Chapter 21 Julian
JULIAN
It’s past midnight and he still isn’t back.
The walls of the container are sweating with heat and rot, or maybe it’s just me—I can’t tell anymore.
I’m folded over the edge of the cot, forehead pressed to the side of a plastic bucket I’ve already emptied my stomach into twice tonight.
Maybe three times. Nothing left now but bile and air, and even that comes out dry, like my body’s trying to peel itself inside out for fun.
My skin’s crawling. No—worse. It’s slithering, inching, shifting like something is buried under it and wants out.
And if I had nails left, I’d tear it off to make it stop.
I want a hit. I want a fucking hit so bad I can taste the craving—bitter, sharp, metallic like blood and pennies pressed to my tongue.
My body is begging, screaming, sobbing through every nerve-ending like a child being drowned.
I know what I need. I know exactly where to go.
Kai would give it to me, if I begged right.
If I cried. If I got on my knees and told him I wanted to forget the world for a little while.
But I don’t move because he said don’t.
Stay sober until I get back, little halo, and I’ll fuck the tears out of you.
He said it like a promise. Like a command. And I want that. More than the drugs. More than the numb. More than the silence. I want him to come back and look at me like I did good. Like I obeyed. Like I’m his. I want him to slam the door open and see me wrecked, broken, twitching, and still his.
So I don’t move.
I curl tighter on the floor, the bucket still pressed to my chest like it’s the only thing keeping my ribs from caving in.
My hoodie—the one he left me—is soaked with sweat and spit and tears, but I won’t take it off.
I won’t fucking take it off. It still smells like him.
And right now, it’s the only thing keeping me from shattering.
The photo’s in my hand. Crumpled. Finger-stained. I stare at it now like it’s a bible. Like maybe if I look long enough, I’ll feel him again.
But the ache gets worse. Everything inside me is loud.
Loud and hot and filthy. I can’t stop sweating.
My thighs shake. My teeth chatter, and I think I bit the inside of my cheek because there’s blood pooling under my tongue.
The pain is twisting around my spine, wrapping up my lungs, and even that feels like him.
Like his hands dragging down my ribs. Like his mouth against my ear, whispering filth until I can’t think anymore.
I press the photo to my lips and whisper, “Please.” Not sure what I’m begging for.
Just please. Come back. Come back. Come back.
I didn’t promise, not really. He didn’t ask me to swear it.
He didn’t tape it to my skin. But I felt it.
In his voice. In the weight of the words.
And even though I’m a liar and a coward and a fucking addict, I want to be good for him.
Just once. Just this time. Just enough that when he gets back, he’ll take one look at me and say: Good boy.
I think I’d cry.
I think I’d fucking fall apart.
My breath hitches, staggers, cuts out in ragged little bursts that make my ribs seize.
The bucket slips from my hands and clatters to the floor with a hollow plastic slap, but I can’t even flinch at the noise—my head is too heavy, too full, too swollen with heat and need.
The edges of the room start to tilt, slow at first, then sharper, like the whole container is leaning and I’m sliding down the wall without moving.
My vision smears, the corners warping, stretching, melting like wet paint.
My ears ring so loud I can’t hear my own breathing anymore.
Every blink takes too long—blackness sticking to the back of my eyelids like tar before peeling away again.
I try to inhale, but my lungs don’t listen. They’re tight, refusing, spasming like they’re trying to eject themselves from my chest. I choke, gasp, claw at the hoodie, but my fingers won’t close properly. They tremble uncontrollably, too weak to grip.
“Rafe—” I try to say, but it comes out small. Thin. A ghost of a voice dragged underwater.
My heartbeat slams against my sternum so hard I see white for a second.
A flash. A camera flash. My stomach pitches violently.
I retch but nothing comes out—just that horrible dry spasm that feels like it’s tearing something loose inside me.
The room tilts again and my forehead smacks the cot frame, bright stars exploding behind my eyes.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I blink and the light overhead splits into three, then six, then melts into a single pulsing halo that throbs in time with the pounding in my skull.
My arms give first—elbows buckling, palms slapping uselessly against metal.
Then my knees slide out from under me. I think I’m falling, but the floor meets me too slow, like gravity’s drunk and can’t remember how to do its job.
Oh god. I know this feeling. Withdrawal, the final stage. The part that likes to pretend it’s killing you just to see if you flinch. Panic spikes through me. My eyes roll up and I can’t stop it. I hear myself make a sound, a broken, pathetic noise scraped up from the bottom of my lungs.
“Please—” slips out of me as barely a whisper, not even a prayer, just instinct.
My heartbeat stutters once, then twice, then a third time that feels like a fist squeezing tight inside my ribcage, knocking the air out of me.
The photo sits next to my face, blurry and out of focus, nothing more than a smeared mess of black tape and skin, my own eyes staring back at me like I’m already dead.
I reach for it—or at least I think I do—but my arm refuses to move, heavy and useless at my side as the edges of my vision begin to darken, collapsing inward slowly at first and then faster, swallowing the light, the photo, the floor, everything.
I hear my own breath stutter, catch, then stop completely.
The last thing I feel is the hoodie—his hoodie—pressed against my cheek, damp with sweat and tears, still warm from my body and still smelling like him before the bottom suddenly drops out beneath me.
And I fall hard into nothing.
Something slaps my face once, then again, and then harder the third time.
“JULIAN!” The voice is distant. Or maybe I’m distant. Everything feels underwater. Or above water. Or—no. In water. There’s a roaring in my ears that isn’t blood. It’s… wet. Heavy. Surrounding. The back of my head aches like I hit it on something and my body won’t stop twitching.
Another slap lands, and then a voice tears through the haze—“OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!!”—all sex and steel and smoke and fury as it drags across my skin like it owns me, clawing through the fog like it’s searching for something buried deep inside me.
Another slap follows, sharp enough to make my cheek sting, and it feels good—real—like something solid finally breaking through the nothing.
Then I register the water, pouring down over me in a relentless stream that soaks everything—my chest, my face, my arms—until my hoodie is drenched, my hair dripping, and my lips part just long enough for me to choke on it, warm and suffocating as it sprays from above.
Shower.
I’m in a shower, and I have no idea how the fuck I got here.
“LITTLE HALO!” the voice snarls again, and this time it cuts straight through the static, ripping open the dark as it crashes into me. “FUCK’S SAKE, LOOK AT ME!”
Halo. Little—Halo.
The word hits like a brand, like a beacon burning straight through my chest, and my stomach lurches as my brain finally catches up with everything—my skin, the slap, the water, the crushing weight of it.
Rafe.
My eyes snap open to blinding light and steam curling up the tile walls, and then him—him—crouched over me, soaked to the skin, his black shirt plastered to his chest, eyes wild and feral with something sharp and dangerous that looks a lot like panic.
His hands are braced on either side of my face, dripping, trembling, and the second he sees me blink—
“Jesus FUCKING Christ,” he exhales, like the last four days just punched him straight in the throat.
I try to move and fail instantly, every muscle in my body screaming as my head lolls to the side and the water blasts against my cheek again, spilling over my mouth until I choke and cough, and then he’s there—grabbing me, hauling me up, pulling me straight into his lap under the spray, clothes and all.
“You stupid little bastard,” he growls, voice cracked and breathless. “You were supposed to wait.”
I think I smile—maybe I do, maybe it’s just the ghost of it—because it’s hard to tell with my jaw slack, my body limp, and every fucking nerve in me short-circuiting under the heat of him.
But I made it, I waited, and now he’s here.
Rafe’s hands lock around my upper arms like manacles, fingers digging into soaked fabric and skin until I gasp.
I don’t even know how he moves me—whether he stands and drags me or just physically lifts me like dead weight—but the next second my back hits tile.
Hard. The cold shock of it slices through the haze.
Water crashes down on both of us, beating against my face, my chest, my throat, running into my mouth until I’m coughing, sputtering, blinking through steam.
He cages me in with his body, every inch of him wet and furious and shaking as the heat and steam wrap around us.
“Say it,” he growls, his voice dragged straight from hell as his breath hits my cheek hot and sharp. “Say you didn’t use.”
I try to speak, but nothing comes out—just a broken breath, a tremor, a pathetic sound that barely slips past my lips before he grabs my jaw with one wet hand, his thumb pressing hard against my cheekbone as he forces my head up and keeps my eyes locked on his.
“Julian,” he says, low and dangerous, a warning and a plea and a threat all at once. “Say it.”