Chapter 3
CAIDEN
Sometimes I thought about the blood, the pattern it made on my hands. Not just that day in the Colorado woods but all the years before. The smell of it. The sound.
You never really forget those things, no matter how many miles you run. You just get better at pretending you don’t want them.
The truth was, I’d killed a man. Squeezed the life out of him in that rotting wilderness, every bone in my body screaming with purpose. Not for justice or survival or any of the other pretty words therapists liked to throw around.
No, I did it because I wanted to. Because I was fucking good at it. Because, for one perfect second, the world had made sense: him or me. And I was never going to be the one in the dirt.
And maybe I should have felt guilty. Should have choked on the horror, the guilt, the shit that kept normal people up at night. But there was something else in me, something black and endless, and it wanted more.
It remembered the look on Amelia’s face when she saw what I could do. It remembered her voice—ragged, nearly gone—calling my name while the blood pooled out of Blake’s neck and onto the warped wooden floor.
Even now, I saw her the way she looked in the cage, small and brittle, hunched around herself, eyes wide with fear. Waiting. Always waiting. For what? For me to save her? Or maybe for me to finish what someone else started.
I hated how those memories made me feel. Helpless, mostly, like I was fourteen again, flinching from my old man’s boot or the smack of a bottle on my ribs.
But there was something else, lurking just under the skin. Desire. I fucking hated the word, but it was true: seeing her broken did something to me. Twisted up everything I thought I knew about right and wrong, about what I was supposed to want.
And all I wanted—all I fucking wanted—was to be the only thing she ever thought about. I wanted her to see me, even if it meant she had to bleed for it.
That was the part I could never say out loud.
Fuck. I closed my eyes, just for a second, and tried to find a place inside myself that didn’t ache for her. There wasn’t one.
I wasn’t supposed to want this. Wasn’t supposed to be so easy, so fucking eager, to turn all that pain into hunger. Into the kind of longing that ate you alive. But I did. And I hated myself for it.
Am I a monster? Maybe. Maybe that’s all I was ever going to be. Or maybe there was some secret self buried in that rot, something better. But when I pictured it, all I saw was her—Amelia—broken and shivering, and me the one reaching through the bars to hold her.
There were four of us, drifting through the fake comfort of Oakdale’s town square like we belonged here.
Shane and Sabrina were walking ahead, as if their joined hands and loud voices could keep the world at bay. Amelia behind them, Amelia always behind.
She wore blue today. Not a soft, happy color. Dark blue. Deep as lake water, the kind that drowns you if you let go for even a fucking second. I watched her, couldn’t help it.
Maybe she was. Maybe I was one of them.
We hit the street festival at golden hour, all bright lights and music and the stink of fried dough. Kids ran around with balloon swords, old men smoked on the benches, and watched the chaos like it might bite.
The strip was packed. Locals and tourists, a mess of energy that made my skull throb. All I felt was the static between us. Amelia’s eyes on the back of my neck. My own gaze locked on her like a predator.
Sabrina darted ahead, dragging Shane past a tent with handmade jewelry. “Come on! You have to try on the turquoise. It’ll bring out your eyes,” she teased, waving a beaded necklace at him.
“We doing this, or are you just here to set a world record for embarrassing me?” Shane called back, grinning. His face open, earnest. He didn’t know what it was like to hide everything raw inside.
“Both,” Sabrina said, her laughter slicing through the noise.
Amelia barely smiled, just ducked her head, hair falling in her eyes.
I wanted to say something. Anything. But what could I say?
I don’t want to hurt you. I want you under me, hands knotted in my shirt, begging for something I don’t even know how to give. I want to strip you open and see if all your softness is as breakable as it looks.
Fuck.
Instead, I fell in step next to her, our shoulders almost touching. Close enough to smell whatever she’d washed her hair with.
She kept her chin down, but her pulse was visible in the hollow of her throat.
“You look like you’re gonna bolt,” I muttered, quiet enough so only she’d hear.
Her eyes flicked up. Dark brown, wary, but not afraid. Never afraid of me, not anymore. Maybe she should’ve been.
“Why would I run?” she murmured, voice thin but steady. “You’re not that scary anymore.”
Bullshit. I was worse. I was just better at hiding it.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I whispered, letting the words curl between us.
A spark. She looked away first. Her small hand tightened on the strap of her bag, knuckles white.
I wanted to grab her, right there, and pull her against me. See if she’d push back or just melt. I wanted to know which part of her remembered all the things I did.
Every word, every moment in that fucking cage, every breathless second when I could have broken her and didn’t.
God, she haunted me. Every fucking step. I didn’t even want to blink in case she disappeared.
The group stopped at a stall with smoked barbecue and sweet tea. We huddled around a half-collapsed folding table, scarfing down sandwiches and chips.
Shane and I sat across from Sabrina and Amelia. The distance between us was measured in inches, but it may as well have been lifetimes.
Sabrina took a sip, green eyes sparkling. “You have to admit, this was a good idea. It’s nice to get out, pretend we’re just normal people.”
Shane wiped sauce from his mouth. “Speak for yourself. I’m normal.”
“You’re a psycho about fantasy football,” Sabrina shot back.
He shrugged. “At least I’m not a real estate mogul.”
They bantered, trading stories about old clients and the local haunted house. Smiles, laughter, all so easy. Like the past didn’t crawl from under the floorboards.
Amelia barely spoke. She picked at her food, gaze flicking up to meet mine every time she thought no one was looking. When our eyes locked, it was electric. No warmth. No comfort. Just the shock of all the words we couldn’t say.
Am I a monster? I don’t want to be. Should I be? Or should I be better? Should I want her? But fuck, I do. What is wrong with me?
My hands trembled under the table. I shoved them in my pockets.
After the food, we wandered through the craft booths. Shane kept buying snacks and handing them to her. Amelia trailed behind, shadow girl. I let myself drift with her, walking so close that our shoulders brushed.
“You like these stupid fairs?” I asked, voice low.
She shrugged, eyes locked on a candle stall. “I like the people watching.”
I leaned in, couldn’t help it. “You like watching me?”
A pause. Her breath hitched. “Not really.”
Fucking liar.
I almost smiled, but what came out was mean. “Sure about that? You used to look at me all the time.”
She turned, and for a second, I saw the fury in her. “Yeah, because I never knew what you’d do next.”
I liked her like this, spitting. Not brittle or small. I liked her angry, because it meant I mattered. Even if all I was good for was ruining her day.
“You still don’t,” I said. “Nobody does.”
Her lips parted, but she didn’t answer. She walked away, shoulders hunched. I watched every motion, hungry.
The rest of the night blurred. More stalls, more games. At one point, Sabrina convinced Amelia to try a ring toss. Amelia missed every shot. Shane made a show of cheering her on, shouting, “She’s better under pressure!” Sabrina jumped up and down, laughing like a kid.
I should have looked away. But I couldn’t.
I stood there, eating it up with my eyes. How she shivered when Shane touched her. How her laughter always faded after a second, like she was afraid to swallow too much happiness.
The ache in me throbbed: I wanted to be the one making her laugh. I wanted to be the only person she noticed, the only one who could make or break her. I wanted to hurt her, heal her, own her. I wanted everything.
I stood off to the side, hands jammed in my jeans, and watched her from the shadows.
At one point, Shane nudged me. “Hey, man, you checked out or something? You barely said two words all night.”
I grunted. “Not much to say.”
“Maybe you should talk to her,” he said, nodding towards Amelia. “She acts tough, but I think she misses you.”
Missed me? Or missed hating me? Didn’t matter. The hunger was the same color.
Shane went to grab a funnel cake for Sabrina.
Now it was just me, Amelia, and the dark space between us. She wouldn’t look at me. Her fingers worked a napkin to shreds.
I broke, finally. “You bored?”
A shrug. “It’s fine.”
“I could take you home,” I said. “If you wanted.”
She shook her head, hair sweeping over her cheek. “I’m good.”
Fine. She wanted to play it cold? I could do cold.
But I wanted her to want me. I wanted her to hurt the way I did.
“You thinking about Colorado?” I asked, voice barely more than a growl.
She froze. For a second.
“Kind of,” she said. “Not the parts you think.”
I leaned in, low. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
She looked up, finally. Her expression was bleak, exhausted, but there was fire in it, too. “No, I don’t,” she said. “And I don’t want to.”
She walked away, found Sabrina, and didn’t look back.
But I was right behind her, like a shadow she couldn’t shake.
The rest of the group night was a blur. I didn’t talk. Just watched her, cursing every part of me that still wanted her, wanted to taste her tears and her laughter and every little piece she tried to hide.
Every time she glanced my way, I felt it. The pull. Dark, alive.
I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be loved. But I didn’t deserve it. I’d burned that bridge years ago.
Still, the ache didn’t stop. Never did.
Am I a monster? I don’t want to be. But maybe that’s all I ever was.
Or maybe I was just hers. The only thing that ever fit.
I let the thought hollow me out, let it echo in my skull as the night wound down and the group drifted to their cars, too tired to fake it anymore.
Inside, I was already gone. The only thing left was the need.
And when the need got loud enough, nothing could quiet it except ruining myself all over again.
I hit the bar at midnight, when all the nice people had already gone home to their soft beds and prettier lies. I was the wolf at the door, looking for the scrape and bruise of something that tasted like oblivion.
Inside, some indie band wailed in the corner, the guitarist’s face screwed up like he was being electrocuted. I moved through the crowd like a ghost, just another fuckup with scars he didn’t want to explain.
The girl behind the bar looked up at me. I ordered whiskey, neat, and killed it in two swallows. The burn was good. I liked it. I liked the way it made my fingers tingle, the way it sharpened the ache inside me instead of softening it.
I drank another. And another. By the time I left my stool, my head was swimming, vision doubled at the edges. Perfect. I wanted the world blunted, so I could pretend it was safe.
That’s when I saw her. Not Amelia, but someone shaped like the idea of her. Skin-tight dress, long hair, lips painted with that slash of red. She leaned on the bar, staring at me like she could already taste what kind of bastard I was.
I didn’t bother with charm. Just looked her up and down, let my gaze stay dark.
She smiled, feral. “You looking for trouble?”
I grinned back, couldn’t help it. “Always.”
She pressed her thigh against mine. “Good.”
It was that easy. It was always that easy. People wanted to disappear, just for a night. She wanted to use me. Fine by me.
I didn’t learn her name. Don’t know if I even gave her mine.
We ended up in the bathroom. Her back pressed to the wall, my hands bruising her hips. She moaned, loud and desperate. I gripped her waist tighter, fingers digging in. The way she writhed under me should have made me feel something. It didn’t. She was just a hole to fill, a body to get lost in.
The girl clawed at my ass, begging. “Harder,” she gasped.
I gave it to her. Used her, slammed in like violence was all I had to give. She took it, loved it, legs wrapped around me like she wanted to be broken.
But underneath it, the memories curdled and boiled. Blake’s face when the knife slit skin. The blood. The copper. Amelia’s voice, begging for something I never learned how to give.
The girl came, loud and shaky, nails raking my neck. I didn’t even slow down.
I kept fucking her, desperate, until I felt it break loose in my spine. Heat and hunger and the sickness that always led back to Amelia.
I buried my face in her shoulder as I came.
I hated her. I needed her. I wanted to drag her from my mind and fuck her for real, watch her fall apart for me, because she was always the one, always the only one that mattered.
The girl sagged against me, panting. “That was…fuck. Wow.”
I didn’t answer. Pulled out, zipped up, washed my hands in scalding water until my skin burned.
I left her. Went back to my table and poured another drink. Let the taste of sex and memory and guilt rot me from the inside out.
But nothing numbed it. Not the girl. Not the booze. Not the violence echoing in my bones.
All I could see was Amelia. Amelia in the cage, Amelia on her knees, Amelia’s voice torn, crying my name.
Fuck. She was in my blood. A poison I couldn’t sweat out.
I sat there for hours, staring into the bottom of my glass. Watched the world go on around me. Music, laughter, bodies smashing together.
But I was alone. I’d never been lonelier. She was gone, and I was still starving. And I’d do it all again, just to feel the scrape of her soul against mine one more time.
No escape. No cure. Just the ache, twisting deeper, meaner, sweeter, every single night.
Amelia, Amelia, Amelia.
And I wanted her so bad it fucking ruined me.