Another scratch opened across my skin—lower this time, just above my hip. Deeper. I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste copper, swallowing the cry before it could escape.
Another line carved across my ribs—slow, deliberate, like someone was writing his name in reverse across my skin. The ghosts didn't care about my tears. They only cared about the story.
The room grew colder still. My breath fogged thicker in front of me. Frost began to creep across the inside of the window, delicate patterns like skeletal fingers reaching toward the light. The shadows curled closer, breathing against my neck like they were reading over my shoulder.
I reached for my phone with trembling, half-numb fingers.
Still no messages.
I called him.
My heart hammered against my ribs as it rang once. Twice. Please pick up. Please.
Straight to voicemail.
His voice filled my ear—calm, warm, steady, the voice that read me fairy tales when I was falling apart, the voice that whispered I've got you in the dark. Hearing it now, recorded and distant, felt like swallowing broken glass.
"Hey, it's Drogo. Leave a message. Or text. I always read those."
Beep.
I hung up without saying anything. What was there to say that wouldn't sound desperate? That wouldn't expose how close I was to unraveling completely?
My chest tightened until breathing became a conscious effort, each inhale shallow and insufficient. The panic I'd been holding at bay all morning finally broke through the dam. I opened my browser with shaking hands, typing clumsily: flights from London to New York this morning.
Lists populated across the screen. Departure times. Arrival times. Flight numbers. Airlines.
He should have landed two hours ago at minimum.
I refreshed the page. Again. Again. Checked for delays. Checked for cancellations.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything on schedule.
Relief flooded through me—brief, fragile, immediately followed by a fresh wave of anxiety. If the flight had landed, where was he? Why hadn't he texted? Was he in some meeting already, too busy to send a single message? Or was something wrong? Had something happened between landing and now?
Another scratch raked down my back—slow, deliberate, punishing. The pain was exquisite, sharp enough to make stars burst behind my eyelids. I hunched forward over the keyboard, teeth gritted, fingers still moving because stoppingmeant worse. Stopping meant they'd carve me open until I bled out onto the floor.
The temperature plummeted further. My fingers went numb on the keys, making typos I had to backspace through with shaking hands. The cold wasn't just in the air anymore—it was in my bones, my blood, seeping through me like poison.
Write.
The command came harder this time, edged with threat.
I wrote.
Hours passed in a blur of pain and words. The light outside my window shifted from grey morning to golden afternoon to grey evening, the short winter day burning itself out while I bled and typed and waited for a phone call that didn't come. My back was on fire. My fingers were ice. The room had grown so cold I could see my breath in thick clouds, could feel frost forming on my eyelashes when I blinked.
My phone stayed dark. No call. No text. No Drogo.
The shadows in the corners thickened until they had real weight, real presence, pressing against the edges of my vision. They watched me type with something that felt like approval now that I'd given up checking my phone every thirty seconds. A whisper seemed to curl through the cold—soft, pleased, victorious. Good. Stay. Write.
They watched me bleed with indifference—they'd seen it before, would see it again, my pain was nothing new to them.
They watched me wait.
And I wrote.
But then—soft, almost tender—a new scratch bloomed across my lower belly. Not punishing. Possessive. Like something marking territory.
