Scarlett
The buzzing doesn’t stop.
It’s a wasp in my veins, a sting in my chest, a hum I can’t escape. My body recoils with each incoming call, my pulse hammering like it might burst through my ribs. I keep telling myself not to look, not to read, not to let his words bleed under my skin—but I always do.
You liked it.
Don’t pretend you didn’t.
Tell your brother what I did, and I’ll tell your parents what you’ve been doing with him.
Slut.
Mine.
The words crawl over me, heavier each time, pushing me deeper into the pit opening inside my stomach. I can’t breathe without hearing the chime again. I can’t blink without seeing his name burn through the glass.
My hand shakes so hard the phone almost slips from my grip. I press it against my chest, as if hiding it there will make it disappear—but the screen lights again. Another message. And another. Each one worse. Crueller. Filthier. Like he’s inside my head, tearing me apart thought by thought.
My breath comes shallow, ragged. Tears smear the edges of my vision, but I don’t wipe them. I don’t move. I just sit there with my back against the bathroom door, cold tile beneath me, the glow of my phone branding my skin.
And I whisper to no one—
“Make it stop. Please make it stop.”
Another buzz. Another slice. I don’t want to see it, but my thumb moves anyway, like I’m chained to him, like the phone owns me.
Do you remember how you shook? Do you remember how wet you were? Don’t lie. You wanted it. You begged for it.
The scream rips out of me before I even know it’s coming—a raw, animal sound that bounces off the tiles and makes me hate myself more, because it’s exactly what he wants: to break me open until all that’s left is noise.
My chest heaves. My nails claw at the floor. I throw the phone across the bathroom. It hits the cabinet, screen cracking, light still flickering. Another buzz. Another message.
My throat burns. My eyes sting. “Stop!” I scream again, louder, ripping at my hair as if I can drag the memory out by force, as if I can make his words vanish.
But the phone keeps lighting up.
Keeps taunting me.
Keeps proving I’ll never outrun him.
The scream tears out again, raw and broken—and the second it leaves me I know it’s too loud. The house isn’t silent anymore. Footsteps. Heavy. Fast. A door slams open.
“Scar.”
Kai’s voice—rough, panicked, shaking like it never does.
I snatch the phone from the floor, shove it under the bath just as the door bursts open. He’s there, filling the frame like a storm, eyes wild, chest heaving as if he sprinted the whole way.
“What the fuck was that?” His voice cracks the air as his gaze cuts over me—my damp cheeks, my shaking hands, the mess I can’t hide.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m curled on the floor like a child, and he’s already crossing the room, crouching, gripping my shoulders hard enough to hurt.
“Tell me.” His forehead crashes against mine, breath hot and desperate. “Tell me what’s happening, Scar. Tell me who did this.”
My lips part, but no sound comes. My throat’s shredded from screaming; all I can do is sob and shake and pray he doesn’t see the glow under the bed when the phone buzzes again.
The tears won’t stop. They pour out of me like a flood, soaking his shirt where his chest presses to mine. My body won’t listen. I’m thrashing, clawing at his arms, choking on air that won’t fill my lungs.
“Scar—Scar, stop—fuck, breathe.” His voice is hoarse, almost begging, but I can’t. I can only shake and scream. My nails dig into my skin; my throat burns; I curl tighter, smaller, hoping to disappear.
His hands frame my face, rough palms trembling as his thumbs wipe at tears that keep coming. “Look at me. Look at me.” But my eyes won’t stay on him. They dart everywhere—the corners, the shadows, the silent buzz under the bed, the echo of every filthy word that won’t leave me alone.
“Don’t do this,” he whispers, softer now, chest heaving against mine, heart thundering so hard I feel it in my ribs. “Don’t you fucking do this to me, Scar. I can’t—” His voice breaks, raw and cracked.
I bury my face against him and sob harder. My lips try to form words—please or stop or help—but everything chokes on the scream still stuck in my throat.
He holds me tighter, crushing me to him like he could keep my pieces together by force alone. His jaw presses to the top of my head, voice breaking against my hair. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re mine—you hear me? No one’s taking you from me.”
And still, I can’t stop screaming.
The sound slices through the air—
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The phone.
Even buried under the bath, I feel it, the vibrations rattling through the floorboards—louder than my sobs, louder than Kai whispering against my hair. My body stiffens, convulses, and another scream tears out of me.
Kai freezes. His arms tighten, crushing, desperate. “Scar… Scar, hey—look at me. Fuck, just breathe—” His voice breaks, but it can’t drown out the phantom buzz vibrating in my bones.
I claw at him, shaking my head, nails raking his arms. “Make it stop,” I sob, words slurred, ugly. “Please—make it stop—”
“Make what stop?” His grip trembles, his lips brush my temple like an anchor. Panic rides in his breath, his heart hammering against mine. “Tell me what it is. Tell me what the fuck it is, Scar.”
But I can’t. I bury my face deeper into him, screams strangled into sobs.
Bzzzt.
The sound grows louder. Mocking. Another message. Another knife. Another threat shoved through the dark.
Kai’s body goes rigid. He’s heard it too. His hand slides down my spine—not soothing now, but searching. His voice drops low, dangerous under the fear. “What the fuck was that?”
And I scream again, louder, because I know he’s seconds away from finding out.
“Kai—” My voice breaks, but it’s too late. He’s already on his feet, dragging me up by the wrist as if I’ll bolt, his other hand ripping back the covers, the pillows, the sheets. The vibration hums again, muffled but insistent, and his eyes lock on the glow bleeding from beneath the bath.
“No—please—” I lunge, but his arm bars me back. He crouches, grabs the phone, and when he straightens, the light on his face turns him monstrous—all sharp bone and fury.
The first message glares up in neon blue. He reads it aloud, voice ragged:
“I bet he still thinks you’re pure. Should I tell him how easy you were for me in the cinema?”
My chest caves. I shake my head so hard it feels like it might snap. “Stop, Kai—please don’t—”
But he’s scrolling, thumb flicking with savage precision. Each buzz is another dagger.
“Slut.”
“Bet you moan for him the way you did for me.”
“Maybe I’ll send your parents the truth.”
Kai’s hands are shaking, but his voice—steady, lethal. “How long has this been going on, Scarlett?” His head snaps up, eyes blazing. “How fucking long?”
I crumple, palms over my ears, but it doesn’t silence him reading the filth—the threats, the proof of my shame.
“It never stopped,” I whisper, words shredded from my throat. “It never stopped.”
He stills, air draining from the room. His stare pins me—wild, broken, chest heaving.
Kai’s face is unrecognisable: jaw locked, teeth bared, veins rising in his throat, the phone trembling in his fist as the screen glows with Tyler’s poison.
“I’ll fucking kill him.”
The words aren’t a threat. They’re a verdict.
“Kai—” My voice cracks, but he’s already pacing, reading another line aloud, spitting it like venom.
“You let him touch you? You let him put his filthy hands on you—”
He slams the phone against the wall. Plastic splinters. His chest heaves.
“No. No, Scar. This doesn’t end with texts. This doesn’t end until he’s gone. Until I tear him apart with my bare hands.”
I stumble from the counter, dizzy with tears, knees hitting the floor, palms slapping the boards as I crawl to him. “No—Kai, please—” My fingers clutch at his jeans, at anything to hold him down, to tether him, but he rips free.
His eyes are black fire. Broken. Dangerous. The boy I know buried under something monstrous. He’s already at the door.
“Don’t you dare fucking leave me!” I scream, clawing at my throat, nails dragging red across skin. “Don’t leave me here!” My sobs choke, violent and ugly. “Kai—don’t do this, don’t go, you’ll never come back—”
The door slams, rattling the frame, leaving me alone with the ringing in my ears and my own screams bouncing off the walls.
“Kai!” My voice fractures. “Please! Don’t leave me!”
The echo swallows me whole. He’s gone.
The slam of the front door still trembles through my bones when I sink to my knees.
The echo won’t stop. It’s everywhere—the walls, the floor, the hollows inside my chest. He’s gone.
And if he does what he said—if he puts his hands on Tyler, if he spills blood like I know he will—he’s never coming back.
Not to me. Not to this house. Not to the boy he was before I ruined everything.
I clutch the floorboards like they might hold me together. My throat is raw from screaming his name, from begging him not to leave, and still I can hear him—his voice in the dark, the promise carved into his eyes. I’ll kill him.
A sob tears out of me, then another, until I’m folded in on myself, shaking so hard I can’t breathe.
My fingers press against my lips—the taste of him still there—and I can’t make sense of anything but the certainty that this is the end.
If Kai kills Tyler, he won’t just destroy him. He’ll destroy himself.
And I’ll lose him.
“No,” I whisper, the word breaking into a plea. “No, no, no, I can’t—I can’t let him—”
I stagger to my feet, wiping at my face with trembling hands, but the tears won’t stop. My reflection in the hall mirror is unrecognisable: mascara streaks, lips trembling, eyes wide and bloodshot. I look like a ghost—like I’m already mourning him.
If he does this, he won’t come back.
The thought won’t leave me. It circles, digs, hollows me out. It forces me to move.
I grab the first hoodie I see, pull it over my head, shove my bare feet into trainers without socks. My hands shake so hard I can’t tie the laces. Doesn’t matter. I’ll run barefoot through the streets if I have to.
“Please, Kai,” I whisper into the night as I yank the door open, cool air slapping my tear-wet face. “Don’t make me watch you disappear.”
And I chase him. Into the dark. Into whatever this is going to break us into.