10. Drystan
Chapter Ten
DRYSTAN
I give the bored clerk my fake ID and walk into the room, locking the door behind me with a heavy click. The place smells exactly how it looks, stale cigarette smoke, old carpet, and the faint musty tang of mildew. I can practically feel sepsis creeping in just from breathing the air.
I throw my duffel bag onto the sagging bed and head straight for the bathroom. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead. I pull my hoodie over my head, the fabric sticking to the wound where the blood has already begun to dry. Fresh crimson wells up and drips onto the cracked tiles.
I stare at the shower. The curtain is gray with grime, and something tiny and many-legged crawls along the bottom edge.
Fuck me.
I shake my head and walk back into the bedroom, refusing to let that filthy stall touch my skin. I open the duffel and retrieve the supplies, laying them out on the bed like instruments on an operating table.
The cut is not deep, a shallow slice across my left side, just below the ribs. It stings like hell, but it hasn’t hit anything vital. Still, blood keeps running down my hip and soaking into the waistband of my jeans.
I sit on the edge of the bed, strip off the rest of my upper clothes, and twist to get a better look in the mirror on the wall.
The wound is angry-red, about four inches long, the edges already puffy.
I pour a generous amount of isopropyl alcohol directly onto a thick pad of gauze.
The strong medicinal smell cuts through the stale motel air.
I press the soaked gauze against the cut and hiss through my teeth as the alcohol burns.
The sting is immediate and vicious, but I hold it there, letting it disinfect every millimeter of the gash.
Blood and alcohol mix, turning pink and dripping onto the ugly brown carpet.
I watch it soak in, counting slowly to thirty, forcing myself to keep the pressure steady even as the pain flares hotter.
When I finally pull the gauze away, the bleeding has slowed to a sluggish ooze.
I tear open the tube of antibiotic ointment and squeeze a thick ribbon along the length of the cut, spreading it carefully with a clean finger.
The ointment is cool against the inflamed skin, a small mercy after the alcohol’s bite.
I layer several sterile gauze pads over the wound, pressing them down firmly, then wrap medical tape around my torso in tight, overlapping bands until the dressing is secure and won’t shift.
I stand up slowly, testing the bandage. It holds. The pain is a dull, constant throb now but it’s manageable. I wipe the excess blood from my side with another alcohol-soaked pad, the sting flaring again but weaker this time.
I pull a clean black shirt from the duffel and shrug it on, the fabric cool against my heated skin. Then I sit back down on the edge of the bed, staring at the bloody gauze and discarded wrappers scattered across the cheap comforter.
I will live, but the real wound is not on my body, it is the knowledge that someone else is circling Briar. Someone else sent that pathetic fucker to photograph her things, to look for a diary, to dig into her life.
My life.
Whoever this is… they have just made the biggest mistake of their short, miserable life.
I stand up, gather the bloody evidence, and stuff it into a plastic bag from the gas station. I will dispose of it properly on the way back to Hellebore.
Eleven hours later and I’m back on her street, parked in the shadows where the streetlights flicker.
The body is gone. That pathetic fucker who thought he could touch what’s mine?
I cut him up slowly in the basement of the old mansion, piece by piece, until the concrete floor ran red.
Then I bagged him, weighted him with rocks, and dumped what was left in that stagnant little lake an hour outside the city.
No one will find him. Not for a long time. Not ever, if the eels do their job.
I should feel calmer now but I don’t.
My eyes stay glued to the phone screen, the hidden feed from her bedroom camera feeding me every soft breath she takes.
Briar is still curled under the blankets, her dark lashes fanned against pale cheeks.
The sight of her like this twists something vicious and needy in my chest. I want to crawl through the screen, slide into her bed, and wrap my hands around that delicate throat just to feel her pulse jump under my thumbs, but I keep delaying.
Something is pulling me back. A whisper in the back of my skull. Not yet. Not yet.
A flicker of movement catches my eye, down the alley beside her building. A black car, windows tinted so dark they swallow the moonlight, no plates.
No fucking plates. My jaw tightens.
A guy steps out, long blond hair pulled into a low ponytail, a thick beard hiding half his face.
He’s wearing a suit that costs more than most people’s rent.
He walks behind the overflowing garbage bins, unzips, and pisses against the brick wall.
The steam rises in lazy curls. When he’s done, he zips up, glances once toward her building and climbs back into the car.
My fingers itch for the knife still strapped to my ankle.
I zoom in with the phone camera, snap a few shots. The image is grainy, but clear enough: sharp cheekbones under that beard, cold eyes, the way his suit jacket strains over broad shoulders. He lingers another ten minutes, engine idling low, before he finally pulls away, disappearing into the night.
I would usually ignore it. After last night, I can’t.
My phone pings.
While I was watching that bearded prick, Briar woke up. The feed shows her now—fresh from the shower, steam still clinging to the bathroom mirror. Water droplets trace down her bare shoulders as she dries off. She dresses quickly: black jeans and a soft dark green sweater.
She’s safe for now. Not alone once she reaches the bakery.
But that car… that man… something about him feels wrong in the same way I feel wrong.
I watch her lock her apartment door and head to her car. The moment she pulls out, I start mine, keeping a careful distance. She drives carefully. Cautious turns, eyes flicking to the rearview more than necessary. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
She reaches the bakery. The little bell above the door chimes as she steps inside.
I switch feeds seamlessly to the interior cameras.
She ties on her apron, black, with that delicate purple flower embroidered on the pocket, and smooths it over her front.
The ponytail and hairnet make her look professional.
She smiles at her coworker and they talk about the weather.
She’s safe here. Surrounded by people, by witnesses.
That gives me time.
I turn the car around and drive back to her apartment.
Her alley is empty now. No black car. No blond ponytail.
I let myself in, breathing her in the second the door clicks shut behind me. The apartment is thick with her scent, soft florals, something achingly feminine that hits me like a drug straight to the bloodstream. My jaw clenches hard enough to ache.
Fuck.
My cock throbs painfully against my zipper as something ugly and possessive crawls awake inside me, stretching its claws against my ribs. I want to roll around in her sheets like a starving animal.
I trail my fingers over her unmade bed, the sheets still rumpled from where she slept last night. I pick up the pillow she rested her head on and press it to my face, inhaling deeply. My other hand slides down to adjust myself through my pants, palm pressing hard against the ache.
I sit at her small kitchen table, pull out my phone, and switch to the live feed. There she is laughing softly at something her coworker said while she kneads dough, flour dusting her forearms.
I stand and begin to study the apartment with fresh eyes, hunting for any sign of hidden cameras. I check behind the heater, under the couch, above it, on the television. Nothing.
My own cameras trigger the moment someone walks inside her apartment. I get the notification instantly, and there hasn’t been anything that wasn’t her. But they could have placed something before I did.
That thought makes my stomach turn, a cold, violent twist.
No one gets to see her dancing in her underwear. No one gets to hear her soft breathing while she sleeps. That is only for me.
I’ve been looking for hours, but her place is clean. Whoever is after her didn’t risk planting anything here.
If I find out someone tried, I will rip his eyes out and feed them to the hellebore roots.
Her computer dings softly. She left it on, screen dark. I wake it with a single tap. No password. Nothing. She trusts too much… and it makes something dark uncoil low in my stomach.
It’s an email from Lucille.
An invitation to some masked dance party this Friday at an old warehouse in the middle of nowhere. They call it “The Nowhere Party.” A ridiculous name.
I shouldn’t let her go. I should delete the email right now and make sure she never hears about it. But a masked dance… that gives me an opportunity.
I click the email so it marks as unread again, then kill the screen. The apartment falls back into shadow and silence. I lock the door behind me and step out.
The rain has finally stopped, but the wind howls down the street. She should be arriving soon.
I slide back into the BMW, the leather creaking under me. I lean back and open the feed on my phone.
There she is.
She’s really good at what she does. She finishes decorating a batch of sugar cookies, black background with bleeding red hearts on top. A weird order, but it suits her perfectly now. The old Briar would have made soft pastel flowers but this version paints blood and darkness without hesitation.
I miss the old her. The quiet, honey-haired girl who blushed at everything, but this new side of her… it doesn’t just intrigue me. It pulls at something deeper. She feels more real— no, she feels like a darkness that could actually stand beside mine.
When we were teenagers she seemed untouchable to someone like me, all black clothes, hair covering half my face, six-foot-seven and weird in the eyes of other kids.
Her friends were loud, colorful, popular.
She was the quiet one in their group. I barely heard her voice for two whole years. Now she laughs freely. She speaks up.
I don’t know what broke her open and turned sweet Briar into this, but I see the power she carries now, even when fear and darkness still linger behind her eyes.
Her car appears around the corner. She parks in her usual spot and steps out, holding her coat tight against the biting wind. My breath catches.
I watch her walk toward the building, hood up, black hair whipping around her face. She looks small against the night, but there’s a quiet strength in the way she moves.
I take a slow, steadying breath.
Friday, my love.
Friday you will see me, and you will finally understand how much darkness already fills your soul… and how perfectly it matches mine.