Chapter 25 #2
And then, in the reflection of a mirror draped in silk-like webs, I see him.
He isn't running. He's strolling. He's just behind me, his silhouette tall and imposing, his eyes locked onto my reflection with a terrifying, obsessive intensity. He looks like the king of this distorted world, and I am just a frightened little bird trapped in his cage of glass.
I scramble backward, my heels clicking frantically against the cold floor, the sound echoing a thousand times over in this glass hell.
Every time I glance at a mirror, I see a fractured, distorted version of myself—pale, trembling, and broken—peeking through the thick, grey curtains of cobwebs.
The webs are the only thing saving me from the full sight of my own reflection, but they aren't enough.
I can still see my wide, terrified eyes staring back at me from a dozen different angles.
Rhys doesn't rush. He doesn't need to. He moves with a slow, predatory grace, his boots thudding rhythmically, closing the distance. He looks absolutely fucking mental—his eyes are blown wide, shimmering with a manic, obsessive light that tells me he’s completely lost the plot.
"I turned the maze like this tonight for a reason, love," he purrs, his voice a low, vibrating threat that makes the hair on my arms stand up. "For you. I wanted to throw you in with the sharks... but first," he pauses, a dark, twisted smile curling his lips, "I have to charm the water."
My breath hitches. I know exactly what he means. He knows my fear of mirrors—the way they make me feel like I'm splitting apart, the way my own reflection feels like a ghost of my sisters waiting to swallow me whole. He’s not just trapping me in a maze; he’s trapping me inside my own fucking head.
"Get away from me," I whisper, my voice shaking. "Rhys, please, just... get away."
He lets out a short, sharp laugh that sounds more like a bark.
In a blur of motion, he lunges. Before I can even scream, his hand slams into the mirror behind me.
The glass doesn't break, but the sound is like a gunshot in the silence.
He pins me against the cold surface, his body a wall of hard muscle crushing me into the glass.
He grabs my jaw, his fingers digging into my skin with a bruising force, forcing my head up so I have no choice but to look. He doesn't make me look at him. He forces my gaze into the mirror, right into the eyes of my reflection.
"Look at her, Ophelia," he hisses, his breath hot and smelling of mint and something metallic. "Look at this beautiful, shivering little thing. Is this the girl who thinks she can joke about fucking Nicole's mother? Is this the girl who thinks she can play games with my patience?"
"It was a joke!" I sob, trying to twist away, but he tightens his grip on my jaw until I can barely breathe.
"I don't fucking joke about what belongs to me," he snarls, his voice dropping to a guttural, animalistic register.
He leans in, his lips brushing against my ear, but there is no tenderness in it—only a promise of ruin.
"You are mine. Every scream, every tear, every filthy thought in your head belongs to me.
I will carve my name into your soul until there is nothing left of you but what I allow. "
He suddenly releases my jaw only to grab a handful of my hair, yanking my head back with a violent jerk.
I gasp, my back arching against the mirror.
He presses me harder against the glass, the coldness of it seeping through my dress, while his other hand slides down to my throat, not squeezing yet, but resting there—a heavy, suffocating reminder that he could snap my neck in a heartbeat.
"You're terrified, aren't you?" he whispers, his eyes dancing with a psychotic glee. "I can feel your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. You hate this place. You hate seeing yourself. You feel like you're disappearing, don't you, you little doll?"
He begins to move his hand, not toward my clothes, but toward the mirror. He finds a spot where the cobwebs are thin, and he begins to smear the glass with his palm, clearing a perfect, unobstructed window to my reflection.
"Look at yourself," he commands, his voice a haunting, sinful rasp. "Look at how broken you are. Look at how much you need me to put you back together. You are nothing without my shadow over you. You are a void, Ophelia, and I am the only thing filling it."
I start to hyperventilate, the walls of mirrors closing in, the distorted images of us—this monster and his prey—multiplying into infinity.
I feel completely stripped bare, not physically, but psychologically.
He has found the one place where I am most vulnerable and he is using it to dismantle me, piece by agonizing piece.
He leans his forehead against mine, his eyes locked onto mine in the reflection. He looks absolutely possessed, a dark god of obsession and cruelty.
"I'm going to break you here," he whispers, a terrifyingly calm promise. "I'm going to shatter every mirror in this room, and then I'm going to shatter you, until the only reflection you ever see for the rest of your long, beautiful life... is me.”
I’m shaking so hard I can barely stand, pinned between the cold glass and the heat of his psychotic intensity.
He looks dangerously handsome—like a fallen angel who’s decided that heaven was too boring and hell wasn't cruel enough.
His eyes are wide, shimmering with a hunger that isn't just sexual; it's a desire to consume every single piece of my sanity.
"I love you, Ophelia," he whispers, the words sounding like a prayer and a death sentence all at once.
I let out a wet, jagged sob, my voice cracking. "I... I don't love you. I can't. You're a fucking monster."
A slow, terrifying smile spreads across his face.
He doesn't look hurt; he looks excited. "You will," he purrs, his voice dropping to a guttural rasp.
"I'll carve that love into you. I'll strip away everything else until I'm the only thing left in your world.
You'll beg to love me just to make the shaking stop. "
The mirrors multiply him a thousand times over, each reflection a different angle of his madness, his hands pinning my wrists above my head against the cold glass. His breath ghosts across my ear, hot and trembling with something unholy.
"Look at them, Ophelia. Every single one of them watching. Every single one of them knowing you're mine. Mine in every fucking reflection. Mine in every fucking lifetime. Even the ones where I have to carve your name into my own skin just to remember how to breathe without you."
I swallow hard, my voice cracking. "Rhys... what are you—"
"Shhh. Don't interrupt the sermon, love.
This is church now. These mirrors are my stained glass, and you're the bloody altar.
I could fuck you right here, right now, and every version of you would watch.
Every version of me would claim you. I'd make you come so hard the glass would crack from the sound of your screams."
"But... why here? Why like this?"
"Because this is where the truth lives, cracked doll. Where there's no hiding from what we are. I want you to see how many ways I own you. How many ways I'd break the world open if it tried to take you from me. I'd burn every fucking reflection if it meant keeping just one of you."
His grip tightens, his body pressing harder against mine, voice dropping to something velvet and venomous.
"You're not leaving this house of mirrors, Ophelia.
Not until every single reflection of you knows who you belong to.
Not until you understand that even if I have to chase you through a thousand fucking lifetimes, I'll find you.
I'll take you. I'll keep you. And when the glass finally shatters, it'll be because we broke it together. "
The house of mirrors warps everything around us, but his grip goes to and my waist stays iron-solid, dragging me deeper into the endless reflections. His breath is hot against my ear, voice low and shaking with that unhinged devotion that makes my stomach twist.
"Look at you, Ophelia. Look at every fucking version of you staring back at us.
Do you see how perfect you are? How every angle, every shard of glass, every broken reflection still belongs to me?
They all do. Every single one. I could shatter every mirror in here and still find you in the pieces.
I'd cut my hands open just to hold every fragment that has your face in it. "
I swallow hard, my voice small in the maze. "Rhys… what are you on about?"
He laughs, soft and unhinged, lips brushing the shell of my ear.
"I'm on about eternity, love. About how I want to carve your name into my ribs so every breath I take is yours.
About how if someone else so much as looks at you too long, I'll rip their eyes out and keep them in a jar on the shelf so they can watch you forever without ever touching you.
You're mine. Not just the flesh, not just the cunt I fuck raw every night—every thought, every scream, every tear. Even the ones you haven't cried yet."
My fingers tighten on his wrist. "You're mental."
"Mental for you," he murmurs, spinning me so my back hits cold glass.
His hand slides up to my throat, thumb stroking the frantic pulse there.
"I'd drink your blood if it meant keeping a piece of you inside me.
I'd let you carve my heart out with a rusty nail if it proved I belong to you.
I'd kill for you, die for you, burn the whole fucking world down and dance in the ashes if it meant you'd smile at me after.
You're not my obsession, Ophelia—you're my fucking religion.
And I'll worship at your altar until my knees bleed and my tongue falls out from saying your name. "
He presses his forehead to mine, eyes wild and glassy in the fractured light. "Say it. Say you're mine."