I want to bite him. I want to rip his throat out with my teeth and swallow the sound of his pulse. But my muscles are water. I can only watch through the haze, my eyes wide and dilated, as he looms over me like a vulture circling a corpse.
“Go on,” I whisper, the words barely a breath. “Touch me, you pathetic fucking maggot. Touch me and see what happens when the ghost finally comes home.”
He pauses, his eyes narrowing. “What did you say?”
“He’s coming,” I giggle, the sound bubbling up from my chest, raw and psychotic. “I can hear him. He’s walking through the fire, Miller. He’s got a card with your name on it, and he’s going to use it to scrape the skin off your fucking face.”
Miller sneers, his hand tightening on my thigh until I know there will be another bruise to match the rest. “No one’s coming, Hallow. You’re just another crazy bitch in a room full of them.”
He leans in closer, his face inches from mine, and for a second, the drug haze shifts. The red emergency light in the hallway flickers, and for one glorious, heartbeat of a second, I see it.
A shadow behind the glass of my door.
Not Miller’s shadow. Not Aris’s.
A shadow that moves like a predator. A shadow that doesn’t belong in a place this clean.
“Wrong,” I purr, the madness finally snapping the last of my restraint. “He’s already here.”
The shadow doesn’t move. It just bleeds into the edges of the door, a thick, ink-black stain on the pristine white glass. It’s him. It has to be him. My mind is screaming his name—a name I’ve only ever heard whisperedlike a curse—but the name feels like a prayer in my mouth.
Jex.
“He’s here,” I breathe, the words coming out in a cloud of psychotic glee. “He’s standing right behind you, Miller. Can you smell the gasoline? Can you feel the heat of the match?”
Miller freezes, his hand still clamped like a vice on my thigh. He looks at the door, his eyes darting to the glass. His breathing hitches, and for a glorious, fleeting second, I see the reflection of my own madness in the sweat on his forehead.
He’s scared. This big, brave man who gets off on strapping down girls is fucking terrified of a shadow.
But the shadow doesn’t move. It doesn’t break the glass. It just… ripples. Like a reflection in a pool of oil.
Miller looks back at me, his fear curdling into a dark, ugly rage. He realises the glass is empty. He realises it’s just me—drugged, pinned, and fucking losing it.
“There’s no one there, you crazy cunt,” he spits, his voice trembling with the effort to sound tough. He yanks his hand back and backhands me across the face.
The world explodes into a kaleidoscope of red and black stars. My head snaps to the side, the copper taste of blood blossoming in my mouth. I laugh. It’s a wet, jagged sound that rattles in my chest. I lick the blood off my lip, savouring the iron tang.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I hiss, my eyes snapping back to his, wide and hungry. “My mother hit harder than that when I was six, and she was a fucking drunk. You’re pathetic, Miller. You’re a pussy. A fly waiting to beswatted.”
He looms over me, his face turning a mottled, furious purple. He reaches for the front of my gown, his fingers twisting into the thin fabric, pulling me up as much as the restraints allow. I can feel the leather biting into my wrists, the skin screaming as it tears further, but I don’t care. The pain is the only thing that feels real through the chemical fog.
“You think you’re so goddamn special,” he snarls, his breath hot and putrid against my skin. “You think you’re some kind of princess? You’re nothing. You’re a hole in the ground. And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging for those meds just to forget what I did to you.”
He leans in, his hand moving to my throat, squeezing just enough to make the room start to spin.
I can feel the drug haze thickening, pulling me back down into the toxic green depths. The shadow at the door is gone now, replaced by the humming white light that never fucking ends.
It was just the drugs. Just another beautiful lie my brain told me to keep me from shattering.
“Do it,” I whisper, the darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision. “Kill me. Give me the one thing Aris won’t. I’d rather be a corpse than spend another fucking second looking at your ugly face.”
He sneers, his fingers tightening on my windpipe. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you, Hallow. I’m going to break you. I’m going to take every little piece of fire you have left and I’m going to piss on it until you’re as hollow as your fucking name.”
The world is fading. The white tiles are dissolving into grey static. I’m falling, deeper and deeper into thequiet, and for the first time in ninety-six days, I feel a cold, hollow weight in my chest.
He isn’t coming.
The myth is just a story. The playing cards are just paper. And I’m just a girl dying in a room with no corners.
