Tahlia
Idon’t sleep.
Not really.
I pretend to.
I lie still in bed with my eyes closed and my face turned towards the wall like that’ll fool him — whoever him really is — like he’s watching me through a screen somewhere, waiting for the twitch of my hand, the shift of my hips, the slow spread of fear I’ve been swallowing for twelve hours straight.
But I don’t sleep.
I don’t move.
I listen.
For what, I don’t know. A footstep. A breath. A whisper through the vent. The faintest proof that I’m not imagining the weight in the room with me, the sense that the air itself is being held in place by someone else’s attention.
I think about what it would sound like if he spoke to me from inside the wall. If his voice crawled through the plaster at three in the morning like the devil under the bed finally got bored and wanted to say hello.
I wonder if I’d answer.
I wonder if I’d beg.
The thought sits there with me in the dark, not loud, not dramatic — just present, like a bruise you keep pressing because you need to know it’s real.
The sun comes up eventually, but it doesn’t bring peace.
It brings dust across the hardwood and silence in the pipes.
It brings a reminder that I still haven’t left.
Still haven’t screamed. Still haven’t called the police or knocked on my neighbour’s door or thrown a brick through every camera I can find.
Because I’m not ready to lose control.
Because part of me needs to understand.
Needs to map this thing before it finishes swallowing me whole.
I shower, even though the idea of being naked under running water with him watching makes my skin crawl.
I wear a towel for longer than necessary.
Stand dripping on the tile and stare at my reflection in the fogged mirror, watching my own face blur and reform until I can’t tell where I end and the version of me he’s already seen begins.
I wonder when exactly I stopped being scared and started being split.
Because something inside me feels fractured.
Like I don’t know which version of me is real anymore.
The one who’s afraid?
Or the one who liked it?
My phone’s still on the floor where I dropped it last night. I pick it up. Check the camera first. Still hidden. Still there. Still watching.
He hasn’t messaged me again.
And that… hurts more than it should.
Because I didn’t just open the door — I held it for him.
And he walked through, rearranged the furniture, and sat down in the dark without asking.
I should be trying to evict him.
Instead, I pour coffee and check the street outside my window like I’m waiting for a delivery. Like maybe there’ll be a car I don’t recognise. A man standing too still. A note on the windscreen. A fingerprint on the glass.
There’s nothing.
No text.
No knock.
No proof.
But I feel it. I know it. The way you know when you’re being stared at. The way you know something’s wrong even before the sound comes. That itch beneath the skin that says run but never tells you where.
I turn on the TV for noise. Music. Anything. It doesn’t help. Nothing is louder than silence when you know someone else is listening too.
I open my laptop.
I type his name.
Just to see.
Not Hook. That’s not searchable. That’s a ghost story.
But what I do have — what I remember — is the shape of his face.
The scars.
The hook.
And the name he said when the bouncer called him over, quiet but not soft, as if it was a title, not a warning.
James.
I type it in.
Just that.
James. NYC. Club. Velvet Room. Surveillance.
I scroll.
And scroll.
And scroll.
Until the feeling in my chest tightens, not with panic — but recognition.
And then I find it.
Not a photo.
Not a record.
A forum thread.
Locked. Buried. Hidden behind invite-only access and warnings written in half-jokes and coded language. A dark site that smells like rot and fetish forums and secrets no one should be saying out loud.
But it’s there.
Subject: He doesn’t fuck. He keeps.
And below it — dozens of posts.
Warnings. Girls talking in vague terms about a man with too much money and not enough empathy. A man who doesn’t need to hurt you to destroy you. A man who watches. Who waits. Who unbuilds you so slowly you don’t realise you’re gone until the begging starts to sound like prayer.
I lean closer.
Scroll faster.
I don’t breathe.
Because one post stands out.
Pretty. Pink lipstick. Small. Likes the back booth. He’s watching her now.
Posted two weeks ago.
It’s about me.
And he knew I’d find it.
He wanted me to.
I read the post again.
The words don’t change.
Pretty. Pink lipstick. Small. Likes the back booth. He’s watching her now.
My fingers go cold against the keys.
My legs don’t feel like mine anymore.
Because this isn’t a threat.
It’s a timestamp.
A breadcrumb.
Proof that he’s been circling closer than I ever imagined. That the moment I thought I saw something shift in the mirror at the bar — the moment the air felt wrong and I told myself I was just paranoid — he was already there.
Not across the room.
Not behind the wall.
Inside the walls.
Inside me.
And now he’s laid it out like a gift, like a trail of silk and teeth, leading straight back to his mouth.
I don’t even realise I’m shaking until the mouse skips across the screen. I grip it tighter. Scroll through the replies, each one worse than the last — short phrases like fingerprints smudged across skin that was never meant to be touched.
He picks them like art.
They always think they’re too sharp to break.
It’s not the sex. It’s what comes after.
He trains you to crave the silence.
I want to stop.
But I can’t.
Because buried halfway down the page is another post. Short. Colder.
Just one line.
She’ll come to him. They always do.
My heart slams.
Because he’s right.
I haven’t called the police. I haven’t run. I haven’t screamed or smashed or told a soul. I’ve stayed. I’ve stared at screens. I’ve searched forums. I’ve waited for a message and hated that it didn’t come.
I’ve made myself available.
I’ve made myself easy.
And somewhere, he’s watching.
Smiling.
Knowing this is the part where the heroine always thinks she still has a choice.
I push back from the desk so fast the chair tips and hits the floor. I stumble over it, breathing too hard, too loud, my pulse everywhere — my wrists, my throat, the hollow ache between my legs that hasn’t gone away since he looked at me like he already owned it.
I go to the sink.
Turn on the tap.
Let the water run until it’s ice.
Then I splash it against my face, again and again, until all I can feel is cold and skin and the guilt sinking into me like rot in fresh fruit.
Because I shouldn’t want to see him again.
I shouldn’t want to hear that voice in person, see what he looks like when he’s not holding back, find out what he’ll do when I stop fighting and just let it happen.
But I do.
God help me, I do.
I want to touch the fire.
Even if it burns me beyond recognition.
Even if I never come back the same.
Even if I end up another whisper on a dead thread that girls read late at night when they think it’s just a story.
I stare at the mirror.
And I don’t recognise the girl looking back at me.
Because she’s not scared anymore.
She’s curious.
And maybe that’s worse.
I dry my face with a shaking towel and drop it to the floor like it doesn’t matter anymore, because it doesn’t. Clean doesn’t fix this. Cold water doesn’t reach deep enough to strip him out of me.
Because it’s too late.
He’s already in.
I sit on the bathroom floor again. Not out of weakness.
Out of surrender.
A different kind.
The kind where you stop pretending that reality is something you’re in control of. The kind where you acknowledge, even if only in your own head, that someone else is driving now — and they’ve already decided where this ends.
I reach for the phone again.
Same number. Still unnamed. Still not saved. But it stares at me like it’s waiting, and I know — I know — he’s waiting too.
He hasn’t messaged me since that last line.
He doesn’t have to.
I’ve done everything for him.
Searched his name. Found his thread. Looked into the mouth of the beast and didn’t flinch. Not really. Not the way I should have.
I unlock the phone. Pull up the thread again. Scroll back to the post.
I sit with it.
She’ll come to him. They always do.
I want to prove him wrong.
But I also want to know what it feels like to be right there in front of him again.
Not afraid.
Not surprised.
Ready.
Ready for what he’ll say. What he’ll do. What he’ll take.
Not because I want to give it.
But because I want to see if I break.
Because I think he wants to find the line where I stop being a girl and start being his.
The phone buzzes.
I freeze.
Not a ring. Just a vibration. A single, soft pulse like a breath against the side of my neck.
One message.
Unknown Number:
Come outside.
I stare at it.
The words don’t move. Don’t blink. Don’t change. They just sit there like a command written in silk and blood, and I know — he’s here.
Not later.
Now.
I move on instinct.
Up.
To the door.
I look through the peephole.
Empty.
But that doesn’t mean anything.
I open it anyway.
The hallway is still. Quiet. Dim.
There’s no one there.
But on the ground, placed exactly centre on the doormat, is a single black box.
No label. No tape. No markings.
I pick it up with both hands.
It’s heavy. Solid. Cold, like it’s been outside longer than it should have been. I shut the door, lock it twice, deadbolt engaged, then carry it to the table like it might explode.
And maybe it already has.
Just not the way I expected.
I don’t open it right away.
I stand over it.
Watch it.
Like it might whisper something if I listen hard enough.
Because this isn’t a gift.
It’s a test.
I know it.
He knows I know it.
And we’re both waiting for the same thing.
Me.
To give in.
To break the seal.
To unwrap the box like a woman who isn’t terrified of what she’ll find.
Like a woman who’s already his.
I reach for the edge of the lid with slow fingers.
And lift.