Chapter 1 #2
“He’s here,” I breathe, the words coming out in a cloud of psychotic glee. “He’s standing right behind you, Miller. Can you smell the gasoline? Can you feel the heat of the match?”
Miller freezes, his hand still clamped like a vice on my thigh. He looks at the door, his eyes darting to the glass. His breathing hitches, and for a glorious, fleeting second, I see the reflection of my own madness in the sweat on his forehead.
He’s scared. This big, brave man who gets off on strapping down girls is fucking terrified of a shadow.
But the shadow doesn’t move. It doesn’t break the glass. It just… ripples. Like a reflection in a pool of oil.
Miller looks back at me, his fear curdling into a dark, ugly rage. He realises the glass is empty. He realises it’s just me—drugged, pinned, and fucking losing it.
“There’s no one there, you crazy cunt,” he spits, his voice trembling with the effort to sound tough. He yanks his hand back and backhands me across the face.
The world explodes into a kaleidoscope of red and black stars. My head snaps to the side, the copper taste of blood blossoming in my mouth. I laugh. It’s a wet, jagged sound that rattles in my chest. I lick the blood off my lip, savouring the iron tang.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I hiss, my eyes snapping back to his, wide and hungry. “My mother hit harder than that when I was six, and she was a fucking drunk. You’re pathetic, Miller. You’re a pussy. A fly waiting to be swatted.”
He looms over me, his face turning a mottled, furious purple.
He reaches for the front of my gown, his fingers twisting into the thin fabric, pulling me up as much as the restraints allow.
I can feel the leather biting into my wrists, the skin screaming as it tears further, but I don’t care.
The pain is the only thing that feels real through the chemical fog.
“You think you’re so goddamn special,” he snarls, his breath hot and putrid against my skin. “You think you’re some kind of princess? You’re nothing. You’re a hole in the ground. And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging for those meds just to forget what I did to you.”
He leans in, his hand moving to my throat, squeezing just enough to make the room start to spin.
I can feel the drug haze thickening, pulling me back down into the toxic green depths. The shadow at the door is gone now, replaced by the humming white light that never fucking ends.
It was just the drugs. Just another beautiful lie my brain told me to keep me from shattering.
“Do it,” I whisper, the darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision. “Kill me. Give me the one thing Aris won’t. I’d rather be a corpse than spend another fucking second looking at your ugly face.”
He sneers, his fingers tightening on my windpipe. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you, Hallow. I’m going to break you. I’m going to take every little piece of fire you have left and I’m going to piss on it until you’re as hollow as your fucking name.”
The world is fading. The white tiles are dissolving into grey static. I’m falling, deeper and deeper into the quiet, and for the first time in ninety-six days, I feel a cold, hollow weight in my chest.
He isn’t coming.
The myth is just a story. The playing cards are just paper. And I’m just a girl dying in a room with no corners.
Whirr. Click. Whirr. Click.
The vent above me rattles. A thin, grey dust filters down, coating Miller’s hair like ash. He doesn’t notice. He’s too busy enjoying the sound of my gasping breath.
But I hear it. Behind the hum of the light. Behind the pounding of my own heart.
A new sound.
A whistle. Low. Off-key. And utterly, terrifyingly familiar.
The whistle is a ghost, a haunting melody that dances through the vents, mocking the absolute filth of the reality I’m trapped in.
Miller’s hand isn’t on my throat anymore. It’s lower. It’s heavy, a damp, leaden weight that makes my skin crawl even through the thick, viscous fog of the Thorazine.
“You’ve been a bad girl today, Hallow,” he murmurs, and the sound of his voice is like sandpaper on an open wound.
I’m drifting, my mind floating somewhere near the ceiling, watching the wreckage of my body from a distance. The green haze is pulsing now, turning the room into a swamp.
I see vines creeping up the white walls—vines made of barbed wire and velvet—and I think I see a pair of glowing eyes in the corner, watching us.
Watching me.
Then I feel his fingers.
He doesn’t rip the gown. He slides his hand under the thin, scratchy cotton, his palm rough and calloused as it drags over my ribcage.
I want to scream, but my throat is a desert, and all that comes out is a low, jagged whimper that sounds far too much like an invitation.
“Such a waste,” he huffs, his breath hot against my neck.
He finds my breast, his hand closing around the small, firm mound of flesh with a brutal lack of tenderness. He isn’t worshiping me; he’s claiming a piece of property.
His fingers find my nipple, and he pinches—hard. A sharp, electric bolt of pain shoots through the chemical numbness, a white-hot spark that makes my back arch against the mattress. The leather restraints creak, the sound echoing in the silence like a gunshot.
“Does that hurt?” he sneers, his thumb rolling over the sensitive peak, crushing it between his nail and his finger.
I gasp, my head lolling to the side. In the hallucinations, the ceiling begins to rain blood—fat, heavy drops of crimson that splash onto my skin, mixing with the sweat. I can feel the wetness of it, a slick, warm coating that makes everything feel visceral.
He moves his other hand, his fingers fumbling with the hem of the gown between my legs.
I try to pull my thighs together, but the straps hold me open, a humiliating, forced vulnerability that makes my stomach flip.
He laughs, a wet, guttural sound, as he pushes the fabric up, exposing me to the predatory hum of the lights.
“Look at you,” he whispers, and I can feel his eyes on me, voyeuristic and foul. “So wet for a girl who claims to hate it here.”
“I… hate… you,” I slur, my tongue feeling like it’s been coated in lead.
“Sure you do.”
He slides his fingers down, pushing past the curls until he finds the slick, sensitive heat of my pussy.
The contact is a shock—a cold, invasive invasion of my last sanctuary.
He’s rough, his fingers digging into the soft tissue, searching for the core of me with a clinical kind of cruelty that mimics the doctor’s.
I’m so wet, and it’s a betrayal. My body is responding to the friction, to the sheer, terrifying reality of being touched after ninety-six days of nothing but cold metal and sterile glass.
It’s not desire; it’s a biological reflex, a desperate attempt to protect itself from the damage he’s doing.
He finds my clit, his thumb hooking under the hood and flicking it with a sharp, rhythmic aggression.
“Is this what you wanted, Hallow?” he asks, his voice thick with a sudden, desperate hunger. “Is this what the ‘myth’ was supposed to do to you?”
I can’t answer. The world is spinning too fast. The green vines are wrapping around Miller’s neck, their thorns digging into his skin, but he doesn’t feel them.
He’s too busy buried in me, his fingers working my pussy with a frantic, clumsy pace that makes my hips twitch in a rhythm I can’t control.
“Fuck,” he groans, his face buried in the crook of my neck, his stubble scraping my skin raw.
I close my eyes, and for a second, the hallucination shifts again.
The room is no longer white. It’s gold. It’s burning.
The floor beneath us is turning into a bed of crushed playing cards, the edges sharp enough to draw blood.
I feel a tongue—not Miller’s—trace the line of my jaw, a taste of smoke and expensive gin.
Miller’s fingers push deeper, stretching me, his knuckles rubbing against my clit in a way that makes my vision go white.
I’m balanced on the edge of a jagged, psychotic climax, a scream building in my lungs that has nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with the fact that I’m shattering.
“Say my name,” Miller demands, his voice cracking.
I open my eyes, and the shadow at the door is back.
It’s taller now. More solid. It’s leaning against the frame, watching us with a stillness that is more terrifying than any scream. It isn’t a doctor. It isn’t a nurse. It’s the devil, waiting for his turn.
“Jex…” I whisper, the name finally breaking past my lips like a secret.
Miller freezes. The friction stops. He looks at me, his eyes wide and panicked. “What did you say?”
“He’s watching,” I giggle, the sound wet and broken as I look past him at the empty, dark glass of the door. “He’s watching you touch his favourite toy, Miller. And he looks… hungry.”
Miller’s eyes darken, the pupils swallowing the iris until there’s nothing left but a void of pure, predatory heat.
He doesn’t give a fuck about shadows or names anymore.
He sees the way my breath hitches, the way my chest heaves against the leather, and the fear in my eyes acts like a hit of adrenaline straight to his heart.
“You want to talk about ghosts?” he growls, his voice dropping into a guttural, jagged register. “Talk to me when I’m buried so deep inside you that you forget how to breathe.”
He yanks the hospital gown up further, bunching the cheap, thin fabric around my waist until I’m completely exposed to the sterile, biting air. He doesn’t just look; he feasts.
His gaze crawls over my stomach, over the sharp dip of my hips, and settles on the soaking, glistening mess between my thighs. I try to clamp my legs shut, a pathetic, instinctive jerk of my muscles, but the five-point restraints keep me splayed wide, my pussy bared and weeping for him.
“Look at how wet you are,” he whispers, his voice thick with a sudden, desperate hunger. “All that talk about fire, and you’re just a fucking lake down here.”