Seraphina
I couldn’t bear to see that look on his face… the disgust, the revulsion. I wouldn’t survive it.
I pressed my hands over my mouth to muffle the sound of my crying, but it didn’t help.
The thought of Elias walking away knowing what I’d done and seeing me as nothing but the thing Garrett had named me split something deep inside me, like a seam tearing open that I didn’t know how to stitch back together.
Freak.
That’s what he’d think. My mind spiralled, frantic, clawing for a way to keep him.
Chain him to the bed. Hide the key. Tell him I loved him until he believed it.
Drug his coffee. Just enough to make him drowsy.
Drag him to a new town. Lock the door forever or until he understands.
Get pregnant. Now. Before anyone can talk to him.
He’d never leave a baby. Kidnap Max and use him as a bargain. Burn the station down.
I sat on the floor, knees to chest, nails digging into my scalp. He’ll hate me. He’ll leave. He’ll never touch me again. He’ll take Max away.
“What’s got you so upset, baby?”
An unmistakable voice cut through my spiral like a lifeline. My whole body went still. The sob caught in my throat, my hands falling uselessly to my sides. For a second, I thought I was imagining it. I had to be. He couldn’t be saying it like that.
I slowly turned… and there he was.
Elias lounged on my bed like he belonged there, his back leaned against the headboard, legs stretched out, one heavy boot hooked lazily over the other. His arms were crossed over his chest, his gaze fixed on me calmly.
He was lying right under my shrine.
The glossy corners of the photos caught the light: the snapshots, the printouts, the scraps of newspaper clippings, the candid shots I’d thought were safe.
My breath hitched.
He tilted his head, watching me with a kind of quiet curiosity that I didn’t understand. His eyes were dark, unreadable, but there was a heat behind them, a dangerous calm that made the air feel too thin. I couldn’t make my mouth work. Couldn’t force sound past the pounding in my chest.
Elias's gaze flicked toward the wall again, then back to me, and his lips curled into a dark grin.
“So,” he said quietly, almost conversationally, “how long have you been watching me?”
My stomach turned over. “What?”
“You heard me.” His voice had dropped, and it was the kind of low, commanding tone that left no room for pretending. “How long Seraphina?”
“That’s just… that’s just a silly board, and I was just joking around.”
His gaze hardened, the faint grin dying on his lips. His eyes narrowed. He looked suddenly so angry with my answer. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Seraphina.”
My throat went dry. Every instinct screamed to run, to disappear, but my legs wouldn’t move. He shifted forward on the mattress, folding his arms and he looked angry, his eyes locked entirely on mine, dark and unreadable.
“Tell me the truth,” he demanded.
“All of it. Now, Seraphina.”
The words landed heavy between us. The air felt too thick, like it was closing around me.
I wanted to speak, to explain, but nothing came out, just the sound of my heartbeat crashing in my ears.
Elias didn’t move. He just sat there, waiting, his gaze steady, like he could outlast every silence I had and the terrible thing was, he probably could.
I didn’t think I could deny him anything at this point. Even if it destroyed me.
“I stayed here because of you.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. My pulse stuttered, but once they were in the air, there was no pulling them back.
His brow furrowed slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” My throat tightened, and I pressed a shaking hand to my chest, forcing the confession out. “You’re the reason I stayed in Blackridge.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. Just watched me with that still, unnerving calm that made my stomach knot.
“The night you saw me… I was getting ready to move. To leave this town,” I went on, my voice cracking. “And then I saw you and I just… I couldn’t look away.”
My laugh came out small and broken. “I know how that sounds. I know but from the second I saw you, I knew… I’d never wanted anyone more.”
There was still nothing from him. His face stayed impassive, eyes dark and fixed on mine.
“I started reading about you, watching every news clip I could,” I whispered.
“Case logs. Archive reels. Interviews. I memorized the way you tie your boots, the exact brand of coffee you buy, the path you walk to your cottage. I learned to cook your favourite meals because you once mentioned them in a local paper profile. I knew what your old precinct looked like.”
I looked away, wishing he would say something, anything… even if it was to scream at me.
“When I saw you smile at Max, it got worse,” I said quietly.
“I found your shift schedule. I knew what time you left the station, what table you sat at during diner lunches, which route you took to the records room. I followed you every day, not close enough to get caught. Just close enough to breathe the same air or watch over you.”
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t speak.
“I hung around the grocery store just to see you pass,” I whispered. “I sat in the dark parking lot across from the station for every late shift. I recorded the audio from your televised press briefings and played it on loop so I could fall asleep.”
My chest ached. The words spilled faster, a torrent of raw truth.
“I stole your hat from the truck, kept your discarded coffee cup in a Ziploc so I could touch where your lips had been. I wore one of your old jerseys under my clothes for days straight, slept in it and came in it.”
His silence was suffocating. A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and humiliating. There was a frown on his lips now, but I still couldn’t read it. I pulled myself off the floor, never taking my eyes off him. I was afraid if I did, he would be gone.
“I love you, or that is what I think love is. I have never known love or comfort.” I said, the words small and trembling at first, then stronger, like they’d been waiting years to be spoken.
“These past few days with you… they’ve been the best of my life.
Every second, every breath, every heartbeat.
I didn’t say it before because love isn’t big enough because I don’t think I love you, but I think you are my obsession.
Like I told you I am nothing without you.
My heart attached to yours that night. You’re my honey, Elias.
My everything and no one, no one on this earth, will ever obsess over you the way I do. ”
For a heartbeat, the world went still. There was just the sound of my pulse thrumming in my ears and the sting of tears on my cheeks.
Elias's eyes closed. His jaw flexed once, like he was fighting something he didn’t have a name for.
A shiver ran through him, barely there, but enough that I saw it.
When he finally opened his eyes again, they looked… wilder. Darker.
“Have you done something like this before?” he finally asked in an even, blank voice.
The question cut through the space between us, gentle but direct, and it made my stomach twist. My lip quivered. If I told him, he might think…
But his gaze didn’t waver. “The truth, Seraphina.”
I swallowed hard, my throat aching. “No, I have never been obsessed over someone before but...”
I hesitated, but when he didn’t say anything, I kept going.
“I was obsessed over dead bodies," I whispered.
“Murders, killers.” My laugh came out thin and cracked.
“Since I was young and saw my grandmother dead before my eyes it fascinated me. The way our bodies die. How our cells contract and spasm for the last time. I… I wanted to know what happened inside the body, so I took a knife and I started to cut open her skin to see if blood really looks that red. It was the reason why my mother took me away; took me to an orphanage and said I do not belong… That I deserve what I would get.”
I finally met his eyes again, desperate for him to understand the depth of it. “But this—” I pressed a shaking hand against my chest, taking a step closer to the bed. “This isn’t that. I swear it’s not. With you, it’s different. I don’t just want to watch you, Elias. I want to belong to you.”
I took a step closer.
“With you, it’s different. I don’t feel broken when I think about you. I feel alive. You make everything quiet. You make everything make sense.”
My voice dropped so low that I wasn’t sure he could hear it.
The detective cocked his head, watching me like he was trying to decide what kind of creature I was. The weight of his silence pressed down until I thought I might shatter just to fill it.
“Please, Elias” I whispered finally. “Say something.”
He didn’t. His jaw worked once, like he was biting back every word that wanted out. The quiet between us roared, heavy with the secrets we both kept.
“I know you probably want to run,” I whispered.
“And maybe you should. You’re the detective, and I... I am what I am.” My chest rose too fast, my pulse fluttering against my throat.
“But I don’t know if I can let you go, you would have to kill me for me to let you go.”
He exhaled roughly, a sound that was half-frustration and half-surrender.
He took a sudden, predatory step toward me, closing the distance until I could feel the heat radiating off him.
He reached out, his hand hovering near my throat before his fingers threaded into my hair, tilting my head back so I had no choice but to meet his gaze.
His eyes weren't filled with the judgment of a lawman. They were dark, blazing with a hunger that mirrored the very thing I had just confessed.
“You think you’re the only one who’s haunted, Seraphina?” he growled, his voice dropping into a dangerous, possessive register.
“You think you’re the only one who stays awake at night tracing the lines of a ghost?”
He leaned down, his breath ghosting over my lips, marking the moment the line between hunter and prey vanished forever.
“I love you Seraphina. I love you just the way you are,” he says softly.
“Never think for a second that I’m going to run from you, Seraphina. You built a shrine for me, but you have no idea how easily I will turn this bedroom into your church.”