CHAPTER 6.5
DAMIEN
Her bedroom light had just gone out.
She always took exactly seventeen minutes after the lights went off before falling asleep. I knew because I’d watched. Timed it. Studied the shape of her silhouette as she curled beneath the blankets and dragged her demons around herself like armour.
Raven locked her window tonight.
Cute.
The roof access two storeys up remained unlocked and the fire escape she thought was too high to reach? Not for me. Not with gloves. Not with intent.
She wanted to believe she was safe.
I wanted to believe I was merciful.
I slid the window open silently—slowly, deliberately, careful not to let it screech on the warped metal frame. I stepped into the room as if I’d always belonged there, as if I wasn’t trespassing but returning to a space already carved out for me in her world.
Her room was small. A cheap flat in a bad part of the city. The kind of place no one would ask questions if she disappeared. The kind of place where screams might get ignored.
Not that she’d scream.
Not for me.
My boots hit the hardwood with barely a sound. I didn’t breathe until I saw her.
There she was.
Curled on her side, facing the window. Facing me.
But she didn’t wake.
Not yet.
Not as I crossed the floor and stood beside her bed, watching the way the moonlight cut across her throat. Watching the way one hand clutched the blanket like she needed it to stay grounded.
I crouched beside her and didn’t move.
Just…watched.
For a long time.
“You leave the window unlocked on purpose sometimes,” I whispered to the quiet. “Don’t you?”
She shifted in her sleep. A tiny sound left her lips.
I nearly moaned.
My fingers hovered over her cheek. Close enough to feel the warmth of her skin, but not close enough to touch.
Not yet.
She sighed, soft and wrecked, and I saw her mouth move. A sound. A word.
My name.
Barely audible.
Like a dream she wasn’t ready to wake from.
I leaned in, whispering into the dark. “I’m already here, little spider.”
I stood up, turned slowly, and walked through the room like a collector in a museum. I took nothing. I touched everything.
Her books. Her headphones. The sweater still smelled like her shampoo.
I opened her drawer. Found her journal. I didn’t read it.
Just touched the spine and imagined her hand holding the pen, scribbling in the dark when she thought no one saw her.
I opened her wardrobe. Stared at the empty space where she hung the one black dress I hated. The one she wore when other men looked at her.
I found her perfume. Sprayed it once into the air. Let it settle over me like a drug.
And when I turned back to her sleeping body?
I smiled.
Because I knew something she didn’t.
This wasn’t the first time I’d imagined her chained to my bed.
It was the first time I walked into her life and didn’t need to imagine anymore.
I left just before 3:00 a.m. Quiet. Careful. Slow.
But not before I did one thing.
I bent beside her sleeping form, close enough to press my lips to her ear, and whispered:
“Don’t ever lock the window again.”
I let the words hang there. Let them drip down into her sleeping mind like venom.
This isn’t just about obsession.
It’s about conditioning.
She shifts again under the blanket. Her brows twitch like she’s dreaming something heavy. Maybe I’m already in it. Maybe she’s running in her sleep and doesn’t know it’s me chasing her.
I step back and just watch her breathe.
Slow. Steady. Fragile.
I wonder how long it would take for her to break if I stayed.
If I let her wake up with me still here.
Would she scream?
Or would she freeze?
Would she whisper my name the way she did in her sleep—soft, broken, breathless—like a prayer carved in bruises?
I reach for the blanket and drag it down an inch—just to see more of her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder.
Perfect.
She sleeps as if she’s waiting to be claimed. Waiting to be owned.
And I’m going to take her in layers.
Not just her body.
Her time.
Her space.
Her privacy.
Her trust.
I’ll carve myself into the softest parts of her life until there’s nowhere she can look without seeing me.
I slide one of her notebooks off the nightstand. It’s not the journal—I already felt that spine—but this one’s lined with messy scrawls and ink stains. Her handwriting’s erratic. Emotional. Beautiful.
A grocery list. A poem.
And a line that stops my breath cold.
I don’t think anyone’s ever really loved me without trying to possess me.
I stare at the words.
Then I laugh. Quiet. Sharp.
“That’s the point, baby.”
I tuck the notebook back exactly where it was. I want her to feel something when she touches it tomorrow. A chill. A flicker of unease. Like maybe her memory isn’t lying. Like maybe someone was in her room.
Because I was.
And I’ll be back.
I take one last look at her—the girl who thinks she’s free. The girl who thinks no one is watching.
“You will never be alone again,” I murmur. “Not unless I say so.”
I slip out the way I came.
Quiet.
Invisible.
But I left the window unlocked this time.
On purpose.
Because the next time I crawl through it…
I won’t be leaving before sunrise.