Chapter 7 JULIAN
JULIAN
Iwake up choking on it. The ache. The want. The fucking dream.
I was warm. That’s the worst part. I was warm, and it was quiet.
I could feel his fingers trailing down my back, slow, reverent, tracing the tattoo he used to pretend he hated—If I fall, let me burn—his breath catching on the last word every time.
His mouth followed the words down like they meant something, like I meant something.
In the dream, it was still real.
Nathan’s voice was soft, not sharp. His laugh low, pressed into my neck like a promise.
We were still in hotel rooms with blackout curtains and locked doors, where everything was safe, where it was just us and the world couldn’t touch what we had.
I’d forgotten how much he used to look at me like I was a secret worth keeping.
How his hands shook the first time he held me.
How he used to whisper things to me in the dark, things I’d believed, things I’d wrapped around my spine like armor.
You’re mine. It’s always been you. You make me feel like I exist.
And I’d believed it. God, I’d believed all of it.
I wake up with tears already dried on my cheek. The pillow under me is damp. My throat aches. I’m still curled on my side in the container, the blanket tangled around my legs, chest tight, like I’ve been held down by the weight of that memory.
I miss him.
It’s stupid. It’s poison. But it’s true.
I miss the way he used to say my name like it tasted good. I miss the way he used to fuck me like he needed it. I miss the way he made me feel like I belonged to something—before he sold me out.
Before the tape. Before the betrayal. Before the silence.
I dig my palms into my eyes until colors bloom behind my lids, fierce and angry. I want to scream. I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to go back. Not to the betrayal. Not to the blood.
But to before. To when love was still love, not a goddamn noose I wrapped around my own throat.
My body hurts. My chest hurts. My fucking heart hurts.
And I hate that I still want him. I hate that even now—after everything—my brain gives me sweetness in my sleep. He’s still got a room in my head. And I can’t evict him no matter how much blood I lose.
I try to ignore it. I really do. I roll over, bury my face in the thin pillow, press the heel of my palm to the center of my chest like I can physically force the feeling back down into whatever hole it crawled out of.
But it won’t go. It just sits there. Gnawing.
Hollowing me out from the inside. Like someone scooped out my ribs and left the memory of him in their place.
I can still feel his fingers in my hair. His mouth on my throat. His voice—soft, fucked-up, real—saying my name like it was a secret he was proud to keep.
I need to see him. God. I need to hear him.
Fuck.
But there’s no phone, no laptop. Nothing but steel walls and silence and the sound of my own heartbeat trying to crawl up my throat.
If I had a phone, I could at least look at pictures, old videos.
The ones we never meant to save. Stupid ones.
Him in a hotel bed, smirking. Me under the covers whispering shit into the camera.
Him wrapping his arms around me in the backseat of a bus after a game.
The way he used to look at me when no one else was around—like maybe I wasn’t a dirty secret.
I need it. I need it now.
I roll out of bed, half-dressed, no shoes, shirt hanging off one shoulder, hair a sweaty mess, still half feral from the dream, and I don’t even think. I stalk barefoot through the compound, gravel biting at my soles, barely noticing.
I know exactly where I’m going. Misha.
The psycho’s got everything. Wires, devices, illegal shit no one’s allowed to ask about. If anyone’s hoarding a burner phone or something close to it, it’s the fucking Siberian wrecking ball in silk robes.
I get to his container and bang on the door like I’m about to start a fight. It creaks open a second later—no rush, no surprise.
Misha stares out at me. In full silk pajamas. Midnight blue and glossy. Wrinkled only where they cling to the scarred slab of his chest. No shirt underneath, top open. The man looks like a Russian Bond villain who fell asleep in a liquor ad.
I blue-screen. Just a second. Brain completely fried.
“What,” Misha drawls, voice thick and heavy, “does little ghost want?” His accent makes every word sound like a threat wrapped in honey.
I blink. Shake myself. Right. Right. I have a reason. “I need a phone,” I say.
Misha stares at me for a long second. He scans me—shirt askew, no shoes, red-ringed eyes, bruises that haven’t faded. The hollow in my chest is so wide I think he might be able to see it.
He doesn’t ask why. He just watches like he’s waiting to see if I even know.
Misha steps out of the container with the slow, deliberate swagger of a man who’s never been rushed a day in his life.
The door clicks shut behind him like a vault sealing, and he plants himself in front of me, arms crossed over his silk-clad chest, eyes gleaming with the kind of amusement that usually comes right before something gets broken.
“Phones come with price, little ghost,” he says, tone smooth as vodka and twice as dangerous.
I blink at him, heart hammering. My mouth’s already open. The words spill out before I can even process the shape of them. “Money. I got money—I can pay you anything you want, Misha. Please.”
His smirk unfurls like a goddamn cigarette drag. “Baby boy,” he drawls, licking the words slow, “I don’t need your money.”
I groan, dragging my hands through my hair, gripping tight at the roots because if I don’t do something, I’ll scream. “Oh my God. Whatever you want, just please, I need it. I need it now.”
Misha hums, tilts his head. Studying me like a starving man deciding which cut to eat first. “Anything I want, huh?”
“Yes!” I snap. Desperate. Already sweating. Already burning. “Yes, anything, I don’t give a fuck—just—please.”
He thinks for a second. Long enough to make me twitch. “Favor.”
I blink. “A favor?”
“Da. Whenever I want. No questions asked.”
…Fuck.
I should run. I should. Owing someone like Misha anything is the kind of mistake you only make once if you’re lucky. But I can’t think, I can’t feel anything but this gaping hole in my chest and the fire in my brain screaming for a voice I can’t stop hearing in dreams.
“Okay. Fine.”
Misha’s grin widens. “And thirty thousand dollars.”
I choke. “You said you didn’t want my money!”
He shrugs, infuriatingly casual. “I don’t. I just like the way you panic.”
I drag both hands down my face, groaning like my soul is leaving my body. Not that thirty grand would even touch my wallet—I could drop that on a dinner in L.A. without blinking. It's the principle. “Whatever!” I snap, vibrating with frustration. “Just give me the damn phone, Misha!”
Misha laughs, low and delighted, then finally—finally—reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, untraceable black phone. He flips it once between his fingers before holding it out to me like a bribe.
He doesn’t let go right away. “Just remember,” he murmurs, voice like velvet soaked in gasoline, “I will collect.”
I snatch the phone out of Misha’s hand like a goddamn lifeline, fingers trembling, and bolt without another word—barefoot, shirt riding up, sweat clinging to my spine like I’ve just been dragged through hell and still didn’t make it out clean.
“I’ll Venmo you!” I shout over my shoulder, not bothering to look back. I hear him laugh—dark and echoing—but I’m already gone, already sprinting back to my container like the demons are chasing me.
I slam the door shut behind me so hard the walls shake.
Lock it. Slide the bolt across like that’ll actually keep anything out.
My breath stutters. My hands shake harder.
The phone’s already glowing in my palm like something sacred.
I drop to the floor, bare knees scraping steel, and press my back against the door like I need something to hold me upright.
Then I start typing. My fingers fumble over the screen, logging in, trying to remember passwords, retracing paths I haven’t walked in weeks. I bypass everything else. No texts. No missed calls. No fucking social media. I go straight for the cloud. Straight for the drive.
And then—Me and Nathan.
I forget how to breathe for a second. The first photo loads slow—grainy and golden, from a night in Chicago, when we were pressed into the corner of a hotel bed and he’d taken the picture upside down just to get me laughing.
I’m looking at him in it. He’s looking at me.
And fuck, I’d give anything to go back to that second.
I swipe.
Another photo—me in his hoodie, face hidden, sitting in his lap in the back of the bus while he’s leaning down like he’s whispering something filthy in my ear.
Another. A video this time. The screen flickers, then fills with motion: Nathan’s voice, warm and teasing, saying “Look at you, Reaver. Still pretending you’re not in love with me.
” And I’m laughing—laughing—like I didn’t know how it would end, like I didn’t know the same lips saying that would one day ruin me with a whisper.
And still—I smile.
Tears burn behind my eyes but don’t fall. Because for the first time in days, I can fucking breathe again.
My Nathan. The one before the tape. Just two boys in a room no one knew about. Just love, unrecorded, even when the camera was on.
I don’t mean to find it. I’m not looking for that one. But my fingers move on their own, chasing the edge of the ache, like if I keep digging deep enough maybe I’ll find the beginning—maybe I’ll find the second right before it all started to rot.
And then there's the file. It has no label, just a timestamp.
I know what it is before I even tap it open.
My stomach flips and my mouth goes dry, but I hit play anyway.