Page 160 of Little Spider

“Hope,” he says simply.

“That’s what bled out of you. That’s what I carved free with every denied orgasm. Every moan you weren’t allowed to finish.”

His hand slides down.

Over my back.

Across my branded skin.

“Damien wanted you to beg.” A pause. “I wanted you to stop.” His voice lowers. “Stop pretending that this is not what you were made for. Stop hiding in the mirror. Stop being afraid of how much you like it.”

He walks around to face me again.

Unbuttons the black shirt he hadn’t worn a second ago. Beneath it—scars.

Rows of them. Carved across his chest like a map to something forbidden.

He takes my hand and presses it to one.

“You cut me first,” he says. “The night you told yourself you were still good.” Another scar. Deeper. “You did this one when you lied and said it wasn’t love.”

He kneels.

Eye to eye.

His thumb presses against the moth branded into my chest.

“That one’s mine. The cleanest cut of all.”

I can’t breathe because I’m not sure I want to.

He leans in. “You’re not clean anymore, little doll. And you should be proud.”

And just before I can speak, he kisses my mouth—not like Damien.

Like silence.

Like closure.

Like a wound sewn shut with silk thread.

When he pulls back, he whispers: “The priest is ready for you now.”

The surgeon leaves me kneeling, blood-warmed and silent on the stone floor.

He doesn’t say goodbye.

He doesn’t need to because when he closes the mirrored door behind him—Another one opens.

Candlelight spills in, thick with incense and smoke and there—standing at the threshold like a shadow that grew teeth—is the priest.

He wears black but not Damien’s black. Not cruel or calculated. This is ceremonial. Robes cinched at the waist, bare beneath, silver rings on each finger, a rosary coiled around one hand like a leash.

And in the other?

A bowl.

Liquid sloshes inside—dark, metallic, red.