CHAPTER 6.6
RAVEN
Something’s wrong.
I don’t open my eyes. I don’t move.
But I feel it.
The shift in the air. The heaviness. It’s like the room is holding its breath with me.
There’s no sound.
No creak. No whisper.
But something—someone—was here.
The skin between my shoulder blades prickles like it remembers a touch I didn’t feel. I tighten the blanket around my body, pressing my knees to my chest beneath it.
“He’s watching again.”
The voice is back.
Not his. Not Damien’s.
Mine. The one that lives in my skull. The one that came back the last time I forgot how to trust locked doors.
“You left the window open.”
I didn’t.
Not last night. I remember sliding it shut. Locking it. I even double-checked it before I crawled into bed.
I turn my head slowly, eyes flicking towards it now.
Closed.
But someone flipped the lock down.
And I know I didn’t do that.
My throat tightens.
He was here.
Damien.
I swing my legs out of bed, trying not to make a sound. I feel it in my bones. The chill of a presence. The echo of breath that isn’t mine still hangs in the air.
And when my foot hits the floor, I freeze.
My notebook’s out of place.
Just barely.
A half-inch too far to the left on the bedside table. Angled wrong. My fingers tremble as I reach for it.
The line I wrote last night is still there.
I don’t think anyone’s ever really loved me without trying to possess me.
I blink.
It’s smeared.
A fingerprint.
My own? Maybe.
But my stomach twists. My instincts are screaming.
“He touched it.”
I back away from the table. I want to scream, but there’s no one to hear me.
I walk to the wardrobe and grab the sweater I wore yesterday—my comfort sweater, the one I always use to ground myself. But when I hold it to my chest…
I smell something faint. Masculine. Smoke, metal, leather.
Damien.
His scent is on my clothes.
Not in my imagination. Not a hallucination.
Real.
And that’s when the memory hits.
Not a dream. Not a flashback.
A present-tense invasion of the past.
FLASHBACK
There was another boy once.
Not Damien.
A different monster.
I was sixteen. He was older. Smarter. And he liked how quiet I was.
He started with compliments.
Then playlists.
Then photos of me I didn’t remember posing for.
And one night—he left a note under my pillow that said, “You looked beautiful when you cried in the hallway today.”
That was the night I stopped sleeping.
The voices started after that.
One of them said, “Run.”
Another said, “Kill him first.”
But the third voice—the dangerous one—whispered, “What if it’s love?”
I changed schools. Burned the note. Buried the fear.
I never forgot his face.
Damien isn’t him. I know that.
Damien… Damien didn’t appear until months ago. And I know his name because I found it—he left it for me.
On purpose.
A receipt in the bin outside the alley I walk every Thursday night.
His name scrawled in sharp black ink on the side of a coffee cup.
“DAMIEN.”
And next to it?
My fucking name.
“Raven – black, no sugar.”
The exact way I order it.
I kept it. Still have it hidden in the bottom drawer of my desk.
Because part of me wanted proof that I wasn’t losing my mind.
That he was real.
He wanted me to know his name.
He wanted me to feel him, even when he wasn’t here.
And now…
Now he was.
My hands shake as I slide to the floor, pressing my back against the wall. My voice stays silent, but the ones in my head aren’t quiet any more.
“He was here.”
“He’s getting bolder.”
“You let this happen again.”
I dig my nails into my thighs until the sting grounds me. I don’t cry.
I won’t give him that.
But I know now—this isn’t a new story.
It’s a sequel to a nightmare I thought I’d burned to ash.
Only this time?
The monster left the window unlocked on purpose.
I press my palms to the floor.
It’s too cold. Or maybe I am.
The silence is loud again—buzzing like an old TV left on in the next room, a frequency only I can hear. My fingers dig into the floorboard seam by instinct. I breathe through my nose, slow, measured, like that’s going to keep the shaking away.
The wardrobe door’s still cracked.
I didn’t leave it like that.
My eyes lock on the edge of the sweater sleeve sticking out.
The one I haven’t worn in days.
My spine tightens. I stand slowly, knees stiff, and reach for it—fingertips grazing fabric—when a scent hits me that makes my throat close.
Smoke. Leather.
Him.
I yank the sweater back as if it’s bitten me. My arms stay frozen mid-air, sweater clutched in my hands like I’m waiting for it to explain itself.
It doesn’t.
I blink once. Twice.
The bedsheets are wrinkled on the other side. A perfect dip.
I never sleep on that side.
I step backwards.
The mirror catches me.
Hair tangled. Face pale. Eyes wide and glassy, like prey caught in a trap she didn’t know she’d walked into.
I don’t look like I’ve just woken up.
I look like someone dragged me out of a nightmare and dropped me into a new one.
The notebook is still on the bedside table. Slightly off-centre. The corner curled up.
My fingers twitch.
I don’t move towards it.
Not yet.
Instead, I crouch beside my dresser. Bottom drawer. Far back behind the stack of old art supplies I pretend I still use.
My hand finds the paper before I see it.
The coffee sleeve is still there.
Stained. Torn on one side.
DAMIEN.
Below it—my name. Raven.
Same handwriting. Sharp. Slanted. Confident, like he owns everything he touches.
I stare at it for too long.
I don’t blink.
The voices come back one by one.
“You already knew it was him.”
“You invited this.”
“You were always going to let him in.”
I fold the sleeve in half and shove it into my pocket.
I walk to the window.
I unlatch it. Slide it open.
The air hits my face. Damp. Sharp. Early-morning city rot mixed with something colder.
I don’t look out.
I just stand there, eyes closed, breathing it in.
My fingers slide up the frame. Just under the top edge.
And there it is.
Pressed into the wood like a secret.
A thumbprint.
The fingerprint smudges beneath my thumb.
I press harder. Just once. My own mark covers his. Not erasing it—just claiming the space back.
The chain lock on the front door rattles softly when I pass it. I stop. Breathe. Unlock it. Relock it.
Twice.
The bathroom light flickers when I flip the switch. I don’t flinch.
The mirror’s fogged around the edges. No steam. No reason. I lean, watching the shape of my breath bloom across the glass like frost. My eyes are too big. My pupils swallow the colour.
The toothbrush cup is turned backwards.
It never turns backwards.
I don’t touch it.
I sit on the toilet lid, knees to chest, and wait.
A car passes outside.
The fridge hums.
A pipe ticks in the wall.
My ears won’t stop straining for a sound I’ll never hear.
I open my mouth. Close it. My voice doesn’t work here.
I unlock my phone. The screen glares at me like it knows.
Damien.
The name hovers in my recent search bar as if it grew roots there. No photo. No details. Just a black hole where his history should be. My thumb hesitates over it. I don’t tap.
I swipe away every tab and shove the phone under a pillow.
The vent above my bed whistles. I stare at it. It stares back.
The journal is still on the bedside table. Still wrong.
I don’t pick it up.
I slide it into the drawer and close it with my foot.
I lie back on the bed, blanket up to my chin, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The voice returns. Quieter now. Like it’s lying beside me, breathing in sync.
“He never left.”
I keep my eyes open until the sun cuts across the wall in a crooked line.
And I don’t sleep.
Not even when my body begs for it.
He was here.
And I don’t think I’ll ever wake up the same again.