he’s confessed.
“I didn’t find you again,” he murmurs. “I never fucking let you go.”
The breath leaves me in a shudder. “You sound insane.”
“I am insane,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to mine. “You’re the only thing that ever made it bearable.”
I hate the way my heart clenches. Hate the way I want to believe it. Hate the part of me that does. Because the way he says it doesn’t sound like manipulation. It sounds like mourning.
“I would’ve let you live your life,” he whispers. “But he came back. And I couldn’t watch him touch what I bled to protect.” He swallows. “I couldn’t watch him take you.”
I don’t know what’s worse—his obsession or his grief. Or the terrifying realisation that the two have always been the same thing.
The way he’s looking at me now isn’t just hunger. It’s ruin. It’s every year he spent in the dark folding itself into a single moment and pressing against my skin.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “If you were there… if you saw… why didn’t you stop him then?”
Damien closes his eyes, exhales through his teeth like he’s holding back a scream.
“I was a kid,” he says. “A fucking scared kid hiding behind a wall. The first time I tried, he caught me. He made me watch. He made me promise to stay quiet or he’d drag you out of that pew and—” He cuts himself off, jaw locking. “I wanted to kill him then. I tried. I wasn’t strong enough.”
He looks at me again, eyes blazing, not with rage but with something worse—a self-loathing so deep it makes my ribs ache. “I couldn’t save myself,” he murmurs. “But I could keep him from you. And I did. I got him away from you every time I could. You don’t even know how close it was.”
My stomach knots. Images flash—a hand on my shoulder, a sudden noise down the hall, the priest vanishing from the room. All the times I thought it was luck. All the times a boy with moths might have been standing in the dark making it happen.
“You’re lying,” I whisper, but it sounds weak even to me.
“I don’t lie to you,” Damien says. “Not about this. I’ve lied about who I am, what I do, where I go. But not about this.” He steps closer. His voice drops, hoarse and viciously soft. “You think you’re the only one with scars? I have your screams memorised. I know the weight of your breath when you were scared. I know how your humming changed when you were trying not to cry. That’s what I listened to every night. That’s what kept me from putting a blade in my throat.”
Tears sting my eyes. “Why me?” I choke. “Why couldn’t you just… leave it? Why find me again?”
His fingers frame my jaw, trembling, like he’s holding a relic instead of a face. “Because I’m not finished,” he whispers. “Because every night I left you there, I promised myself if you made it out, I’d find you and make sure nobody ever touched you again. Because I’d rather be your monster than watch you burn.”
His forehead rests against mine, his breath a tremor. “You were the only light in that place,” he says. “And I don’t give a fuck if I have to drag you into my darkness to keep you alive. I’ll do it. I’ll do it again. I’ll do it until you hate me.”
My hands are on his chest, fists curled, but I don’t push him away. His voice drops lower, rougher, breaking. “I came back because I’m selfish,” he says. “Because I can’t watch him take you. Because I can’t watch him finish what he started. Becauseeven if you don’t remember, I do, and it kills me every time I close my eyes.”
He tilts his head, eyes locked to mine, and the next words come out like a vow carved into bone. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever done right,” he breathes. “And I’ll burn for you before I let anyone else touch you.”
The room tilts around us. The chain on my ankle rattles when I shift, and the sound feels like a heartbeat echoing off the walls. I want to tell him to stop. I want to tell him to keep going. I want to tell him I remember. But I don’t. I just stare at him, shaking, while the boy with the moths and the man with the spider voice blur into one shadow in front of me.
And for the first time, I’m not sure if I’m terrified of him—or of what I’m starting to feel.
His thumb still traces my jaw, but the look in his eyes changes; darker, softer, something like a wound opening under the skin.
“You said…” My voice trembles. “Before. In the kitchen. You said I left you there.”
His breath catches. “You did,” he murmurs.
“I didn’t,” I whisper back. “I didn’t even know you were there.”
His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, holding me gently but firmly, like he’s trying to stop me from slipping out of his hands the way he thinks I slipped out of his life.
“You went home,” he says, eyes burning into mine. “They took you away. I stayed. You didn’t come back.”
“I was a child,” I breathe. “I didn’t know?—”
