Page 96 of Safe Word

My lungs seized and I stopped in my tracks.

A tattoo bloomed across her shoulder blade – a flower.

Not her.

I veered into a shadowed corner mid-step, every muscle strained, my breath trapped in my throat like a scream that didn’t know whether to escape or suffocate. A sick kind of relief slammed into me. But my body didn’t trust my eyes.

I watched.

He stripped the dress from her chest – too full to be hers. No text scrawled along the skin of her ribcage. Scarlett had long-smudged verses inked there – all five lines burned into my memory even if they bled into each other too much to make sense.

Not Scarlett. Not my little angel.

I pressed the back of my head to the wall, a moan of relief leaving me. I repeated the words inwardly like a prayer, like penance: Not her. Not her. Not her.

When the recognition settled, I was suddenly afraid of my own hands – I’d nearly killed them both.

Christ…

In public.

Where people knew my face.

Losing it…

I dropped my hands, flexing the ache out of my fingers. Already turning. Already retreating. I didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

Inside the men’s room, I gripped the sink until the porcelain groaned. My reflection stared – red-eyed, hair wild. The shirt clung to my chest like a punishment.

I heaved in air as if drowning.

Because I was.

Drowning in her darkness. In the echo of Ghost and Scarlett. In the rage I’d never learnt how to bury.

I’d let this go on too far.

Fishing out my phone, I opened the Obsidian app. It was still down – since this morning.

That last night I’d spent with her resurfaced.

I would rather have her there. No changes. No detours. Just a locked room, and the silence after surrender.

I leaned over the sink again.

I nearly killed a man tonight – over a woman whose real name I didn’t even know.

My fists at the ready, my breath gone, my body convinced she was mine.

And the worst part?

I wanted it to be her.

I wanted a reason to lose control, to poke at my beast just to make sure it was still alive.

Shaking my head, I looked at the madman staring back from the mirror.

And I decided – the next time I saw Scarlett would be the last. Before this thing tore loose and took me with it.