Page 38 of Little Spider

Her room was small. A cheap flat in a bad part of the city. The kind of place no one would ask questions if she disappeared. The kind of place where screams might get ignored.

Not that she’d scream.

Not for me.

My boots hit the hardwood with barely a sound. I didn’t breathe until I saw her.

There she was.

Curled on her side, facing the window. Facing me.

But she didn’t wake.

Not yet.

Not as I crossed the floor and stood beside her bed, watching the way the moonlight cut across her throat. Watching the way one hand clutched the blanket like she needed it to stay grounded.

I crouched beside her and didn’t move.

Just…watched.

For a long time.

“You leave the window unlocked on purpose sometimes,” I whispered to the quiet. “Don’t you?”

She shifted in her sleep. A tiny sound left her lips.

I nearly moaned.

My fingers hovered over her cheek. Close enough to feel the warmth of her skin, but not close enough to touch.

Not yet.

She sighed, soft and wrecked, and I saw her mouth move. A sound. A word.

My name.

Barely audible.

Like a dream she wasn’t ready to wake from.

I leaned in, whispering into the dark. “I’m already here, little spider.”

I stood up, turned slowly, and walked through the room like a collector in a museum. I took nothing. I touched everything.

Her books. Her headphones. The sweater still smelled like her shampoo.

I opened her drawer. Found her journal. I didn’t read it.

Just touched the spine and imagined her hand holding the pen, scribbling in the dark when she thought no one saw her.

I opened her wardrobe. Stared at the empty space where she hung the one black dress I hated. The one she wore when other men looked at her.

I found her perfume. Sprayed it once into the air. Let it settle over me like a drug.

And when I turned back to her sleeping body?

I smiled.