CHAPTER 15 - Madeline
The phone doesn't just ring; it screams. It’s a violent intrusion from the world of daylight and safety, and for a split second, I want to hurl it against the wall just to make the noise stop.
I reach out, my fingers trembling as I pick up the device. My eyes stay locked on Deimos. He doesn't move. He stands there like a dark, silent monument to everything I’m supposed to hate, watching the way my breath hitches when I see the caller ID. Lucy.
I slide the button to answer. I try to pull my torn scrubs over my chest, a frantic, useless instinct to hide the marks he just left, even though she’s miles away.
ME: "Lucy?"
I whisper. My voice is thin, a fragile thread that threatens to snap.
LUCY: "Mali? Oh thank God,"
Lucy’s voice crackles through the speaker, thick with a relief that makes my chest ache.
LUCY: "I’m sorry I didn't pick up before. I was... I was just so angry, Mali. And scared. I’ve been sitting in the ambulance bay for two hours just staring at the wall."
I close my eyes, leaning my forehead against Deimos’s chest because I can’t support my own weight anymore. I can feel the steady, terrifyingly calm thrum of his heart through his shirt. It’s the only thing keeping me grounded, even as it’s the thing that should be driving me away.
ME: "I know, Lu. I’m sorry too," I say, my voice straining to sound normal, to sound like the Madeline who still has a best friend.
ME: "It’s been a long night. I’m just... wrapping things up at the facility."
LUCY: "I’ve been thinking about what you said. About Jake. About the masquerade. Mali, if he’s 'protecting' you, why is he making you lie to the police? That’s not protection. That’s a cage. He's isolating you."
I flinch. The word cage vibrates in the air. I look up, meeting Deimos’s amber eyes. He’s listening to every word, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a possessiveness that makes my blood run hot and cold at the same time. He knows she’s right. And he knows I can’t leave.
LUCY: "Mali..."
Lucy’s voice drops, losing its aggressive edge. It sounds weary now, weighed down by months of watching me hide bruises behind concealer and long sleeves.
LUCY: "I knew Jake. I saw what he was. I saw the way he’d turn into a different person the second the door closed. Part of me... God help me, part of me is glad he can never touch you again. He deserved to stop breathing the first time he put his hands on you."
A shudder ripples through me. I feel Deimos’s grip tighten on my waist, his knuckles brushing against my skin as if he’s absorbing the memory of my pain.
LUCY: "But that doesn't make this right," Lucy continues, her voice trembling.
LUCY: "Just because one monster is dead doesn't mean the one who killed him is a saint. You’re trading one shadow for another, Mali. You're so desperate for peace that you’re willing to sleep in a graveyard."
I swallow the lump in my throat, my eyes locked on Deimos’s sharp, unblinking gaze. He looks satisfied, as if he’s listening to a testimony of his own necessity.
ME: "He's not Jake, Lucy," I whisper, and for the first time tonight, I don't feel like I'm lying.
ME: "Jake wanted to break me. This man... he wants to own me, but he would never destroy me. There’s a difference."
LUCY: "Is there?"
Lucy asks, her skepticism cutting through the line.
LUCY: "Ownership is just a slower way of breaking someone. But I’m your best friend. I promised I’d always be your safe harbor, even if you’re being a damn fool."
She takes a shaky breath, and I can hear her shifting in the seat of her ambulance.
LUCY: "Promise me this, Madeline. The very second. The heartbeat, when you don't feel safe? You give me the word. I don't care where I am or what I'm doing. I will come with sirens blaring and get you out of there. No questions asked. No judgment. Just tell me."
ME: "I promise," I say, the words feeling like a heavy vow.
ME: "I’ll let you know. I'll be home soon. I love you, Lu."
LUCY: "Love you too, crazy girl. Be careful."
The line goes dead, and the silence of the office rushes back in, cold and absolute. I lower the phone, the screen’s light fading until the only thing visible are his eyes, glowing like embers in the dark.
I’ve bought myself time. I’ve kept her away from the edge. But as Deimos reaches out and slowly pries the phone from my trembling fingers, setting it on the desk behind me, I realize that the "safe hands" I told her about are the same ones that can crush the life out of me whenever they choose.
He leans down, his lips ghosting over my ear, his voice a dark, velvet rasp.
"You’re getting better at this. You’re starting to sound like one of us."
Deimos doesn’t let me go. His arms are a vice around my waist. He’s not just holding me; he’s anchoring me to this new, distorted reality.
"One of us," I repeat, the words tasting like copper on my tongue.
"Is that what you want? To turn me into a mirror of yourself?"
I feel the low vibration of his chuckle against my own chest. It’s a dark, jagged sound that sends a fresh shiver down my arms.
"I don't want a mirror, Mali. I want a partner. Someone who sees the world for the gutter it is and chooses to stand above it with me. You just proved you can handle the weight of a secret. That’s more than most people achieve in a lifetime."
His fingers are hooking under my chin to force my gaze upward. His expression is unreadable. A mask of obsession and cold, calculated pride. He looks at me the way an artist looks at a masterpiece they’ve finally finished.
"She's right about one thing, though. You aren't safe. Not from the world, and certainly not from me. But you're mine. And in this city, that’s the only protection that actually matters."
I look at the blood on his neck, the mess on my desk, and the dark office that used to be my sanctuary. Everything is different now. The clinical, sterile life I built is gone, replaced by the heat of his skin and the terrifying thrill of being claimed by a villain.
"I promised her I'd tell her if I didn't feel safe," I whisper, my voice barely audible.
Deimos leans down, his lips brushing against mine, his breath mingling with my own.
"Then you better start practicing your lies, Dr. Emerson. Because I’m never letting you feel 'safe' again."
He kisses me, not with the desperate hunger of before, but with a slow, agonizingly possessive finality. It’s a seal on a contract I didn't realize I was signing.
When he pulls away, he reaches for my discarded lab coat, draped over the back of the chair, and holds it out for me.
The physical connection breaks, and the sudden drop in temperature makes me shiver. He stands by the edge of the desk, his silhouette cutting a sharp, predatory line against the dim light of the hallway. He isn't moving toward the door with me.
"Dress yourself, Mali," he says, his voice dropping into that low, distant rasp that reminds me he is a ghost, not a man.
"Clean up your desk. File your reports. Be the diligent doctor the city expects you to be."
I stop, my hand hovering over the buttons of my scrubs.
"You’re leaving? Just like that?"
A faint, dark smirk touches his lips. It’s not the smirk of a lover; it’s the smirk of a puppeteer who knows exactly how taut the strings are.
"I have work to do," he says, taking a single step toward the shadows of the corner, away from the pool of light over the desk.
"You told Lucy you were alone. I’m simply making sure you aren't a liar."
The cruelty of it hits me. He’s leaving me here, in the middle of the night, surrounded by the smell of us and the silence of the dead. He’s leaving me to face the echo of my own lies to my best friend, trapped in the very sanctuary he just turned into an altar.
"When will I see you?"
The question escapes before I can stop it, sounding more desperate than I intended.
Deimos pauses at the threshold of the office door. He doesn't look back, but I can see the tension in his shoulders.
"I told you, Madeline. I’m under your skin," he murmurs, his voice a ghost of a caress.
"I’m never truly gone. I’ll be watching. I want to see if you can keep the mask on when the sun comes up."
And then, with the fluid, silent grace of a movement, he is gone.
The click of the office door closing is soft, but it sounds like a gavel. I stand alone in the center of the room, my hair a mess, my body aching, and my desk a graveyard of scattered files. The silence is no longer a comfort; it’s a scream.
I look at the phone on the desk. The device that holds my promise to Lucy. I’m alone, just like I told her. I sink into my chair for a moment, the leather still warm from his weight.
I clean up mechanically. Every movement is a hollow echo of the person I used to be. My mind is quiet, not peaceful, just empty. I think I’ve reached the stage of total numbness, where the capacity to decide how to feel has simply burnt out.
Before the fog in my head can make me forget, I move the body I autopsied, the one from before he arrived, into the cold storage. I can’t have a colleague walk in tomorrow to find a rotting corpse as a testament to my lost night.
When I finally walk out of the mortuary, the night air hits me like a splash of cold water. It feels more refreshing, more honest, than the suffocating tension he created inside those walls.
I drive straight home. Questions flush through my head, faster than I can answer them. He’s a serial killer, that much is obvious. But at what cost? What is this group he’s hunting? Does he have partners in crime, or is he a lone monster?
I suppose I’ll find out soon enough. He said he’s under my skin, but that works both ways. If he’s obsessed, it gives me power over him. Power over the man everyone else is too terrified to even name.
I need a hot shower. I need to scold the guilt and surrender off my flesh.