Chapter Eight: The Secret Comes to Light
632 Words
It began like a rumour.
A whisper in the market. A headline on the edge of a newsstand.
Another cult clash.
Blood spilt in broad daylight.
A name that hadn’t been spoken aloud in months suddenly blared across every radio, every TV.
Razor.
He was back.
Wanted for multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault, and inciting cult violence.
The screen showed a grainy photo of him. Not the Jason Amara knew—the one who kissed her shoulder in the dark and whispered poetry against her skin. No. This was Razor.
Black hoodie. Cold eyes. A machete in one hand. Blood across his knuckles.
Amara stood in front of the television, her legs numb, her heartbeat a violent drum in her ears. It felt like the ground beneath her had been ripped away.
This man—the one she had given herself to, the one who had memorized every inch of her soul with trembling hands—was not just haunted.
He was the haunting.
She couldn’t breathe.
Not when the newscaster listed the number of bodies.
Not when the footage showed a warehouse burning.
Not when she heard that name again—Razor—spoken with fear, venom, finality.
The same name whispered in frightened circles around campus.
The same name she had once brushed off like a myth.
And now, it was him.
Jason.
Jason was Razor.
She didn’t remember how she got to his place. Her knuckles were red from pounding the door. Her voice was raw from calling his name. When he finally opened it, his face was bruised and tired—and something deeper.
Guilty.
“Amara—”
She didn’t let him finish.
“Tell me it’s not true,” she choked out. Her fists trembled. “Tell me it’s not you on that screen. Please, Jason. Tell me it’s not you.”
But he didn’t speak.
He didn’t lie.
Instead, his legs buckled beneath him, and he sank to the floor.
Like the weight of her voice had broken something in him he could no longer hold.
“I never wanted you to know,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I never wanted you to see me like this.”
Tears streamed down his face—hot, fast, desperate.
“I was just a boy they laughed at. A boy they beat. They broke me, Amara. And I didn’t know how to stop being what they made me.”
He looked up at her, eyes raw and glistening.
“I didn’t want you to love him. I wanted you to love me.”
His chest heaved with the weight of a thousand regrets. He looked like a man stripped bare, not just of lies, but of all the armour he had ever worn.
And Amara…
She was shaking.
Her heart didn’t know what to feel—rage, betrayal, sorrow. It all blurred together into a storm of chaos.
But her body moved on instinct.
She dropped to her knees beside him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and pulled him into her.
While her mind screamed run, her heart—foolish, tender, whole—still recognized the man in her arms.
He wasn’t a monster here.
Not when he was weeping like a child.
Not when he clung to her like she was the last good thing he had.
Not when he whispered, again and again, “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t have the words.
But she held him like her love might somehow patch the cracks in his soul. Like maybe, just maybe, she could still be the place where he came to heal—even if everything else around them was falling apart.
She wasn’t ready to give him up.
Not yet.
And maybe not ever.
- Writer
