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Also dedicated to that one hater who said I should never write horror again: I’m back, bitch!
That’s the thing about my guy: he’s soft in my hands and my hands only.
“When you look at me like that, I wanna give you the world.”
We went on with our lives, living the Norman Rockwell version of our painting, just grateful that from it, we gained each other. It changed her, though. I know because it changed me too. It started as an itch I couldn't pinpoint, an annoyance, a craving, the start of a vice, but then the feeling grew roots beneath my skin, spiked leaves of annoyance carrying the need through the network of my veins.
the kind she never would have sported a year ago, when her light was still being dimmed by someone who didn’t truly love her.
Her hand covers mine, and it feels like my world is complete.
“Do not,” he threatens quietly in my ear, “make me fuck you in front of inmates on our anniversary.”
He may have a PhD in plant biology, but I’m a doctor in brat with a focus on pushing his buttons.
Harkins lingers behind us, and I prefer it that way. It’s a quiet comfort he provides when I know he’s got my back.
There’s a guilt-ridden sadness to watching your best friend finally get her dream guy when the dream guy ends up just being another asshole.
Intake is a farce of a show. It’s kind of hard to believe the douchebag yelling in my face isn’t an actor, but I’m gauging by the boner in his pants that maybe he’s a real cop. No one else would be getting off at possessing this kind of authority.
I can get creative. After all, a girl is only as dangerous as her imagination.
They aren’t in on this. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me until this very moment. Why would they be consenting participants when they’ve been stripped of every ounce of humanity here? Of course they’ve been displayed in their cells like animals at the zoo for gawking, entertainment, and cheap amusement.
“Where ya been?”
“Planning a night you deserve.”
I can feel his exhales on my skin, and it only drives me into his arms. I want to breathe his old air, drink his backwash, and fuck, if it didn’t require killing him, I’d say the only way to truly be as close to him as I want would be to zip myself up inside his meatsuit and wear him out to dinner. And goddamn, some days, I come close.
It’s too much, all of it. He’s everything, and it’s nearly suffocating to feel loved in such a capacity.
I might die. He’s worth it. Rest in peace, bitch.
Every day for the last year with Camila has been like a defibrillator to the chest, keeping me going when I thought nothing could. She doesn’t get it. I don’t know if there’s any way I can make her see it. All I can do is try to get her to feel what I feel. She is the moon, my compass, my guide.
I was the pathetic professor with an unhealthy obsession with his student. Not even thirty, and I was already burned out from the education system—too young to be taken seriously by any of my colleagues in academia, so when my obvious desire for a student became public, it cost me the respect of every educator in the college. Still, she was worth the price, and she, unbothered, held her head high the very next semester on that same campus when she became faculty herself. She silenced the whispers with singular looks, and suddenly, I didn’t feel so weak anymore.
Camila teaches me that the things that set you free can sometimes feel like a prison at first. It just depen...
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She softens that somehow, in moments like this, when she makes it seem like I’m the only thing that matters. I don’t have the courage to tell her just how lost I was when I found her, that I’ll go wherever she tugs the lead around my neck, just as long as she keeps pulling.
“I will follow you to the edge of madness, Darkling. Just tell me when it’s time to leap.”
Hi, I’m the danger. Please back the fuck up, because I’m easily overstimulated.
I pout but don’t protest because I know he’s right. He’s always right; he always keeps me safe. Without him, I’m just aimlessly orbiting closer and closer into the Event Horizon. I know it’ll suck me up eventually, but for some reason, I’m compelled to push myself the rest of the way. Harkins is there, somehow singlehandedly fighting the gravitational pull of the void, letting me dip my toes just enough to satisfy the urge. He doesn’t let me drown in it, doesn’t let me lose myself to my own delirium.
This time last year, I walked into a corn maze ready to leave in handcuffs, if I even got the chance to escape at all. Instead, Demetri was there to show me a better way out. So, when he sets the boundaries, I don’t push.
When someone who is supposed to love you is always laughing at your expense, the reality is, they probably just don’t like you very much.
Every moment is the right one, but none of them are quite good enough. She deserves magic.
Ending back up in the dungeon isn’t part of the plan, but I’m thrilled when we get a clue that Kyle might be hiding in the more touristy part of the prison attraction.
“I’m a police officer!” he spits out. “You’ll go to prison for this!” Demetri laughs. “You touched my girl; you’re a dead officer.” His words are steady and clear, sending a wave of hot arousal between my legs. I’m suddenly healed.
Harkins holds me in his arms, and I’m desperate to kiss him, to feel closer in any way possible. I’d devour him if I could, eat him piece by piece if consuming him meant knowing him better.
I’m going to carve my name into your soul.”
“I want to be so far inside you that I change your composition. I love you, Darkling.”
“Marry me.” He slides the mask up his forehead before he pulls the ring out of his pocket. Every ounce of oxygen leaves my lungs. Two little words. My whole world spins under me.
“Be with me, in the deranged and in the sane. We do it together. To the end.”
These moments can’t be recreated, because it’s he who holds the power, not me.
Part of me is drenched with worry, fearful and anxious about leaving her alone and unprotected with real criminals running loose. The other part of me worries for them.
I hit the throttle, revving the chainsaw in warning. He dies the minute he lays a hand on her.
Mila’s always been that way. In the same sentence she’d call me a dumb slut, she’d make sure no one else was hurting my feelings. When we were kids, she was the one on the playground chasing and throwing rocks at the boys who teased me.
The pain of growing apart from my best friend isn’t one I was prepared to feel.
I’m going to marry him, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him. There’s a brief feeling of guilt that I don’t deserve a happy ending because I’m not a good person. But fuck, if there are billionaires out there ignoring world problems they can solve with a quarter of their yearly revenue, then maybe I’m not really a villain.
Heartbreak, maybe? No, it’s just fear. The broken heart is mine, and with it shattered, there’s nothing to contain what’s left of me. The nausea spills in a violent rush, all I can do is turn my head to the side and let it out. It feels unending, and soon, I’m dry heaving, only bile left, yet my stomach still forces it out. And then, I hear the wailing, the broken sobbing of a woman who has lost everything, of a woman who has nowhere left to go but hell.
There’s fear in his voice for the first time tonight, but no part of me can stop this. It’s autonomous, and it won’t end until it needs to, until I feel it all. He kisses the top of my head, just holding me, letting me grieve. Grieve for her, and for who I’ll never be again.
My heart thrums violently. I’m nauseous, sick to my stomach, riddled with guilt and shame. I did this to her. I’m the reason she’s in here. I pushed her, forced her to change into something needlessly. We could have let last year be a distant memory; why did I have to fuck it all up? I’d love her in any shape or form. Why did I have to go and ruin it?