chapter 4
1420 Words
POV: Evelyn
The lamp’s heavier than it should be. My fingers won’t stay still around it. Slick with shower water or sweat—I can’t tell. My thumb keeps slipping off the metal neck like I’m trying to hold onto ice. Knuckles gone white. Elbow locked. I don’t even know why I grabbed the lamp. It’s not even heavy enough to knock someone out unless I got lucky and hit temple. I don’t even know where the damn base is.
Then he steps forward. Just one step. The floor shifts. Barely. Just a nudge under my heel. But it’s real. Like the walls are holding their breath. Or I am. Or both.
“Get out,” I say.
It comes out wrong. Thin. Too sharp. Like someone else said it with my voice. A ghost maybe. Or a recording. I don't know.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t answer. Just stares. Like I’m the wrong variable in a problem he hasn’t solved yet. Like I’m supposed to make sense and I keep—glitching.
Then he speaks.
“You treated my enemies.”
The word hits wrong. Enemies. Not patients. Not people. Enemies.
My stomach knots up fast, like bad sushi fast. My whole chest feels sour.
I want to argue. My mouth even moves like it’s gonna start something. But then I breathe in.
Smoke. Dirt. Something—something wild. Like moss after rain but sharper.
I can’t think. I can’t think.
He moves again.
Step. Just one.
My back hits the wall and I don’t remember stepping back. It’s soft, the sound. A padded thud, like my spine gave up first.
The lamp’s still in my hand. Grip locked. My wrist’s screaming. Probably hyperextended but I can’t feel it over everything else.
His voice dips low, and it’s not a question I want.
“Do you know what that does to me?”
No. No, I don’t.
I snap instead. “No. Because I’m not part of this f****d-up world.”
My pulse is punching straight through my windpipe. Hard. Fast.
“I didn’t even know werewolves were real until ten hours ago—”
“You’re not forgiven.”
The way he says it—dead calm—makes my whole body go wrong. Too quiet. Too certain. It’s not even angry. It’s just—there.
Another step.
He’s close enough now I can count the stitches on his boots. Black thread, uneven at the heel.
I can't breathe right. My ribs feel stuck.
“You broke into my home,” I say. It’s more hiss than sentence. My hand’s still shaking. Still holding the f*****g lamp like it’s a shield and not from IKEA.
“I broke out of hell to find you.”
He’s right there now. Close enough that his breath hits my collarbone.
It’s warm. Damp. I want to be sick. Or scream. Or pass out. Maybe all three.
My head spins. My brain’s running logic circles and they all dead-end into the same wall.
There’s no way out of this that makes sense.
He doesn’t look at me. Not really. Not my eyes. Not my mouth. Just—there. That f*****g spot. Left side, just under the curve of my jaw where my pulse lives. Still red. Still sore like I scraped it against pavement or iron or teeth or—I don’t know. It hasn’t stopped throbbing. Days.
“I never said property.”
He says it like that means anything. Like it clears something up. His eyes don’t even twitch. No apology in them. No shame.
I want to smash the lamp against his face. Or crawl inside his mouth. Or just—just scream. Maybe all three.
The silence after that is thick enough to choke on. My body’s locked up. Shoulders jammed. Knees stiff. I think if I breathe too deep I’ll snap in half and bleed from the wrong places.
“I want answers,” I say.
It barely counts as sound. More like breath shaped into a plea.
“I want silence.”
His voice drops. Lower. Not soft—no, don’t mistake it. But... not sharp. Quieter. Like he’s trying not to set something off.
Then his mouth is on mine.
No space. No warning. Just impact. Pressure. Teeth. Heat so fast my thoughts break apart.
The lamp hits the ground. I don’t remember letting go. Just that my fingers are empty and the crash echoes behind my ribs.
First thing I feel is fury. Burning hot. I shove him—both hands, full body, muscle memory from CPR drills.
My palms scream from the contact. He doesn’t move. Not even a sway.
And that smell. It’s him. Earth and sweat and danger and something so alive it feels like the inside of my own chest.
And I—
—I kiss him back.
It’s not gentle. It’s not clean. I don’t know what it is. Ugly maybe. Hungry. Like fighting with my mouth. I don’t care. I want it. All of it. Just for now.
When we break apart, I can’t feel my lips. My chest is a broken engine—heaving, no rhythm. I might throw up. Or scream. Or cry. Or f**k him right here. I don’t know. I don’t know.
“You’ve been marked.”
He says it into my skin. My neck pulses like a bruise. Like heat with a heartbeat.
Then he moves—slow but not slow enough for me to think. Mouth dragging toward my collarbone.
He doesn’t bite. But his teeth are there. Pressed. Not deep. Just—real.
It’s enough.
My knees fold and I barely catch the wall behind me. My shoulder slams into the plaster.
“…so have I.”
He says it like it matters. Like it means something I should understand.
I shove him again.
He lets me this time.
My whole body shakes like it’s coming apart at the seams. Like I’m gonna split right down the center and bleed truth.
We’re not touching anymore. But we’re still burning. Still—breathing like we dragged ourselves out of a house fire. Smoke behind the ribs. No oxygen left but we’re trying anyway.
He looks at me and it’s not the same. Not the stare from earlier. Not even anger now. There’s... there’s something behind it. I don’t have a word for it. Doesn’t feel human. Feels old. Like rot under paint. Something buried that shouldn't be. My chest tightens—too fast—like maybe I—
BANG.
The door goes to pieces. Wood becomes air. A sharp whiplash of force, and everything’s—
—loud.
My feet slip. I spin. I’m barefoot and off center and I grab for the wall but there’s no wall and the lamp is gone and my heart—my heart is gone. It’s trying to climb up through my throat and out of my f*****g mouth.
She walks in like it’s a goddamn photo shoot.
Not running. Not yelling. Not even a hair out of place. The heels hit the floor like punctuation. The floorboards notice her. I notice her. Everything tilts.
She doesn’t blink when she says it.
“Dominic,” she says. Smooth. Sharp. Like she’s bored of him already. “Get your teeth off my husband.”
My body doesn’t react right. I don’t scream. I don’t speak. I don’t breathe. My stomach turns to stone. Not even pain-stone. Just—
—blank. Like it fused with the tile.
She smiles. It’s wrong.
No warmth. All enamel. Like a threat written in lipstick. That shade of red doesn’t move when you cry. It’s too good for crying.
“You’ve made a very, very stupid mistake,” she says, and her voice belongs in a courtroom or a coffin or both.
She steps into the doorway like it’s hers. The wreckage bends around her like it knew she was coming. The room doesn’t belong to me anymore. Maybe it never did.
Dominic doesn’t move. Doesn’t answer. But—
—I feel it.
Something slides sideways. Not with sound. Not something I can see. But the air thickens. My ears pop. The walls breathe. The f*****g floor breathes.
He didn’t growl. He didn’t change shape. He didn’t do anything.
But something did.
Something awful just got let loose.
And I don’t know what it is. I don’t understand any of it.
But I know one thing—if I breathe wrong, if I shift wrong, if I even blink too loud—
Someone dies.
- Writer
