Page 18 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

The worst part, the part that scrapes at my ribs and claws at my stomach, is the tiny sliver of disappointment I feel.

Not because he’d followed me.

But because he hadn’t been the one across the table.

Because when the stranger touched my hand, it hadn’t made my breath catch.

Because only one man ever makes my skin burn now. And it is the one who had broken into my home, tied me down, and whispered his threat into my ear.

I feel sick.

I feel…exposed.

Beneath the panic, beneath the self-disgust and the fear, something darker pulses.

Something hot and shameful.

Why does my body respond like this?

Why, in the quiet space between panic and clarity, do I wish he’d shown himself?

Why do I imagine the photo wasn’t a warning but a message?

***

By the time I reach my apartment building, the rain has slicked my hair to my forehead and soaked through every layer of my clothes. My fingers tremble as I unlock the door.

The hallway is silent.

Empty.

I step inside and shut the door behind me.

I don’t turn on the lights.

I don’t take off my coat.

I stand in the darkness of my living room, the sound of my breath too loud in my ears.

I pull the photo from my pocket, lay it flat on the coffee table and stare at it.

I want to burn it, but I don’t. I don’t even crumple it.

I just stand there, frozen.

Slowly, in the silence, I whisper the words aloud: “Are you here?”

No answer, no movement, and no sign.

But the air feels charged.

As though someone is listening.

The photo haunts me.

Even now, with the door locked behind me and the apartment cloaked in silence, it feels like I haven’t brought it home in my coat pocket, like it has followed me.

Slid its way through the streets. Climbed the stairs beside me. Slipped through the keyhole and stretched itself across my living room walls like shadow graffiti.

I stand in the hallway, unmoving.

My clothes cling damp and chilled to my skin. Raindrops trail down my wrists and drip to the floor.

My fingers clench tighter around my tote bag as I stare at the spot where the photo now sits, splayed on the coffee table like it has claimed the space.

I hadn’t meant to take it out again. I don’t even remember doing it.

But there it is.

Me, in black and white. Eyes downcast. Fingers curled under my chin. Caught mid-thought.

Today.

Outside the café window.

From a distance, it almost looks like a candid snapped by a friend, the kind that’d end up on a story with a heart sticker over it. But up close, it’s wrong. Too intimate. Too still and focused.

The kind of photo no one should have of you unless you gave it to them. Unless you knew they were watching.

My stomach flips.

I turn away, peel off my coat, and drop my bag. The scarf I’d looped at my neck falls limply onto the floor, sodden and tangled. My hair clings in damp tendrils to my temples.

I pad toward the bathroom, flick on the light, and flinch at my reflection.

Mascara smudged in fine shadows beneath my eyes. My lipstick long since erased.

My eyes…they’re the part I hate to look at now. They hold something half-awake and caught mid-shift. Like I’ve been cracked open and something else is clawing its way through the gaps.

I turn on the tap and splash water against my face. Again, and again.

I stay there, bracing both palms against the sink, breathing hard.

This is supposed to be safe.

I’d thought, maybe if I followed my routines—chose safe spaces, chose people who didn’t ask too much—I could regain some footing. Push the shadow away. Scrape his voice from my memory.

But it’s useless. Wherever I go, he’s already there.

Not violently like before, but in the way my lungs seize every time the air shifts.

In the way my mouth tastes like iron when I try to flirt with someone else.

In the way the mirror shows a version of me that doesn’t belong to me anymore.

***

Back in the living room, the lights remain off.

I move to the window, careful not to stand too close. Just near enough to peer through the sheer curtain and into the wet night.

The world outside glistens. Traffic lights bleed red and gold into the puddles. A cat darts across the road. Farther off, someone lights a cigarette beneath a streetlamp.

My breath fogs the glass.

He could be out there.

Or not.

That’s the point.

It doesn’t matter anymore if he is watching. The fear has reshaped itself. It is no longer about escape. Not entirely.

It’s about control.

And how I don’t have any.

I flirted with a stranger today to prove something to myself, to him. That I was still my own person. That I could be touched by someone else, smiled at by someone normal.

But when the stranger leaned too close, all I wanted was to pull away.

When he looked toward the window and left, all I felt was an ache.

Not relief.

Disappointment.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I cross the room, pick up the photo again.

Closer.

That single word inked on the back throbs louder than any scream. It isn’t just a message. It is a truth. A declaration. A dare.

He isn’t taunting me anymore. He is claiming me.

And some pathetic, traitorous part of me has let him.

I curl into the couch, legs tucked beneath me, the photo still gripped between my fingers.

The apartment is quiet. Too quiet. Not like it used to be.

Once, I’d fill it with music. Light candles. Bake something late at night just to feel soft again. But those things have stopped. One by one. Silently.

Now, the place feels like it is waiting.

Like it knows someone else has touched it. Tasted it.

My eyes flutter shut.

I try to recall the stranger’s face—the one from the café. His voice. The easy cadence of his jokes.

But the memory dissolves.

All I see is shadow. A hand gripping my jaw.

The scent of my own scarf stuffed between my teeth.

I whimper, low and broken.

I sit up straighter. Throw the photo across the room. It lands on the floor, face down.

I won’t let this become my life and drown in it.

But even as I tell myself that, my hand trembles and my thighs clench in a sick, involuntary echo of memory.

I can’t outrun it.

I’m terrified.

But some part of me is desperate for him to come back.

To push me further and finish what he started.

And that brutal, shame-choked realization is the part that breaks me.

I rise to my feet and stumble toward the bedroom. Pull the curtains closed. Double-check the locks. Close every drawer. Lay a chair against the front door.

I collapse onto the bed fully clothed. The sheets still smell faintly like him.

Or maybe it’s just my imagination.

I can no longer tell the difference.