12. Kennedy
Kennedy
After a night of countless pleasures—so many I lost track of where one ended and the next began—my body had nothing left to give. Limbs trembling, breath shallow, brain foggy with the lingering haze of release, I could only lie there in the tangle of my blankets, weak and boneless.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even think straight.
As my eyelids fluttered shut, heavy with sleep and satisfaction, I caught a final glimpse of the Carver slipping silently out of my bedroom. No sound. No wave goodbye. Just a shadow vanishing behind the door like a figment of my imagination.
Because it was my imagination , I thought as my lashes drifted downward. Not real. Just another dream...
When I woke again, it was daylight. I was nude, but that didn’t strike me as unusual. I had a habit of overheating in my sleep, often waking up tangled in sweaty sheets with my clothes shed somewhere on the floor.
I sat up slowly, a soft groan escaping my lips as my body protested the movement.
Every inch of me was aching like I’d just run a marathon.
My legs were sore, my stomach muscles were tight, and my shoulders were stiff.
On top of that, the back of my left thigh was stinging, sharp and hot. I must’ve scratched myself in my sleep.
I reached up and touched my neck. It still tingled faintly where the imaginary Carver’s hand had rested in my dream.
A wave of heat bloomed across my chest as more memories of the dream slammed into me. His blade gliding down my chest. His body using mine like it belonged to him. It all felt so real, and so fucking good.
I dragged in a shaky breath, slowly shaking my head. “Jesus,” I muttered to myself. “That dream was...”
I didn’t finish the thought. Instead, I looked over at my phone on the nightstand. Maybe it was finally time to come clean about my fantasies to a therapist. Someone like Jacob.
As soon as the thought struck me, the memory of last night’s weirdly intimate yet platonic dinner with him flickered into my mind.
The strange thing he’d said at the end, and the way the air between us had shifted from easy to uneasy in the span of a few seconds…
it wouldn’t stop needling at my brain, and I still couldn’t decide if he was dangerous or if it was all a total coincidence.
My thoughts were cut off by my phone buzzing, and I reached over to the nightstand to grab it. Speak of the devil…
Jacob had just messaged me.
Hi, Kennedy. Putting aside all professionalism here.
I know things got a bit weird between us last night, but overall, I had a really good time with you, and I’d love to do it again sometime.
I know how wildly inappropriate this sounds, given how we met, so I totally understand if the answer is no. Hoping it’s a yes, though.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek as I considered my response. He was a good-looking guy, that was for sure. Very good-looking, in fact, and last night had been fun until the weirdness started. But that weirdness couldn’t be discounted. Not when it creeped me out so much.
I finally sent back a polite but clear rejection. Hi, Jacob. Thanks, but I’m not looking to date right now. I’ve got a lot going on, and I need to focus on figuring myself out first. Hope you understand.
I tossed the phone back on the nightstand and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. I needed to get out of this bed. And out of my head, if that was a possibility.
Smothering another yawn, I finally stood up and swung my legs over the side, wincing as the sting in my thigh worsened. God, how badly had I scratched myself last night? It felt like I’d been attacked by a damn wildcat.
I trudged over to my full-length mirror and turned my head over my shoulder to look at the back of my leg. There, carved into my thigh just beneath the curve of my ass, was a letter.
K.
Not a scratch. Not an accident. A deliberate cut.
I whipped my head around, heart thudding, and that was when I finally noticed it. Blood, speckled across the pale lilac sheets where I’d slept. I hadn’t noticed it before, not with the blankets still tucked around me.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, knees buckling as I slid to the floor. “ Fuck .”
It was real after all. The Carver had actually been here. And I’d…
Oh, god, I’d actually done all those filthy, unspeakable things with him.
But how ? How the hell did he even get inside my house?
There was a patrol car with two officers parked out front, and a full security system wired to every door and window.
The only way someone could’ve bypassed all of it was if they had my four- digit security PIN, downloaded the system’s app, connected to my Wi-Fi, and silenced the alerts before breaking in through the side door or back door.
But… that wasn’t possible. I’d only given my PIN to one person since the last time I reset it, and that was Dec. He’d just spent the entire night in lockup due to his drunken antics, and he was probably still there right now, so there was no way he was responsible.
Still, the Carver had gotten into my house somehow. That letter didn’t appear on my leg by magic.
I lurched to my feet, adrenaline spiking. I had to tell the police what had happened right away. They knew a lot more than me. They could figure out exactly how—
I stopped short, shoulders sagging as a realization struck me. I couldn’t tell the police about the break-in. If I did, they’d want to see all the footage from the security cameras in my house… and there was a camera in my bedroom. With full audio, too.
Once they watched last night’s footage, they’d see and hear me begging for the masked intruder to fuck my brains out. They’d hear me telling him to make it hurt. See me throw my head back in ecstasy as the knife traced a bloody line down my leg. See me writhing from climax after climax.
I wouldn’t exactly look like a hapless victim then, would I?
No, I’d look like a willing participant, because I damn well was . Worse, the police might even start to think I was working as the Carver’s accomplice.
“You fucking idiot,” I muttered to myself, sinking onto the end of my bed. I sucked in a deep breath and slammed my hands into the mattress. “You idiot !”
I’d always disliked characters in TV shows and books who took the most stupid course of action at every opportunity. Too stupid to live, or TSTL, as my friends and I had always called them.
Now, in a twist of irony, I was in the TSTL category. But I wasn’t a fictional character. I was real, and the stupid choices I’d made had very real, very serious repercussions on my life.
It suddenly occurred to me that I should watch the security footage myself, even if I couldn’t show it to anyone else. It would show me exactly how the Carver got in, and it might even give me a glimpse of his face if his skull mask had ever slipped.
I pushed myself off the bed on unsteady legs and grabbed my laptop. Then I went to the security system’s website and tried to log in.
Incorrect password, a popup dialog box informed me.
I blinked. Re-typed it, slower this time.
Incorrect password.
“What?” I whispered, confused. Hadn’t I just changed my password the other day?
A hazy memory surfaced: me on the bus last week, staring at an email from the security company prompting a password update.
I remembered clicking through the steps, fingers moving on autopilot.
But then Malachi’s name lit up my screen for the first time.
His email had pulled all my focus, and now I couldn’t remember if I’d actually hit submit on the update.
I tried my old password just to check, and it instantly worked. Relieved, I made a mental note to change it properly later, then navigated to the video surveillance section of my profile.
I pulled up last night’s footage and started with the back door cam, because that was the most likely entrance the Carver would’ve chosen to avoid being spotted.
I set the timeline to 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m., figuring he could’ve come in anywhere between those times, and then I fast-forwarded, eyes scanning for movement.
Nothing.
Frowning, I checked another camera. Then another. Still nothing.
Finally, I checked the bedroom feed. There I was, asleep in bed. Occasionally shifting, rolling, or kicking off the blankets. Sometimes reaching a hand up to scratch at my cheek or head.
But that was it. Just me, alone all night.
So… apparently, I hadn’t fucked a masked stranger after all. Hadn’t let him tie me to the bed with a belt. Hadn’t let him carve me up with a knife while the thick head of his cock nudged at my asshole. Because there was no masked stranger.
“No,” I whispered, slowly shaking my head. “That’s not possible.”
I knew the Carver was here last night. Knew it.
Granted, I’d easily been convinced that it was just a crazy-realistic dream at first, because I’d had so many damn sex dreams about him lately…
but the second I saw that letter carved on my leg a few minutes ago, I knew it wasn’t a dream.
It really happened. That was why I was so exhausted right now.
Why every muscle ached. Why blood was smeared on my sheets.
I watched the bedroom footage again, slower this time, just to make sure I hadn’t missed something due to all the haze clinging to my thoughts. That was when a stark realization finally hit me.
“You sneaky motherfucker,” I whispered, eyes narrowing as I leaned in closer.
In the footage, I was wearing the same oversized T-shirt I’d thrown on before bed last night, along with a pair of satin shorts. But they weren’t the same shorts I put on last night. Those were black, and the ones in this video were dark purple.
The Carver must’ve edited the footage. Replaced last night’s recordings with old ones, probably to gaslight me into thinking that I’d imagined the whole thing.