16. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Julianna
T he last thing Creed says before he leaves me as dawn starts creeping in is, “Sleep. I’ll be back in an hour.”
He tucks the covers up to my chin like a parody of normalcy, as if he’s not the same man who had me bent over a rock an hour ago, who signed his name into my skin with a needle and ink so permanent it hurts to breathe.
He runs his fingers along the edge of the duvet, pausing at my collarbone, pressing the fabric down as if he’s tucking the tattoo in for the night too.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmurs. There’s a strange carefulness to the way he looks at me, as if I’m a thing already cracked and he’s afraid to touch too hard, lest I turn to powder and float away.
But he knows better. He knows I can hold my own.
The funny thing is… I love it when he looks at me like this. Speaks to me in that soft, raspy voice. Like he doesn’t need to be hard all the time, but the only one he will open up for is me.
He stands. Straightens. Switches the space heater to ON and a red glow spreads across the wood floor, melting the chill that pooled in my bones.
The click of the dial is louder than it should be, loud enough to startle me, but I don’t flinch.
I just watch him, memorizing the way his shoulders roll under the fabric of his shirt, the way his eyes come back to rest on mine.
“I’ll bring food,” he says, “and more First Aid stuff for the rest of you.”
I nod. He’s already halfway out the door when he turns back.
“Be a good girl and sleep for me, can you do that?”
Stifling the grin, I reply, “Yes, daddy Creed, I can do that.”
He huffs, but there’s an undeniable twitch in his lips.
The door closes behind him, and I’m alone.
The heater breathes hot air, rattling, like it’s counting down the seconds until it can shut off again. I lie still, eyes open, watching the dust motes swirl in the new sun through the narrow slit of the bedroom window.
It’s only then that the ache in my collarbone makes itself known.
Not sharp, not even a throb, just a heat, a hum, like a brand under the bandage Creed slapped on before carting me to bed.
I lift a hand, fingertips grazing the edge of the gauze.
I could peel it back, look at the name he put there, but I don’t.
I know what it says. I know what it means.
The truth of it is tattooed in the meat of me, in the marrow, even if the ink is only skin deep.
I let my hand drop back to the comforter, splay my fingers wide, watch how the light slips through them, fragmenting on the bedsheets.
I flex. My hands look different today. Stronger.
More real. The skin on my knuckles is raw from where the boulder scratched and scraped, and there’s a new bruise blooming across the palm of my right forearm, half-moon, purple, so beautiful in it’s color array.
This feels like a fever dream, but if it is, I don’t want to wake up.
How fast it happened.
How fast I became this.
However many days ago, I was a surgeon, all bloodless control and ninety-hour weeks, numb to everything except the rhythm of machines.
My only company: ghostly nurses, silent patients, the endless, round carousel of death and almost-death.
By my hands and mine alone. My apartment was a collection of art pieces, none of which I could remember buying.
My wardrobe: black, navy, gray, a tactical camo for blending in with the dead spaces of the world.
Now: I’m in a cabin, in the woods, in a bed that’s not mine, waiting for a man to bring me breakfast like a well-trained pet.
If my mother could see me, she’d laugh, and then she’d die of shame.
I sigh, long and shaky, and feel the sadness pass through me like water through a sieve. It doesn’t stick; nothing does. Instead, something like relief blossoms in my chest. I’m not supposed to be here, but for the first time in years, the not-supposed-to is a comfort.
My eyes are heavy and my body is still exhausted. Just another hour. The heater’s hiss is a lullaby. I close my eyes and try to count the seconds until I sleep.
I don’t make it to ten.
Dreams come in staccato flashes, some borrowed from my childhood, others just stitched together from memory fragments: The cold gleam of an OR lamp.
The taste of cheap whiskey on Creed’s tongue.
The pressure of a scalpel against skin. The slap of a collar against my throat, the sound so final and beautiful that I moan even in sleep.
I wake to the sense of being watched, the feeling coiling in my gut before I even open my eyes. When I do, the room is empty, but the air is thick with presence. I twist in the bed, blankets wound around my legs, and stare at the door.
It’s closed. The only thing new is the scent of coffee drifting in from somewhere else in the house, sharp and bitter and perfect.
It’s so domestic I want to laugh, but instead I roll to my back and stare at the ceiling, tracing the lines of wood that run the length of the room.
My fingers find my collarbone again, tap tap tap, as if I’m trying to Morse code myself out of whatever this is.
Only, there’s no escape. Even if I wanted to leave, he’s under my skin, a living, breathing part of me now.
I’m awake, but not. My body is heavy, useless, like it’s already started the process of shutting down for winter. I ache in places I thought only existed in med textbooks.
It takes me a solid two minutes to get upright. My head is thick with sleep, but my limbs move fine. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, plant my feet on the floor. The skin at my heel cracks, a thin line of pain, but I like the way it grounds me.
I shuffle to the window and press my forehead to the cold glass.
The woods outside are so silent it’s like someone hit MUTE on the whole world.
Everything is frosted and it looks cold as fuck.
I stare at the trees, counting the branches, looking for movement, for evidence of anything living.
Nothing. I can almost believe I am the last person on earth.
Except for the fact that my man is busy cooking and my stomach is growling.
A flash of memory hits me between the legs: Creed’s hands on my hips, the flex of his arms as he held me down, the rasp of his voice in my ear as he told me exactly how this would end.
I should hate him for it. But I don’t. I think maybe I love him for it, a little bit, which is so fucked up that I almost start laughing.
I glance at the door. I consider running, just for the sport, just to see if he meant it when he said he could always find me. But instead, my legs take me to the bathroom.
I let myself relax.
I let myself be wanted.
I let myself be seen, even if only by the last monster left standing.
Sliding my hand down to my stomach, curling it there, and thinking about how much of me he owns now.
Somehow… I don’t hate it.
I think I might even like it.
By the time I’m done, the water is running cold, but I’m clean, even if I smell like some woodsy shampoo.
Before I can get dressed, I hear it. I’m almost sure I’m imagining it, a phantom sound, a leftover from a life spent flinching at every new notification, every new crisis.
But then it happens again. Not the shrill, insistent whine of the hospital pager, but a softer, more desperate sound. A digital death rattle.
It’s coming from the nightstand.
My phone. It’s been so long, I don’t even recognize the sound of it.
I blink, not trusting it, not trusting myself. It’s a primitive kind of fear, the kind that turns your spine to water and your skin to ice. He left it here. He left it here on purpose.
Reaching out, my hand trembles. The screen is cool under my thumb, the plastic casing familiar and foreign all at once. I drag it towards me, clutch it to my chest, and only then do I press the side button.
The light blinds me. I squint, shielding my eyes, but the details bleed through anyway:
57 missed calls.
41 unread texts.
A wall of red badge icons, each more insistent than the last. My thumb moves on its own, unlocking the phone. The background is a photo from a surgical conference, me, front and center, flanked by men who all look exactly the same. Their smiles are fake. Mine is too.
The first message is from the hospital administrator. “Dr. Whitmore, your absence has caused major scheduling issues. Please respond ASAP or your credentialing will be suspended.” The timestamp is yesterday, 2:43 a.m.
Below it, one from my colleague. “Jules, are you okay? You didn’t show for rounds, and the OR is pissed. Call me when you can.”
Then: “Two pediatric transplants bumped. What do you want me to tell them?”
Then: “They’re going to start looking, you know. Even you can’t hide forever.”
The stream goes on, relentless. Patients rescheduled.
Nurses begging for guidance. Billing errors.
Insurance fuckups. Conference invitations.
Credentialing threats. A dozen med students, each more groveling than the last, all wondering if I can sign off on their rotations so they don’t lose their spots.
I scroll, faster and faster, but the further I go, the more it all overwhelms me. This was my life? A nightmare with no exit, no rest. My breathing picks up, tight and shallow. My jaw locks up. I can feel the vein in my temple ticking out each second as the panic mounts.
I open an email from the director of surgery.
It’s a full paragraph of disappointment, veiled as concern.
“We are concerned about your absence, Julianna. Please let me know if you require support, or if there’s someone who can step in.
Patient care is our priority.” I want to throw the phone across the room, but I can’t let go.
The room starts to close in, walls bending at the corners, ceiling pressing down until there’s barely enough oxygen left to breathe. My pulse is a sickening thud in my ears.
I scroll, desperate for anything that isn’t a demand or a threat. I find a single message from a number I don’t recognize. It’s one line, nothing else.
“You’re allowed to be happy.”
I read it once. Then twice. Then a third time, as if repetition will make it make sense.
Happy. The word is so alien it could be a typo. A cruel autocorrect.
I drop the phone onto the covers, let it buzz and ping and scream all it wants. I curl my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and bury my face in the dark.
This is what I left behind.
This is what I could go back to.
But all I can think about is the warmth of Creed’s hand on my thigh, the way he says I am his, the way he looks at me like I am the only thing in the world that could possibly matter.
My old life is a cage made of expectations and endless, grinding need. This new one is a prison if you look from the outside, but from in here, it holds all the freedom I ever wanted.
My breathing slows, the panic melting into a simmering rage, then something colder. Something almost peaceful.
The phone pings again. My arm arcs, the phone pinched in my fist, and I slam it against the wall with all the hate and hope I have left in me.
It hits with a sound like bone breaking, a perfect, hollow crack, and then falls to the floor in three pieces. Screen, battery, plastic shell. The glass spiderwebs instantly, and for a heartbeat the room goes dead silent, like it’s trying to decide whether to breathe or just give up altogether.
I breathe. For the first time in hours, maybe days, I really breathe.
The world doesn’t end. The world doesn’t even flinch.
Instead, a weight I didn’t know I was carrying just… evaporates.
I stand there, bare feet numb against the floor, and watch the shards glitter in the weak afternoon light. There’s a dark satisfaction in it, an animal joy. I flex my fingers, shake out my hands, and let the violence echo inside my chest until the aftershocks settle.
A laugh bubbles up, sour at first, then sweet. I let it out, and it fills the space, bounces off the walls, makes the heater stutter its rhythm in surprise.
“Fuck you,” I say to the phone. To the world. To myself.
My shoulders drop. The tension that’s been living there forever sloughs off like dead skin. I feel the edges of my mouth twitch, threatening to curl up into an actual smile. It feels so alien I almost want to cry.
I don’t.
I walk to the center of the room, stepping carefully around the debris, and kneel.
It’s not a punishment, not a prayer, not even a surrender. It’s just what my body wants. To be anchored, to be still, to wait for whatever comes next. I fold my hands over my thighs, straighten my back, bow my head. The pose is deliberate. It’s the first thing I’ve chosen for myself in a long time.
The heater hums behind me, a steady drone that vibrates in my bones.
I think about the line of ink under the bandage on my collarbone, the name that’s now part of my anatomy.
I think about Creed, the way he looked at me this morning, the way he touched me like I was something precious and doomed.
I think about the next hour, the next minute, the next breath.
My heart slows, then steadies. I could stay like this forever.
In the corner, the phone is just a relic now, a dead limb, a shed skin, proof that I ever belonged to a world that wanted nothing from me except more.
I don’t belong to that world anymore.
I belong to this one.
The sun moves across the floor in slow, deliberate arcs. I watch the light change, let it warm my face, let it remind me that I am still here. That I am real. That I chose this, even if I never really had a choice.
The door opens behind me, hinges whining in protest. I don’t turn. I don’t flinch. I just sit, perfectly still, and wait for Creed to find me.
Because I know he will.
And I know that when he does, he’ll see exactly what he made.
Exactly what I always was.
Exactly what I always wanted to be.