Chapter 18 #2
Not because I have to. Not because circumstances demand it. But because the thought of him leaving, of him existing somewhere I’m not, of him going back to a life that doesn’t include me, makes something violent and desperate claw at my insides.
He’s become an obsession. That’s the word for it.
I’ve had obsessions before. Work that consumed me, targets that occupied my every thought, problems that wouldn’t let me rest until they were solved.
I know what it feels like to be possessed by a singular focus, to have your mind colonized by something outside yourself.
This is like that. This constant circling back to thoughts of Dylan. This need to be near him, to watch over him, to know that he’s safe and comfortable and present. This ache that only eases when I’m in the same room as him.
I’ve traded one obsession for another. That’s all this is. The work that used to fill my empty hours has been replaced by something new. Someone new. A puzzle I can’t solve, a mystery I can’t unravel, a person I can’t stop thinking about.
It’s not healthy. I know it’s not healthy. Obsession never is.
But knowing that doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t make the feeling smaller. Doesn’t loosen the grip it has on my chest.
Dylan murmurs again in his sleep. This time I catch a word. Moira. His aunt’s name. He’s dreaming about her. About the woman who raised him, who taught him to bake, who gave him a home.
Guilt surges through me, hot and acidic. He misses her. Of course he misses her. He’s been ripped away from everyone and everything he loves, trapped in a flat with the man who nearly killed him, and he’s probably dreaming about the life he’ll never get back.
I should let him go. The thought rises unbidden, and I crush it immediately.
I can’t. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I couldn’t. He knows too much. Releasing him would sign both our death warrants. The family doesn’t leave loose ends, and I’ve already bent too many rules by keeping him alive this long.
But those justifications feel hollow now. Paper-thin excuses laid over something much darker and more selfish.
The truth is I don’t want to let him go. The truth is the thought of it makes me feel physically ill. The truth is I would rather burn down everything I’ve built than watch him walk away.
When did this happen? When did I become this person, this desperate, grasping thing that can’t bear the thought of loss?
I’ve spent my whole life alone. I’ve been fine with it. More than fine. Solitude was safety. Isolation was protection. The walls I built around myself kept out pain as effectively as they kept out connection.
Dylan is dismantling those walls, and I don’t know how to stop him. Don’t know if I want to stop him. Don’t know anything anymore except that watching him sleep feels more important than breathing.
He shifts again, rolling onto his back. The movement exposes his throat, pale and vulnerable in the moonlight. My eyes trace the line of it, the flutter of his pulse beneath thin skin. So fragile. So easily damaged. So completely at my mercy.
The thought should make me feel powerful. Instead it just makes me feel afraid.
I’m afraid of myself. Of what I might do to keep him. Of what I might become.
I’ve done terrible things in my life. Hurt people in ways that would give most humans nightmares. I’ve never lost sleep over any of it. Never questioned, never doubted, never felt anything but cold professional satisfaction in a job well done.
But standing here watching Dylan sleep, I find myself afraid of my own capacity for darkness.
Because I know, with absolute certainty, that I would do terrible things for him.
Would burn worlds and end lives and sacrifice whatever scraps of humanity I have left if it meant keeping him safe. Keeping him here. Keeping him mine.
The intensity of it should terrify me. Perhaps it does, somewhere underneath the strange calm that has settled over my mind. But mostly I just feel... resolved. Like something has clicked into place. Like I’ve finally admitted a truth I’ve been dancing around for days.
Dylan O’Shea is mine now. Not because I captured him, not because I’m holding him prisoner, not because circumstances have bound us together. He’s mine because I’ve decided he is. Because something inside me has claimed him in a way that transcends logic or reason or morality.
I don’t know what that means. Don’t know what it makes me. Don’t know how to reconcile this fierce, possessive thing with the careful distance I’ve maintained my whole life.
All I know is that I can’t let him go.
I stand there for a long time, watching him sleep, wrestling with thoughts I don’t know how to process. The moonlight shifts as the night deepens, changing the patterns of silver and shadow across the bed. Dylan’s breathing stays steady, deep and even and trusting.
Eventually, when my legs start to ache and the first hints of gray appear at the edges of the shutters, I force myself to move. To step back. To leave the room and close the door softly behind me.
I return to the horrible sofa and lie down again, though I know sleep won’t come. My mind is too full, spinning with realizations I’m not ready to examine in the harsh light of day.
Tomorrow I’ll go back to being practical.
I’ll make him breakfast and check on his recovery and pretend that everything is normal.
Pretend that I’m keeping him out of necessity rather than desire.
Pretend that this is about guilt and responsibility and not about the terrifying thing growing in my chest.
But tonight, in the dark, I can admit the truth.
I’m not keeping Dylan because I have to.
I’m keeping him because he’s mine.
And I will destroy anyone who tries to take him from me.