CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
DAMIEN
There’s blood on my knuckles, and I don’t remember where it came from.
My breath fogs against the cracked windshield as I sit in the car outside the last known address tied to the psychiatric files I found in the crawlspace. My phone buzzes in the passenger seat, screen lighting up with new intel from the contact who owes me too many favours.
Location pinged.
Abandoned psychiatric facility. Decommissioned 2008.
Privately purchased in 2014 under a false identity.
I already know whose identity.
N.
I grip the wheel until the leather groans.
The name isn’t real, but the footprint is—a string of dead ends and corrupted records that all lead back to one place: The facility where Raven was institutionalised.
The one where they said she made everything up.
I pull the car around the rusted gate and drive slowly up the cracked path.
The building rises in front of me like a grave—three storeys of crumbling brick and glass painted over in black. Barred windows. Sealed doors. But I can feel it.
She’s in there.
And so is he.
I kill the engine, pocket my knife, and step into the silence.
It hits immediately. Not the air—but the absence of it.
There’s something wrong with the way this place breathes.
Like it’s been waiting.
The front doors are unlocked.
He wants me inside.
He wants me to see.
I move fast and quiet, boots barely scuffing the dust-covered floors. I sweep through the entryway and stand in what used to be the main lobby but it’s changed.
The furniture stripped.
The walls repainted.
Now?
It’s a shrine.
To her.
Photos of Raven cover every wall—each phase of her life, from childhood to yesterday. Candle wax pools beneath every frame like an offering.
One wall is covered entirely in glass display cases.
Inside them:
A toothbrush.
A hospital gown.
A hairbrush with strands still tangled in the bristles.
A black sweatshirt that still smells like her skin.
My vision narrows. My pulse stutters.
He’s been building this for years—
a place to remember.
To worship.
To own.
And when I turn the next corner—
a place to keep her.
The hallway is lined with patient-room doors.
One of them is newer. Reinforced.
The nameplate burned out.
But I know.
That’s her room.
She’s on the other side of it.
I step toward the door—
and freeze.
Because the door opens.
And a man stands in the frame.
Wearing my face.
Smiling my smile.
But his eyes?
They’ve never been mine.
They belong to something I should’ve killed years ago.
He stands there like he’s welcoming me home.
Same hair. Same scar on the jawline. Same smirk I use when I know I’ve won.
But his eyes—too wide. Too still.
He’s wearing Damien Mercer like a mask, and underneath it is something feral, ancient, and absolutely fucking wrong.
“You took your time,” he says.
The voice is almost perfect.
Just off by half a second—like a corrupted recording.
I take one step forward.
He mirrors me.
I draw my blade.
He raises his empty hand.
“She still flinches when she hears your name, you know.” His voice softens, intimate.“You branded her. Broke her open. Made it easy for me to crawl back in.”
I don’t speak.
I just lunge.
Fast. Controlled.
The blade sinks in—or should have.
But he twists, catching my wrist mid-air, shoving me into the doorframe with a precision that’s too familiar. Like he’s fought me before. Like he knows how I move.
His face is inches from mine.
“I’ve watched you longer than you’ve watched her.”
A gentle heat slips from his mouth. Steady.
“I memorised every inch of you before you even touched her throat. Before you made her beg. Before you left your fingerprints all over my obsession.”
He shoves me back.
I hit the wall. Hard.
The knife clatters to the floor.
He doesn’t reach for it.
He just stares—like he’s trying to crawl under my skin.
“You think she chose you?” he asks, tilting his head. “You think that little scream she makes at night is because of what you did?” He steps closer. “I was the one who whispered her awake. I was the one who taught her how to be soft. You were just the shadow she chased to feel brave.”
Something in me snaps.
I grab him by the throat and slam him back, my hand crushing his windpipe.
He smiles.
Even as I press harder.
Even as his breath shortens.
“I’ll kill you,” I whisper.
“You already did.”
His voice wheezes through his broken throat.
My grip falters.
And he laughs.
“Check the room, Damien.” He nods past me. “Go ahead. She left you something.”
I shove him away and throw the door open.
The room is small. Too small.
It smells like her—sweat, tears, the perfume she wore the night I first kissed her but she’s not here.
There’s only a mattress. Stained. Shackled. Cold.
And on it—
a recording device.
Still playing.
Raven’s voice. Broken. Ragged.
“Please stop. No—don’t look at me like him. You’re not him. You’re not—”
Then silence.
Then laughter.
His laughter.
Overlapping with mine.
I drop to my knees. Fists clenched so tight my nails pierce skin.
And then I see the wall.
Carved into the paint.
Six words.
She won’t scream your name anymore.