CHAPTER FORTY ONE
RAVEN
Damien hasn’t spoken for ten minutes.
He’s standing in the middle of the living room like the floor might vanish if he moves too fast. One hand in his hair. The other hung at his side. His jaw keeps clenching, unclenching. Like he’s chewing glass.
I sit curled on the couch, watching him like I’m waiting for the ground to shake.
It already has.
I just don’t know how deep the fracture runs yet.
“Tell me,” I say softly.
His eyes flick to mine—sharp, wild, unsteady.
“I need a second,” he breathes.
That scares me more than shouting ever could.
Because Damien doesn’t stall. He doesn’t freeze.
He acts.
Always.
He walks to the table.
Picks something up.
Turns.
And then he holds it out.
A photo.
My throat closes.
It’s me.
In bed.
This bed.
Taken from above—before he ever touched me, before I ever knew what his voice sounded like in the dark.
The angle is wrong.
This photo isn’t his.
He knows it.
And now, so do I.
There’s a line of ink along the bottom.
She always made that sound when she dreamed.
My knees go weak.
I sit because I have to.
Because my legs stop working.
Because whoever wrote that—
Was here?
“Do you remember this?” he asks, voice razor-thin.
I shake my head. “No. I mean—I don’t know. It looks like… me, but—”
“It is you.”
His tone is cold. Hollow. Not angry—wrecked.
I look up at him.
“Damien…”
He paces now, turning tight circles like a tethered thing.
“There’s no record of this. No timestamp. No system ID. There were no traces on the backups. Whoever took this—”
He stops.
Looks at me.
“They were in the apartment before I was.”
“That’s not possible.”
“No,” he says. “It shouldn’t be.”
He walks to the window.
Pulls the blind back one inch. Peers into the street like he expects something to be waiting.
“Tell me everything you remember about that chapel,” he says.
I freeze.
I knew this was coming.
“I told you—”
“Tell me again. Exactly.”
So I do.
I talk about the pew.
The songs I used to hum.
The way the candles smelled.
The door that never quite shut.
I sometimes saw the shoes out of the corner of my eye.
Damien stiffens at that.
“What kind of shoes?”
I blink. “I don’t know—just… black ones. Clean. Laced tight.”
He nods once.
Walks to the safe.
Punches the code.
Pulls out a black envelope.
Inside are three photos.
He fans them out like a deck of cards.
The same shoes.
Worn by three different men.
Three different victims.
All watched someone before they broke.
I stare at the photos.
And my stomach turns.
Because one of the men—
The third one, grainy, almost out of frame—
Looks like someone I used to know.
But the name won’t come.
It’s buried.
Coated in ash.
“Do you remember him?” Damien asks.
I nod, barely.
“I think he was…” I pause. “He worked at the school. Years ago. Janitor, maybe? Or campus safety. I don’t know.”
Damien looks at me.
Not at my face.
At my hands.
And I realise I’m shaking again.
I balled them into fists.
He kneels in front of me.
Grips my thighs. Tight. Grounding.
“Listen to me,” he says. “Whoever he is—he isn’t just watching anymore.”
I meet his eyes.
And for the first time…
He looks afraid.
Truly afraid.
“What does he want?” I whisper.
Damien doesn’t answer.
Not right away.
When he finally speaks, it’s so quiet I almost miss it.
“I think he wants to finish what I interrupted.”
Damien’s hands are tight on my thighs.
Too tight.
His jaw ticks once. Then again.
I can feel his heartbeat through the grip. Hard. Staggered.
He’s not trying to scare me.
He’s trying not to fall apart.
“Finish what you interrupted,” I whisper again. “What does that mean?”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he rises—slow, heavy—and walks into the surveillance room.
I follow.
The screens are lit, feed after feed running smooth. Looping. Normal.
Too normal.
He freezes.
So do I.
One of the hallway monitors is static.
Just one.
The one facing the front door.
Damien zooms in.
Still noise.
He flips to the backup channel.
And that’s when I see it.
Not a person.
Not movement.
A package.
Small.
Wrapped in white cloth.
Tied with a red ribbon.
No label.
Just resting against the centre of our front door.
My stomach caves.
He’s been here.
Not last week.
Not last night.
Now.
I back away.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no—how did he—”
“I don’t know,” Damien says, already strapping his gun to his back.
His voice is wrong.
Not calm.
Not angry.
Uncertain.
That scares me more than anything.
He moves toward the door.
I grab his arm.
“Don’t open it.”
He pauses.
Looks at me.
And then says something that feels like ice in my bloodstream.
“He didn’t leave it for you.”
My pulse kicks.
“What?”
“He didn’t leave it for you, Raven.”
He unbolts the door.
Swings it open—
The hall is empty.
Not a sound.
Not a breath.
The building is dead quiet.
He kneels.
Lifts the package with gloved hands.
Brings it inside.
Closes and locks the door.
I stand frozen near the couch as he unties the ribbon and peels back the cloth.
What’s inside isn’t violent.
It’s not even grotesque.
It’s quiet.
It’s a child’s rosary.
Worn. Wooden.
The beads darkened with oil and time.
There’s a note folded underneath it.
I want to scream.
But I can’t.
Because I know what that rosary is.
I’ve seen it before.
I used to keep it in my dorm drawer.
And I haven’t seen it in over a decade.
Damien opens the note.
He doesn’t let me read it.
He reads it silently.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
His hands start to shake.
“Damien—” I say, stepping forward.
He lifts his head.
His eyes meet mine.
And then he says quietly:
“He knows my name.”
I go cold.
“What?”
He hands me the note.
One sentence.
Tight script.
No name.
Just:
You took her once. I’m just taking her back.