She’s standing a few feet away, her silhouette framed by the dying light of the votives, staring at me like she’s seeing both versions of me superimposed over one another. The boy in the window, desperate and wild. The man in the dark, calculated and cruel.
And I fucking hate it.
I hate the way it makes me feel like that broken little bastard again—the one with dirt under his fingernails and the metallic taste of blood on his lips, hiding behind a pane of glass and praying to a God who wasn’t listening for the strength to do something. To matter. To finally hurt back.
I grip the edge of the altar, my knuckles white, my jaw clenched so tight my molars scream under the pressure. The candlelight flickers, dancing over the skeletal bones of the chapel, over the twisted, jagged edges of our shared past like it knows the whole story and is itching to show her before I’m ready.
But she’s not ready. Neither of us are. Not for the truth of what I did after I threw that rock. Not for the part where I didn’t just save her—I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to witness the unraveling of a god. I wanted someone else to hurt with the same white-hot intensity that was already consuming me.
She doesn’t know that I waited.
That I stayed there, crouched in the freezing shadows like a gargoyle, and watched the chaos I caused unfold like a slow, sickening movie. She doesn’t know I saw her run. I memorised the way her bare feet slapped the concrete, the way her white dress was a flag of surrender in the night. I dreamed about it every night after—dreamed about her escaping, about her leaving me there in the belly of the beast, still trapped. Still screaming without a voice.
She left. And I let her. And I never fucking forgave her for it.
Not for getting out. Not for forgetting the boy who bled for her. Not for surviving when I wasn’t done breaking.
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing with the slow, predatory gait of a caged animal. The colours of the stained glass drip over my skin like sins I never had the chance to confess. Red for the rage that sustains me. Blue for the hollow nights I whispered to the dark that she was dead so I could stop lookingfor her. Gold for the way she looked when I finally found her again—tasting like a closure I wasn’t prepared to accept.
She thought she could bury it. Pretend she didn’t know me. But she did. Even then. Even before she knew my name, she looked at me like I was real. Like I was a catalyst.
And I was. I burned it all down just to see if she’d look back.
I hear her shift behind me, her breath catching on the sharp, serrated edge of the silence. I know she wants to ask. I know she’s close to remembering more—too much. But I can’t let her connect the rest yet. Not until I’m sure the weight of it won’t kill her. Not until I’m sure it won’t kill me first.
I turn around, slowly, letting the mask of the professional predator slide back into place. I let the cracks in my psyche stitch together with threads made of ice and iron.
“We’re not here to talk about the past,” I say, my voice low and smooth, wrapped in barbed wire. “We’re here because someone wants to make us relive it.”
Her eyes flicker. She nods, a tiny, submissive movement.
Good girl.
I cross the chapel in three heavy steps, stopping directly in her space. I’m not touching her, not yet, but I’m close enough that she can feel the atmospheric pressure of my presence. Close enough to let her smell the beautiful lie I’ve become.
She looks up, searching my face for the boy with the rock. But I’m not him anymore. I never fucking was.
“I’ll kill whoever sent that note,” I whisper, the promise vibrating in the air between us. “But first—I need you to promise me something.”
Her breath hitches, her pulse jumping in the hollow of her throat.
“Don’t remember too fast.”
There it is. A warning. A threat. A desperate truth. Because if she puts the pieces together before I’ve finished weaving the web, she’ll realise I’m not just the monster who found her.
I’m the one who ensured she’d have to be found.
She flinches. Barely a centimetre, but I see it.
A tiny, cellular recoil, like her body is vibrating at a frequency her mind hasn’t reached yet. Like somewhere inside, the gears are turning—realising that the voice in the dark was never a new arrival. That the shadow under her bed didn’t just materialise. That the obsession didn’t start with a chance encounter.
It started in the marrow. It started when we were small.
And now that she’s looking at me—really looking—I can feel the storm building behind those wide, trauma-painted eyes. But she doesn’t run. She lifts her chin instead, a tremor in her throat being the only sign of the earthquake inside. Her gaze doesn’t leave mine.
God, that makes it worse. That hope she carries, the silent plea for me to be better than I am. Like I didn’t turn her world inside out on purpose. Like I didn’t want her ruined so I could be the only one to piece her back together.
I drag in a breath, letting the cold air scrape slow and painful through my ribs.
