Chapter 27 Sadie
SADIE
The lights of the city twinkle outside my window as I sprawl across my couch, staring blankly at the medical drama playing on my TV. Some surgeon is dramatically declaring they’re losing a patient while nurses rush around with impossibly perfect hair. I’ve seen this episode three times already.
But I’m not really watching it.
I’m thinking about Landon. Again.
His hands are on my skin. His voice in my ear. The way he looked at me was like I was a puzzle he wanted to solve and then break apart.
“Get out of my head,” I whisper, pressing my palms against my temples.
Twenty-four hours. That’s how long we have apart after the Hunt. Twenty-four hours that should feel like freedom, but instead feel like... withdrawal.
I grab the remote and turn up the volume, as if the fictional medical emergencies can drown out the memory of Landon’s touch.
They can’t.
Nothing can.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter, finally hitting the power button. The screen goes black, leaving me in the dim light of my apartment.
My laptop sits on the coffee table, calling to me. I know what I should do—try to disable his spyware, contact the police, run as far as possible. But that’s not what I want to do.
I pull the computer onto my lap and open a browser. My fingers hover over the keyboard for just a moment before I type.
Landon Blackwood
The search results flood my screen. Business profiles. Charity event photos. Articles about tech innovations from Blackwood Enterprises. I click through them methodically, saving images, noting details.
A photo of him in a tuxedo at some gala makes my breath catch. He’s not smiling—Landon rarely smiles—but he looks almost normal. Nothing like the beast who hunted me.
I pull up another tab and type in another search term.
Blackwood family business
I need to understand him, to find the man behind the mask he wore during the Hunt.
I know he’s watching. He probably gets alerts every time I use my laptop. But I don’t care. Let him see. Let him know I’m becoming as obsessed as he is.
I stare at the articles about the Blackwood empire, but they only show the polished surface. The truth is hiding somewhere deeper.
“Let’s see how you like being watched,” I mutter, cracking my knuckles.
I close the browser and open my terminal. This is my world. Code. Systems. Digital fortresses that all have weaknesses if you know where to look. I start with a basic probe of his home network.
It takes forty minutes of concentrated work, but I’m finally in. My heartbeat quickens as I navigate through Landon’s files. Most are encrypted, but a folder labeled simply Therapy stands out. No encryption. Like he wants someone to find it.
I click.
Video files. Dozens of them, named only with dates. My finger hovers over the trackpad before selecting one from six months ago.
The screen fills with a stark white room. A woman lies strapped to a table, whimpering. Landon enters the frame, wearing his white mask.
“This will hurt,” he says flatly, producing a small knife.
I should close it. I should shut down the computer and run. But I don’t.
The woman screams as Landon carefully carves intricate patterns into her skin. Blood wells up, running in rivulets across her pale flesh. He works methodically, like an artist, his breathing steady while hers comes in ragged gasps.
My stomach churns with revulsion, but something else stirs inside me, too. A sick, twisting heat that makes me press my thighs together. The woman’s eyes roll back as Landon continues his work, her body now decorated with bloody designs.
“Perfect,” he whispers, running his fingers through the crimson trails.
The woman barely moves now, barely conscious from pain and blood loss. Landon begins unbuckling his belt, and I slam the laptop shut, my hands shaking.
I rush to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, avoiding my reflection. I’m disgusted—not just with him, but with myself. With the shameful throb between my legs that persists despite the horror I’ve witnessed.
What kind of monster am I, to feel arousal watching that?
I grip the edge of the sink, my knuckles turning white. The truth is a hard pill to swallow—it wasn’t simply the horror of what I saw that made me slam the laptop shut. It was jealousy, burning through my veins.
The thought of Landon touching another woman, marking another woman, being inside another woman... it makes me want to scream. To break things. To find that woman and—
I catch my own eyes in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back.
What have I become?
I slide down to the bathroom floor, hugging my knees to my chest. This isn’t me. This isn’t who I was before all this. Before him.
“I was already broken,” I whisper to the empty bathroom.
The assault years ago had left cracks in my foundation—fault lines running through every intimate moment since. But I’d managed. I’d built walls around those broken pieces, kept myself functioning.
Landon didn’t just break through those walls. He demolished them. He found every fractured piece of me and pried them further apart until there was nothing left but rubble.
And the worst part? I let him. I craved it. I’m still craving it.
I press my forehead against my knees, my body shaking. The Hunt was supposed to be an experience—a wild departure from my careful life. Instead, it’s revealed a truth I’ve been hiding from myself: I want to be owned. Possessed. Ruined for anyone else.
Just like he promised.
And now I’m jealous of a woman he carved up like a fucking pig. A woman he hurt far worse than he hurt me.
What does that make me?