Hailey
Morning came quicker than I expected. I didn’t know when I had fallen asleep, but I woke up feeling the aftermath—my throat raw from all the sobs I had tried to swallow, my eyes swollen, my skin still burning.
After Damien walked away, I had rushed to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stood beneath the scorching water for hours. Scrubbing. Scrubbing. Trying to erase him.
But it didn’t work.
I felt him everywhere.
Every inch of my skin. Every inch of my soul.
Every tear tracing down my face felt like his mocking fingers mapping paths along my body. Every trembling breath echoed with the sound of his cruel laughter. And when I stepped out, dripping and exhausted, and faced the mirror—
I saw it.
The evidence. His fingerprints still branded into my flesh, buried beneath bl
