Tahlia
Iwake to the taste of iron on my tongue.
Not from his mouth, not from his hand—but from myself. I bit through my lip in the night, trying to keep the word from slipping out. The word that’s poisoned my blood, burning me hollow from the inside.
Love.
The sheets are stiff with dried sweat and blood, sticking to my skin like another layer of chains. The air stinks of ruin. My body aches from every place he touched, from every scar he carved, from every thrust he forced until I couldn’t tell where hate ended and hunger began.
I don’t cry. Not this time.
I smile.
It’s cracked, bloody, sharp, but it’s mine.
If he wants me branded, then I’ll wear the scars like armour. If he wants me caged, then I’ll sharpen the bars until they cut him every time he touches me. If he wants me to confess love, then I’ll twist the word into something he can’t control—something that bleeds him when he drinks it.
I drag myself to the mirror, bare feet crunching over glass. My reflection stares back: a girl stripped of softness, body a map of wounds and worship, skin painted in blood and spit and bruises. A girl remade in his image.
No—
not remade.
Reborn.
He thinks he’s winning but resurrection always looks like ruin first.
I press my palm flat to the mirror, smearing blood across my reflection, and whisper to the glass, to the camera, to him wherever he’s watching:
“You wanted a monster, Hook? You built one.”
The red light blinks steady. Watching. Always watching.
For the first time, I hope he’s listening because I’m done breaking.
Now it’s his turn.
The mirror doesn’t lie.
It shows me everything he’s done. Every cut. Every bruise. Every line carved by steel and sealed by his mouth.
for the first time, I don’t look away.
For the first time, I don’t see a victim.
I see something worse.
Something stronger.
Something he can’t unmake.
My body trembles, but it’s not fear anymore. It’s voltage. Rage fused with desire, pain welded to hunger, hate braided so tightly with love that I can’t tell them apart. And maybe that’s the truth—maybe they were never separate to begin with.
The word he wants is carved into me already. I feel it pulsing under my scars, dripping from my thighs, humming in my blood. I will never speak it. He can starve on my silence for eternity.
I will twist it sharp enough to cut him.
I trail my fingers down my chest, over the lines he branded, shivering as fresh pain wakes beneath the touch. I smear the blood into patterns, crude and crooked, until my skin is a canvas of red.
Not his mark anymore. Mine.
The camera blinks. Watching. Recording. Waiting for me to collapse, to beg, to finally choke out the word.
I raise my chin, bare my teeth, and let the smile stretch wider, blood still staining my mouth. “You’ll never hear it,” I whisper, voice shaking but certain. “But you’ll feel it when I use it to destroy you.”
The red light blinks again.
I imagine him on the other side of it, cock twitching, breath ragged, hook clenching. Hungry. Obsessed. Already unraveling.
Good.
Let him watch. Let him want. Let him think he’s winning because resurrection isn’t about healing. It’s about becoming something that can’t be killed the same way twice.
I lick the blood from my cracked lip, let it stain my tongue, and stare down the mirror until I almost believe the monster staring back is someone I can live with.
Almost.
The blink of the red light taunts me.
Always watching. Always waiting.
It wants me weak, ruined, begging.
So I give it something else.
I peel the blanket off my body and let it drop to the floor. My skin is a gallery of scars, welts, bruises, blood—every inch of me painted by him. He thinks he owns it. Thinks it means victory.
If he wants a show, I’ll give him one.
I climb onto the chair in the corner, knees shaking, bare feet sticky with blood. The mirror reflects me back—naked, broken, defiant. I spread my arms wide, chin lifted, as if the cage were an altar and I the sacrifice that refuses to die.
“Is this what you wanted?” I whisper to the camera, voice sharp enough to slice. My lips curl into a smile, crimson and cracked. “Do you like watching what you made?”
The silence hums back. No answer. Just the red blink.
I drag my nails down my chest, reopening shallow cuts, smearing blood across my breasts, down my stomach, marking myself in crude lines. Each scratch stings, each drop of blood drips onto the papers scattered below.
I tilt my head toward the lens, eyes burning. “Here’s your confession.”
My hand slides lower, over the bruises on my hips, between my thighs slick with him and me both. My body trembles, but I don’t stop. I want him to see it. To choke on it. To know that even when I give in, it’s mine to give.
“You’ll never hear the word,” I hiss, my voice cracking, breath stuttering. My fingers slip lower, filthy, trembling, dragging wet across my swollen flesh. “But you’ll watch me burn in it. You’ll watch me carve love into a weapon.”
I grind my hand harder, nails digging crescents into my own skin, gasping through the sting. My reflection moans back from the mirror, blood smeared down my body, eyes wild, mouth open.
Not his ruin.
Not his possession.
Mine.
The camera blinks. Blinks. Blinks.
And I smile through tears, through shame, through fire because the performance isn’t for me. It’s for him.
And the monster who thought he caged me doesn’t realise—I’m the one who just locked him in.