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Chapter Seven

Byron

I don’t know what’s killing me faster—the smell in the bucket in the corner of the room or the hunger pangs that claw at my stomach. Each breath I take is filled with rot, thick and suffocating, pressing against my ribs like something living. The scent seeps into my skin, settles in my throat, refusing to leave. The darkness doesn’t bother me as much, but I hate being trapped like an animal. The walls feel closer as if the space is shrinking with each passing second. This is worse than prison, worse than anything I could have imagined. So bravo to him for making this dehumanizing. He didn’t just cage me. He stripped me down to nothing. He knew exactly what he was doing.

But my mind dissociates, and with hunger and thirst weakening me, all I’ve done is sleep. Drifting in and out, losing sense of time, and my body too frail to fight as my mind slips between nightmares and memories, between the past and the monster waiting for me. Maybe this is how I die—slow and painful, revisiting my childhood, my failures… my nightmares that replay over and over. Gabriela naked and bleeding.

Dead. Always dead.

I’m surrounded by my dead in this space, and I hate that more than anything. Their whispers crawl under my skin, slipping into my ear like a blade pressed against my skull. They taunt me, whispering my failures, carving their accusations into the walls. Taunting me that once again, I didn’t protect her. I failed her. Over and over until their voices bleed into my own. But being isolated has made me consider something I never would have before. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe I was never meant to win. Maybe I don’t need to fight him. Fight this.

Instead, maybe I should give in.

What’s the worst that could happen?

I could close my eyes and let the void take me. Let it pull me under, carry me far away from my failures, from my shame… from this sick, gnawing need to see him again. To hear his voice, even if it’s only to break me further.

To feel him.

Because the truth is, it’s not fear that I have for Ren—it’s need. A raw, festering wound that refuses to close. Twisted. Sick. Deep enough to rot me from the inside out. I must be demented to crave the very thing that made me sick. But what can I say? Hunger is hunger. Craving is craving. Even when it kills you. Even when it rips your soul apart piece by piece.

Closing my eyes, I drift off to where he waits for me—the big bad wolf, waiting to consume me.

The sound of flesh falling to the ground snaps me back into the dream, but I know better. This isn’t a dream. Or maybe it is. Or maybe it never was. I watch as Ren carves into his victim, his knife humming, his hands steady. Steady in a way that makes my stomach turn. This time, familiar brown eyes look my way. Wide. Glassy. Unblinking.

Gabriela.

I watch in horror as Ren continues to carve; angry, uneven chunks of flesh are missing from her body in various places. Her ribs. Her collarbone. The soft flesh of her stomach peeled away like layers of paint on a canvas. Her body is motionless, but her mouth hangs open. Her brown eyes rimmed with red, soaked in silent tears.

“Come,” Ren demands, extending a bloody hand, the electric knife humming in his grip.

My feet move before I even make the choice.

“Show her who you belong to, and her pain stops.” Ren’s bloody hand brings mine to his lips, his breath warm against my knuckles. I feel the stickiness of blood there, drying against my skin. My stomach lurches, but I don’t pull away.

“Show me who you belong to,” he murmurs against my skin.

And like a puppet, I fall to my knees, giving him what he wants. Not thinking. Not resisting. Just moving, just obeying. Not bothering to look behind me. I can’t. I don’t want to see the judgment, the disgust in my sister’s eyes.

My mouth falls open as his blood-slick fingers cup my chin, tilting my face up toward him. A single command unspoken between us.

He slips his cock into my waiting mouth.

His grip on my chin is firm as he thrusts, pushing deep, hitting the back of my throat, forcing me to take all of him. My throat contracts, body revolting, but I swallow it down. I gag, coughing around his length, as my hands are clenching into fists against my thighs. But Ren needs control. Ren always needs control.

So, I give it to him.

Because it’s my choice. That’s what I tell myself. That’s the lie I let myself believe. He can’t take shit from someone who’s giving it away.

Slowly, he pulls back, dragging his cock against my tongue, my lips parting further to taste him. The warmth, the salt, the weight of him. My body betrays me, tongue sliding along the underside of his shaft. I surprise myself as my cheeks hollow, as a small whimper escapes me when he pushes back in. Like I’ve done this before. Like I know him in ways I shouldn’t.

Spit drips from the corner of my mouth as he uses me, as I let him. My lips stretch, my throat burns, and yet, I sink deeper. My knees are wet from the pool of blood beneath me. Or maybe it’s piss. Maybe it’s both. Maybe I don’t care.

My hand moves on its own, cupping his balls, feeling them tighten against my palm. He’s close.

And I take him further.

My hand and mouth work together as he starts pulling away. Slower, deliberate strokes, as his moans are low, satisfied.

“Open. ”

And I do.

My eyes never leave his—those black voids of nothing, endless and hungry. His warm, salty cum splashes onto my lips, onto my waiting tongue. I drink him in, my mouth remaining open…

Until the warmth shifts.

Until the stench of urine hits me, sharp and rancid. Coughing, choking, I spit the foul taste from my mouth, scrambling back despite my body’s weakness.

“HAHAHA,” Ren chuckles, shaking his cock, small flecks of silver glinting beneath the dim light. He’s pierced now? When the fuck did that happen? Wiping my mouth with my trembling hand, I glare at the devil himself as he pushes his onyx strands from his forehead.

“What?” he grins, unbothered, unashamed. His lips are still red, raw from biting down his own pleasure. “Don’t look at me that way. You looked thirsty, so I helped.”

His gaze drifts downward—to my own softening erection.

His smirk widens.

“Would have helped with that too,” he muses, “but you need to eat, which brings me here.”

I swallow past the dryness in my throat, past the lingering taste of him.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“For you not to die,” he answers simply, kneeling in front of me, dressed in nothing but sweats. No shirt. No shoes. Bare, vulnerable, raw. But he’s never vulnerable. Never anything less than in complete control. I catch myself staring too hard at him. At my personal sin. At my sickness. At the one thing in this world that is mine, even if I never wanted it.

At the one thing I want more than I want to breathe.

And yet, I also want to tear it away, rip him apart, burn us both to the fucking ground.

“What?” I demand, voice hoarse.

Placing a hand on my thigh, his grip firm, possessive, final, he looks into my eyes. Sees me. Sees everything. Like he always has. Like he always will.

“Create something for me,” he murmurs, “and you can eat. ”

“No.”

His fingers tighten around my thigh, the pressure unmistakable, his disapproval is like a brand on my skin. But I don’t care.

I’m not a killer. Not yet.

And that’s the sickness that separates us.

I might be a shadow. But Ren is a void. A black mass that consumes everything it touches.

“Fine,” he says as he pulls away his hand, his touch disappearing too fast, leaving behind a phantom warmth. My body already misses it, but I refuse to react. Refuse to show him what I crave. He turns to leave. A shadow pulling away, a presence leaving a void behind. But then, he turns.

“Choices have consequences, Byron. Always remember that.”

I do.

I open my mouth to speak, to snap something back, to push, to hold onto the only power I have left. But I don’t give him the satisfaction. He wants to break me? Then he better fucking work for it. He wants me to give in? Then he’ll have to force it.

But I also can’t die. Because if I die, who will keep the monster from going after Gabriela? And just like that, the words are ready to spill, a surrender poised at the tip of my tongue. But then the sunlight stuns me—sharp and blinding, like a cruel joke. Before I can speak, before I can decide whether I want to stop him or let him leave, he’s gone.

And I’m left behind.

In the dark.

Once again, left with my dead.

I fall back, bones pressing into the cold ground, stomach twisting in on itself. The hunger pains dig their claws deeper. The ghosts press closer. And my mind continues to betray me.