Because that kind of attention, it’s not passive and it never was.
It changes things. It changesme.Do you understand that?
The way you don’t look away from any of it, it does something to me. It does something to the way I continue. I adjust, maybe not consciously, but I do.
I start choosing what to show you, what to hold back, what you’ve earned, and what you haven’t.
You can feel it moving, can’t you?
That awareness that you’re not just being told something, you’re beinglet in.Slowly and on purpose. That’s the part I like. You’re careful, but not careful enough to leave, and that makes you interesting. More than you should be. More than is… useful. Because now I notice you differently.
Not as someone reading. Something closer, more present than you’re supposed to be. And once I notice something like that, I don’t ignore it.
I study it.
The way it reacts, the way it gives itself away without realizing it.
You’re doing that right now, you just don’t know it yet. But I do, and I’m not going to stop you. I want to see how far you’ll go before you finally feel the need to pull back. And if you get that feeling, little Ghost, dismiss it. Stay exactly where you are. Right there, and let it happen.
You’ve made it this far; it would be a shame if you stopped now.
The Covenant
Chapter 11
One of the first things I learned about Zwierek was to forget everything I thought I knew about human behavior. He was the kind of presence that slips into your routine without asking for permission and then, at some point, becomes a part of it.
I would see him in the hallway before I noticed that either Krystyna or Bartosz had opened the lock. Sometimes, at the far end, leaning against the wall like he had always been standing there. Sometimes already looking at me before I had even fully turned the corner, as if he had been waiting for that exact moment. We didn’t speak, or at least I didn’t, but it didn’t matter.
There are ways of understanding someone that don’t require language. Attention, instinct, and the body’s small betrayals. He learned mine quickly, but I learned his faster. He didn’t hide it. Most people filter themselves without realizing it. They soften certain reactions, delay others, adjust their expressions just enough to stay within something that looks acceptable. He didn’t. If anything, he seemed almost curious about what would happen if he let go of it, and that made him easier to read.
I spent a lot of time thinking about his sudden appearance in my life, but honestly, it was probably the other way around. Somehow, I had stepped into his life, not the opposite. He’d already been behind that door the very first day I arrived at the house, long before I even knew he existed.
I’ve always been naturally curious, but life had also taught me that not everything needs an answer. At least not immediately. Some things sit there for a while before they make any kind of sense, and sometimes pushing too hard only makes them slip further away from you.
I had so many questions I wanted to ask him. Things I wanted him to explain to me. Where he came from. How long he’d been behind that door. Why I felt calmer around him than I did around most real people. But I had no idea how to communicate any of it to him.
The first time I followed him outside, it wasn’t a decision. He moved, I noticed, and then I was walking behind him without remembering when I had started. The house fell away fast.
Wooden floors replaced by gravel, gravel by damp earth that softened under each step. The air changed, too. Less contained, colder, but cleaner in a way that made the house feel stale in comparison. The forest started abruptly. Trees close enough together that the light had to force its way through them.
He didn’t slow down.
Branches caught against his sleeves and slipped away again without leaving marks. Twigs snapped underfoot, sharp and brief, swallowed immediately by everything around us. I stayed a step behind, watching. Always watching. He didn’t turn to check if I was still there; that was the first thing I noticed. The second, he knew anyway.
We started going there almost every day.
The forest never looked the same.
Some days it felt open, the space between the trees stretching wide, light slipping through in long, pale lines that didn’t quite reach the ground. Other days it closed in. Branches lower, air heavier, sound duller. He seemed to prefer those days. I could tell by the way he moved. Like he was paying attention to something I couldn’t see yet.
“She visits you at night, doesn’t she?”
The words settled somewhere in my core. How the fuck did he know? One explanation, of course, could’ve been that he had heard it, but after Bartosz had walked in on us, while my cock was buried deep inside her, she’d gone quiet as a mousewhenever she came into my room at night. The only logical explanation my brain could come up with was that Zwierek must’ve been her favorite toy before I showed up.
We were deeper in than usual. The ground uneven, roots pushing through the soil in lines that forced each step to be placed carefully.
“You don’t stop it,”he continued, still not looking at me.
