It made things quieter in my head, more organized. I started bringing the books home, just a few at a time, stacked neatly on the desk in my room. At some point, the subjects changed. I didn’t decide that consciously; it just happened. Hunting turned into anatomy, and anatomy turned into history. The kind that gets written down because someone needed to understand how far the body could go before it stopped cooperating.
Torture methods.
There were illustrations, diagrams, and descriptions written in a tone that tried very hard to sound neutral. Like, if you removed the emotion from something, it stopped being what it was.
I read everything, sometimes twice.
There’s a certain way information settles in your body when you spend enough time with it. It stops feeling like something youlearnedand starts feeling like something you already knew. Like it was always there. That’s what it felt like.
Weeks passed. I think it was weeks. Time was… inconsistent, and I hadn’t seen Zwierek for a long time, not once. Every time I walked past that door, the lock was still there. Exactly the same, keeping him locked in.
At first, I thought maybe he had done something wrong.
That maybe this was the way they punished him. The kind where something just gets taken away, and no one explains why.
I had been getting used to having Zwierek by my side, and I felt the sudden absence. It’s strange how quickly you can get used to someone being there. Even when they don’t belong, even when they shouldn’t. And then they’re not and the space they leave doesn’t feel empty; it feels wrong.
So I stayed out longer, read more, and brought back more books. Filled the space the best I could. I think that’s when it started becoming something else. Something closer to intent.
It showed up in small ways at first. Thoughts that didn’t feel like thoughts, more like possibilities. If you know where to apply pressure, you don’t need strength. If you understand structure, you don’t need force. If you can predict someone, you don’t need speed. I didn’t question those thoughts; I just let them sit there. The moment where youdon’tpush something away, that’s where it grows.
Six months is a strange amount of time. Long enough for things to change, short enough that you don’t always notice it happening. I grew, physically, I mean. Taller, stronger. But that wasn’t the part that mattered to me; it was everything else. I didn’t think about Zwierek as something separate anymore, not really.
There’s a difference between someone being in your life and someone becoming part of the way you think. He had done that without trying. Or maybe he had tried, I don’t know. I never really knew what was going on inside his head, but that didn’t matter. Some things don’t require language or understanding. Zwierek came back after being gone for almost a month.
I’d started fearing I was never going to see him again.
Dark thoughts had taken over my head during those weeks, and part of me was convinced Krystyna and Bartosz had either gotten rid of him or sent him somewhere he wouldn’t come back from. But then, suddenly, he was there again. And just like that, everything slipped back into place like he’d never been gone at all. That’s the thing, little Ghost.
Loyalty doesn’t always come from kindness; sometimes it comes from affinity, and affinity… runs deeper.
By the time I turned seventeen, I didn’t feel like I was learning anymore. Not in the way I used to. It felt more like I was remembering something.
The books got darker. That's the easiest way to explain it. Less about animals, more about people. Without ever saying it directly. What the body does when it’s pushed past what it was designed for. How long it takes. That question came up a lot, in different ways, in different contexts. But always the same answer underneath it.
Longer than you think.
I remember one night in particular. I was lying in my bed.
The room was dark except for the light from the street slipping through the edge of the curtain. Same as always. Same ceiling, same walls. But it didn’t feel the same. My head was full of thoughts. Everything I had read, everything I had learned. It didn’t stay separate; it blended. Ideas started connecting in waysthey didn’t before. Control… structure… the body. It shifted, slowly, into something else.
I felt it in my chest, then low in my stomach until my cock was pressing itself against the fabric of my sweatpants. My hand moved instinctively until it was wrapped around my hard shaft as a silent moan escaped from my lips.
I let the tension build up in my body, let the thoughts sit there instead of pushing them away, let them unfold. My breathing shifted into low and heavy breaths. Slowly, everything narrowed; the rest of the room stopped existing in the same way. Just pure sensation, just pressure.
I completely lost track of how loud I was. It happened fast, too fast to catch. The heavy growl leaving my mouth before I could stop it. A few minutes after that, the door to my room slammed open.
The sound cracked through the room so hard it felt physical.
I froze for half a second, maybe less. Then everything moved at once. I sat up too quickly, jerked my hand away from my cock. I didn’t even think about it, I just reacted and pulled my pants back into place, trying to make it look like nothing happened. Like that was even possible, because he was already there, standing in the doorway.
Bartosz.
His eyes moved across the room first, not me, but the room. Like he was expecting to find something, or someone. Then they landed on me, and something in his eyes shifted.
“Are you fucking masturbating to the thought of my wife, you little shit!”he yelled loud and aggressive. I didn’t answer. Of course I didn’t. I just looked at him. Straight at him, not backing down. I didn’t think about it, but something in my chest tightened, and a burning sensation traveled up my spine. He stepped closer.“You think you’re brave, huh?”Another step.
“Do you really think I can’t see what’s going on inside that sick head of yours?”My eyes stayed locked with his, and then everything happened at once.
