Scarlett
Icome back to myself the slow, ugly way — dragged through sleep like I’m being pulled across gravel.
My eyes open in pieces.
Light slams into me.
A sharp, white-hot stab behind my temples makes me flinch like someone hit me.
The living room ceiling swims overhead, chandelier blurred into a glowing smear. My mouth tastes like sour wine and regret. My throat is raw. My body stiff. My robe twisted around my waist. My hair stuck to my cheek with dried tears.
The bottle lies on the carpet beside the sofa.
My phone is still in my hand.
And the locket is still around my neck.
Heavy.
Cold.
Branding.
I groan, roll onto my side, press the heel of my palm to my forehead as nausea rises fast and mean. My stomach twists. My pulse hammers too loud in my ears.
Everything hurts.
My head.
My throat.
My chest most of all.
Something whispers at the edge of memory — his voice, low and cold and intimate enough to curl around my ribs like fingers.
“Say it when you’re sober.”
I flinch so hard the couch groans beneath me.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no—don’t.”
But my mind doesn’t listen.
It plays the voicemail anyway.
Every word.
Every breath.
Like my brain carved it into the inside of my skull and now refuses to let me look away.
“I’m coming back for you.”
My stomach drops.
A sob claws up my throat before I can swallow it down.
I sit up too fast.
The room tilts violently.
I grip the sofa cushion until my vision stops doubling.
My phone screen lights when I brush the side.
His voicemail sits at the top of my notifications like a wound that won’t scab.
My heart kicks painfully.
“No,” I whisper again, louder this time, like saying it might undo the truth. “No, I didn’t— I didn’t say all that.”
But I did.
Every word.
Drunk.
Unhinged.
Broken wide open like a girl begging to be devoured.
I scroll shakily.
The outgoing call log stares back at me.
16 minutes.
Sixteen minutes of my voice poured straight into his hands.
My pulse stutters.
I drop the phone onto the couch like it burned me.
My fingers curl into fists in my lap.
“Fuck.”
The word rips out of me raw and angry.
The house feels too quiet — that weird, heavy silence that comes after you’ve confessed too much to the wrong person. The air hangs thick, charged. Like something was listening last night and still hasn’t moved.
I run a hand through my hair, fingertips brushing the tangled knots, the dried streaks of mascara on my cheek. My lip throbs when I accidentally touch it.
A sharp sting.
An undeniable one.
My breath stutters.
“Kai.”
The name slips out before I can stop it, soft and terrified and too honest.
I choke on the sound.
He was here.
He was.
And now he’s coming back.
I press the back of my hand to my mouth, trying to push the truth down, trying to force myself into the shell of the girl I’ve been pretending to be for four years — quiet, neat, perfect, compliant.
She doesn’t fit anymore.
Not after last night.
I stand — too fast again — gripping the arm of the sofa to steady myself. My legs tremble. My stomach lurches. The wine fumes rise in my throat and I breathe through my nose until the nausea passes.
The living room looks different in the daylight.
Brighter.
Sharper.
Cruel.
Wine stains on the floor.
Blanket half-off the couch.
My phone on the cushion like evidence.
And the curtains… slightly open.
I stumble over and pull them closed with shaking hands.
The garden stares back at me.
Shadow at the tree line.
No figure.
But something in the line of the trees feels wrong — too still, too expectant, like the woods are holding their breath the way I am.
I shut the curtains fully.
Lock them with a twist that feels pointless.
I head toward the kitchen, throat dry, tongue thick, the pounding in my skull growing worse with every step.
The counter waits for me.
The empty box.
The discarded ribbon.
The note.
You taste the same.
I dig my nails into the edge of the marble until the pain centres me.
For a second.
Only a second.
Because the truth hits me in the chest like a punch:
I’m not hungover.
I’m hunted.
And the worst part?
Some dark, buried part of me isn’t running.
It’s waiting.
I let out a shaking breath.
“Get it together,” I whisper to myself.
But the room doesn’t agree.
It tilts again.
My pulse spikes.
I grip the counter, knuckles white, heart slamming as another wave of memory hits — the woods, my screaming, the way I begged him to show himself.
The way he did.
The way he touched me.
The way he whispered my name like it was something holy and filthy all at once.
I gag on a sob.
“Stop,” I whisper. “Please stop.”
But nothing stops.
Not my body trembling.
Not the nausea rising.
Not the fear twisting into something hotter.
Not the echo of his voice crawling under my skin.
I stumble to the sink and splash cold water on my face, dripping onto the counter, onto the locket, onto my robe. My reflection in the window shocks me.
Eyes red.
Lips bruised.
Hair wild.
Skin marked at the jaw where a thumbprint faintly shadows the flesh.
My legs go weak.
I grip the sink harder.
The glassiness of my reflection makes me look half-haunted. Half-claimed. Half-someone-else.
Half-his.
A shiver crawls down my spine.
I breathe out slowly, trying to steady myself.
And then—
My phone rings.
Not Noah’s ringtone.
Not my mother’s.
Not a number I know.
Just a vibration that hums across the countertop like a threat.
My blood freezes.
My pulse stops.
I turn toward it slowly, water dripping from my chin.
Unknown Number.
Again.
My stomach drops.
My fingers hover above the phone.
My breath shakes.
He wouldn’t—
Not after that voicemail.
Not this soon.
Except—
He would.
I swallow hard.
The phone keeps vibrating.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
I don’t answer.
I can’t.
I stand there frozen, trembling, watching it ring like it’s about to explode.
It stops.
The silence that follows is louder than the ringing.
A single new notification blooms across the screen.
1 New Voicemail.
My throat tightens painfully.
My fingers dig into the edge of the counter.
I don’t press play.
Not yet.
I just stand there, shaking, breath shallow, heart pounding so violently it hurts.
Because I know—I know whatever Kai just left me isn’t an answer.
It’s a beginning.
And I’m not ready.
But he doesn’t care if I’m ready.
He never has.
My thumb hovers over the notification so long the screen dims.
I tap it awake with a trembling fingertip.
The words 1 New Voicemail stare back at me with the certainty of a loaded gun.
I don’t breathe.
Not when my thumb slides over the notification.
Not when the voicemail opens.
Not when the little Play button glows like an invitation carved out of sin.
I press it.
I don’t even realise I’m holding the counter until my knuckles burn.
The message starts with breath.
His.
Slow.
Measured.
Controlled in a way that feels dangerous.
“Scarlett.”
My knees almost give out.
He’s never said my name like that.
Not even before.
Not even when he swore he loved me so much it hurt.
This is lower.
Rougher.
Older.
Like something inside him cracked years ago and now he’s talking through the break.
“You shouldn’t have listened to the first one twice.”
My breath catches.
A strangled, involuntary sound crawls up my throat.
He knows.
He knows.
“I heard the time stamp,” he says. “I’m not stupid. And you… you don’t get to pretend anymore.”
My fingers slip on the counter.
The whole kitchen tilts for a second.
“You don’t get to wake up today and blame the wine,” Kai continues, voice steady in a way that terrifies me more than the anger I expected. “You don’t get to call me an hallucination. Or a dream. Or a mistake.”
A pause.
A slow exhale.
“I’ll tell you what was a mistake.”
He lets the silence stretch—like he’s leaning close to the speaker, letting me feel his breath through the phone.
“Letting you walk out of that courtroom without dragging you with me.”
I choke on air.
My hand flies to my chest like I can hold myself together.
“You think I didn’t want to?” he asks, quieter now. “You think I didn’t imagine grabbing your wrist, pulling you behind me, and running until the world couldn’t find us?”
A harsh, shaky breath punctures the audio.
“Four years,” he whispers, voice breaking in a way that feels like a knife sliding slowly between my ribs. “Four years of wanting to undo one moment.”
He shifts—something rustles, something like fabric or movement or pacing.
“But that doesn’t matter anymore. Because now…”
Another pause.
He breathes out, slow and hot.
“…you asked for me.”
My heart stops.
I grip the counter so hard the edges dig into my palms.
“You said you wanted me to come back,” he murmurs. “You said you remembered. You said you missed me.”
Heat crawls up my neck, shame and longing tangled so tightly I can’t tell them apart.
“And then you said something else.”
A sound like a laugh—but not amused. Not even close.
It’s wrecked.
Ruined.
Hungry.
“You said you still loved me.”
My vision blurs.
Tears slide hot and fast down my cheeks.
“You’re going to tell me again,” Kai says softly. “Not on a voicemail. Not drunk. Not shaking on your couch pretending nobody hears you.”
The temperature in the room drops.
Or maybe my blood does.
“Next time, you’re going to say it when I’m standing in front of you.”
My lips part in a breath that doesn’t make it out.
“You’re going to look me in the eyes,” he continues, voice lowering, darkening, turning into something lethal, “and you’re going to give me the truth you’ve buried in your ribs since the night they took me.”
My knees buckle.
I slide down the cabinet until I’m sitting on the cold tile, hand still pressed to my chest, phone to my ear, tears blurring everything.
“And Scarlett?”
A beat.
A breath.
A promise.
“I’m not knocking next time.”
My pulse slams so violently my whole body shakes.
“You opened the door last night,” Kai murmurs, softer but colder, “when you called for me.”
A shudder rolls through me.
“You don’t get to close it now.”
Another heartbeat of silence follows.
“You taste the same,” he whispers, voice a razor sliding down my spine. “I’m not done proving it.”
The voicemail ends.
I sit on the cold floor, shaking uncontrollably, breath broken, heart thrashing like a trapped animal in my chest.
The phone slides out of my hand.
The locket thumps against my collarbone.
And the truth lands with suffocating clarity:
He’s already coming.
And whether I run or hide or scream—I’m the one who called him home.
The voicemail dies.
But the sound of him doesn’t.
It stays.
In the air.
In my blood.
Inside my mouth like the echo of a kiss that didn’t happen but feels like it did.
My breath rips out of me in a jagged, broken exhale. I fold forward on the cold tile, palms spread against the floor like I need the house to hold me up because my own body won’t.
My vision pulses in and out, a sick heartbeat of light and shadow.
My throat is raw.
My chest is tight.
My skin is too hot and too cold at the same time.
I can still hear his voice.
Not in the phone.
In the room.
Inside the walls.
Inside my head.
Inside my fucking bloodstream.
“I’m not knocking next time.”
The sentence wraps itself around my spine like fingers, slow and possessive and terrifyingly sure.
My breathing turns uneven—fast, shallow, bordering on hyperventilation. I press the heel of my palm to my sternum, trying to stop the feeling like something is clawing its way out of me.
My fingers catch on the locket.
Cold.
Heavy.
His.
The metal burns against my skin like it’s part of him, like it’s watching me fall apart on the floor he walked across like he owned it.
A sob tears out of me—but it’s not all fear.
And that’s the part I can’t breathe around.
I curl in on myself, knees to chest, forehead pressed to them, arms wrapped tight like I’m trying to hold together pieces that don’t fit anymore.
My tears drip onto the tile.
Each one hits like a confession.
I shouldn’t have listened.
I shouldn’t have called.
I shouldn’t have—
But I did.
I did.
And now the house doesn’t feel empty.
It feels occupied.
Invaded.
Marked.
His presence clings to everything — the corners of the ceiling, the shadow under the dining table, the doorway to the hall.
I can practically feel the place he stood last night.
Where he watched me sleep.
Where he leaned over me.
Where he touched me with hands I remember in ways I shouldn’t.
My pulse spikes so violently it hurts.
I press a shaking hand to my mouth to quiet the sound coming out of me — a desperate sound, dangerous, humiliating. A sound I haven’t made in four years.
Not since him.
The kitchen lights blur again.
My head thumps back against the cabinet.
A tremor rolls through me, hot and cold.
His voice replays itself without permission:
You opened the door last night…
You don’t get to close it now.
My tears stop.
Just stop.
Frozen.
Suspended.
Not because I’m calm.
Because I’m cracked open.
I wipe the back of my hand across my face, breathing through my teeth, heat rushing across my skin in uneven waves.
The alcohol churns.
The drug’s remnants sting.
My heart won’t slow down.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
My mouth is dry.
I taste fear.
And want.
And guilt.
And memory.
And him.
My eye catches the window over the sink.
The woods stare back at me through the glass — dark, dense, watching.
Waiting.
I swallow.
Hard.
The floor feels cold again, grounding me, holding me in place like it knows if I stand up I’ll run — or collapse.
The voicemail replays itself in my head.
Every word.
Every breath.
Every threat wrapped in devotion.
“I’m coming back for you.”
A shiver tears violently down my back.
I shouldn’t want that.
I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
But my fingers curl in the fabric of my robe, gripping hard, knuckles white, because the truth I don’t say out loud is the truth that terrifies me the most:
I don’t know if I want to be saved…
…or found.
A floorboard creaks somewhere down the hall.
My breath stops.
My head snaps up.
Silence.
Empty.
But the kind of empty that feels like someone just left.
Not the kind that means no one’s been here at all.
The locket rests against my skin like a promise.
A warning.
A claim.
And as my heartbeat slowly—barely—starts to steady, one thought sinks itself deep into my chest, cruel and undeniable:
He’s closer than I think and whether I’m sober or shaking or hiding on this floor—Kai knows exactly how to find me.