Her breath catches.
“I would sit in the control room at night, watching you through the screen. Pacing. Screaming. Losing pieces of yourself. I’d mute it like I was silencing something in me, too. Like if I didn’t hear it, I wouldn’t feel it.”
I drag my knuckles along the edge of her jaw now, slow and reverent. “But I did.”
Her lips part, the weight of my confession falling heavy between us. She should run. I wouldn’t stop her. But I know by now she won’t run.
“I kept coming downstairs,” I go on. “You thought it was to interrogate you. To punish. To toy.”
A cruel smirk pulls at the corner of my mouth.
“It wasn’t.”
Her brows tighten slightly.
“I came in so many times because I had no one else,” I say. “You were my only constant. My only voice in the silence. You didn’t talk to me, not really. But you looked at me. Like you hated me. Like I mattered enough to hate.”
Her jaw tightens now. I watch it move under the pad of my finger.
“I enjoyed having you in my house,” I admit. “I enjoyed controlling you. Knowing you couldn’t leave. Knowing you were mine,even if it was by force.”
There’s no apology in my voice. No shame now. Just truth.
“I watched you when you had night terrors,” I say, the wind howling around the house.
Her lips part, a breath escaping, but I press on.
“Then I’d go upstairs and have my own.”
Something flashes in her eyes now. Memories.
“I resonated with you,” I whisper. “From the first moment.Because you were trapped long before I ever put you in that cell.”
Her body trembles in my lap, but she doesn’t leave it.
“I cared about you,” I say, voice raw. “Since day one. In my own sick, stunted ways. You were my entertainment, yes. But also my reminder. That something human still existed in the shell I’d become.”
She lets her eyes close, just for a moment. Her breath stutters when she opens them again.
“You wanted me to break,” she says, quietly.
“I needed you to,” I answer. “Because if you didn’t, what did that make me? If you could survive me, endure me, seeme,then I couldn’t hide from what I was anymore.”
Her breath is shaky, lips parted like she wants to speak but doesn’t trust what might come out. She’s still in my lap, but I can feel the way her body coils beneath mine—not to flee. To feel.Every word like a blade, every admission like a bruise she leans into instead of away from.
“And after I let you go…” My grip on her waist tightens slightly, remembering. “I thought it would be over. That whatever sickness I had for you would fade once you weren’t under my roof. Under my hand. But it didn’t.”
I lean in closer. Her nose brushes mine, breath warm against my lips. I don’t kiss her yet. I want her to feel this.
“You investigated me,” I whisper, my tone turning sharp with something between admiration and amusement. “I knew it immediately. Dug into my name. Traced my blood. Looked for every bone in my closet. Like you couldn’t help yourself.”
Her jaw tenses again, like I caught her in the act yet again.
I smile, slow and vicious. “You couldn’t let me go, either.”
She swallows hard. My thumb moves from her cheek to her throat, settling just beneath her jaw.
“And I loved it,” I say, voice darker now. “I loved that you were intrigued. That you couldn’t stop poking at the edges of themonster who caged you. Like some part of you liked the way I burned.”
