Little Scream (Little Nightmare Duet #2)

Chapter 1

DAMIEN

The sound of the tap drips louder at night, each drop falling with the kind of slow, metallic insistence that threads itself through the dark and settles beneath my skin like a warning I can’t ignore.

Or maybe I’m just hearing more things now—things I didn’t used to notice, things that didn’t used to matter.

The slow, tin-sharp clicks of water hitting the sink.

The creak of the floorboards when the old heating system shifts like bones settling under the weight of another sleepless hour.

The soft scrape of Raven’s thigh against the couch leather when she curls in on herself, tucking her knees tighter to her chest as if making herself smaller will make the night less oppressive.

The world used to be quieter.

I used to be quieter.

But something’s changed—something small at first, a hairline crack running through the version of myself I kept sealed and contained. Now it’s widening, groaning through me, impossible to ignore, impossible to fix, impossible to bury under all the other dark things I’ve already swallowed.

Something’s cracked, and I can’t glue it back, can’t seal it up with spider silk and pretend it never happened, can’t choke it down like I’ve choked everything else.

I’ve combed the feeds.

I’ve traced the signal paths, the building entry logs, every flicker of static, every glitch in the lens, every fragment of shadow where something shouldn’t be.

Over and over and over, until it feels like I’ve peeled the skin off the problem and still never found the bone. It keeps slipping sideways, out of reach, just out of sight, taunting me with what it reveals and what it hides.

And he’s still out there.

I can feel him.

Crawling in the walls of my head, threading himself through the seams of my thoughts, leaving fingerprints where he doesn’t belong.

The photo. The rosary.

The fucking note.

You took her once. I’m just taking her back.

The words gnaw like teeth against my skull, scraping slow and deliberate, because I know exactly what they mean, even if I haven’t said it out loud. I don’t have to. They echo through me anyway, bruising everything they touch.

I know what they mean.

The lock clicks.

I’ve checked it five times tonight.

I check it again, the cold metal pressing back against my thumb as though the deadbolt alone is supposed to keep the world out. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. The air in here sits too heavy, too humid against my ribs, thick with the heat of her breathing and my inability to sit still.

Because when I sit still, I see him—standing where I should have stood, pressing his thumb against her lip the way I do, threading his fingers through her hair the way I do, watching her sleep the way I do.

Except he’s not me.

Except maybe he was first.

The thought coils around my spine, tight and cold.

I tighten the strap on my gun like it might hold the rest of me together.

It won’t.

But I tighten it anyway.

Her movement behind me is small, but it cuts through the air like a blade—the soft scuff of bare feet on the wood, the nearly silent inhale she doesn’t know she makes when she thinks she’s invisible.

“Damien,” she says.

A question.

A tether.

A plea.

I don’t turn.

I can’t.

Because if I do, I’ll cage her tighter, crush her under the weight of whatever this is that’s pushing through my skin like it wants out.

She steps closer, drawn to me the way she always is, even when she knows she shouldn’t be.

Her hands slide around my waist, fingers brushing over the fabric of my shirt, hesitant but seeking. Her cheek presses between my shoulder blades like she’s trying to hold me together, or trying to stop something behind me from getting in.

Her heartbeat is too fast. I know she feels mine too—a war drum hammering against my spine, irregular, relentless, too loud for someone who’s supposed to be in control.

“You didn’t sleep,” she says softly.

No, I didn’t.

I’ve been chasing ghosts through network lines, tearing open every backdoor, every hidden port, every feed, every vulnerability I’ve ever patched. I’ve been digging through the dark places on the grid where he likes to hide, where he likes to watch.

I’ve been looking for him.

And he’s been looking back.

She’s too warm against me.

I’m not made for warm things.

I burn through them.

I carve the softness out of them until all that’s left is the part that flinches, the part that obeys, the part that stays even when it shouldn’t.

“Damien,” she breathes, tugging gently at my waist. “Come back.”

I slide my hand over hers, covering her cold fingers with mine.

Mine aren’t cold.

They’ve been clenched too long, blood simmering beneath the surface like something feral pacing behind a locked door.

I peel her hand free and turn.

Her lashes flutter as she tilts her chin up, drawn by instinct or fear or both. There’s a bruise at the base of her throat where I kissed her too hard earlier—a dark bloom against pale skin, a reminder I needed her to carry for me.

Her eyes are wide.

Not scared but waiting.

She wants to believe I can protect her from this.

She doesn’t know I’m the one who dragged her here in the first place.

She doesn’t know I tightened the locks because I don’t trust myself to open them.

She doesn’t know I’m slipping, inch by inch, into something darker.

I hook my finger under her chin.

She breathes shallow when I do that.

I like that.

I live in that breath—the moment it catches, the moment her body tilts between running and folding.

I graze my thumb along her bottom lip.

She’s soft there.

She opens for me—slow, obedient, instinctive.

But I don’t kiss her.

I press my forehead to hers, closing my eyes for a moment that stretches long and quiet.

I let the silence pull me under. I let the weight of everything creeping closer drown in the smell of her skin, the heat of her pulse, the tremble of her fingers curled in the leather of my belt like she doesn’t know whether she’s grounding me or herself.

“You’re not leaving this apartment without me,” I say quietly.

A command.

A cage.

A law she won’t break.

I feel her nod against my mouth.

“And when we go out,” I continue, dragging my thumb across her lip until she shivers, “you’ll stay where I tell you to stay. You’ll speak when I tell you to speak. You’ll walk when I tell you to walk.”

Her breath hitches, sharp and delicate, that perfect edge of almost-fear.

“Say it,” I whisper against her lips.

She trembles.

“I’ll stay,” she says.

“Louder.”

“I’ll stay.”

“Say it like you mean it.”

“I’ll stay,” she bites out, voice shaking now—angry, desperate, cracked open by the part of her that hates me and can’t fucking leave me.

I bite her lip—hard enough to make her gasp—pulling it between my teeth before letting it go.

“I know you will.”

I drag her backwards by her jaw, slow and deliberate, guiding her until her knees hit the edge of the couch and she drops, breath knocking out of her in a sharp exhale.

Her eyes flick toward the door, toward the monitors, toward the feeds she knows I’ve been watching all night even if she can’t see them.

“Don’t look at them.” I grip her jaw harder. “Look at me.”

She does because the other one might be watching but I’m the one she can’t stop looking at and I’m not letting her go.

Not now.

Not ever.

Her thighs are warm where they part for me.

I don’t tell her to open them. I don’t need to.

Her body already knows what I want. The other one—he might be watching.

He might be leaving gifts. He might know my name.

But he doesn’t get to see this. He doesn’t get to see her like this. No one does. No one but me.

I drag her panties down slow, watching the fabric catch on her knees, the thin lace straining against her flushed skin before I pull them the rest of the way off and shove them into my pocket. I want to feel the damp heat of her against my own skin for the rest of the night.

She shivers when the air hits her pussy, when my thumb grazes where she’s softest, when I press down—just enough to make her gasp, just enough to make her bite her lip, just enough to remind her that I own this.

I own her.

Her thighs twitch when I stroke her, slow and cruel, like I have all the time in the world.

I don’t. But I want to break her like I do.

She tilts her hips up, chasing the friction, her body a live wire of need searching for a ground.

I don’t let her have it. I pull my hand away, enjoying the sharp, wounded sound she makes.

Her breath catches. Her fists clench against the couch cushions, knuckles white as she tries to hold herself together while I’m tearing her apart.

“Damien,” she whispers, desperate, wrecked.

I sink to my knees in front of her. My hands slide up the inside of her thighs, rough palms, calloused fingertips, pressing bruises into her skin just from the weight of my grip. I want those marks to be there tomorrow—dark, thumb-shaped reminders of exactly who was holding her.

“Say it again,” I murmur, my lips brushing over her trembling thigh, the heat of her skin radiating against my face.

Her throat bobs. Her lashes flutter. Her voice is a broken thing when it comes out. “I’ll stay.”

My tongue traces the inside of her knee, slow, filthy, deliberate. I feel her legs try to close—I don’t let them. I grip her harder, forcing her open, dragging her wide for me until she’s completely exposed, her vulnerability laid bare.

“You’ll stay.” I kiss higher, closer to the heat. “You’ll obey.” My teeth graze her skin, a sharp, possessive nip. “You’ll cum when I tell you to.”