Page 115 of Sweet Obsession

I didn’t know which part scared me more, The men who betrayed him. Or the one who never would.

When sleep finally claimed me, it came like a thief, silent, sudden, brutal.

And so did the nightmare.

It always starts the same.

The hallway is cold. The floor beneath me slick with something dark and sticky. My feet are bare, the blood coating the tiles smearing as I run, my body failing to obey the command to escape. I can feel it, that sickly warmth beneath my skin, like my blood and his are one in the same. It clings to me, drags me down. I turn the corner, and there he is.

Stepan.

His face is unrecognizable. His lips swollen, bruises covering the skin like an abstract painting of pain. But his eyes—his eyes burn. They’re still green, still alive, still full of the fire that used to haunt me in better days.

“Run,” he whispers.

I can’t move. My body is frozen, trapped in some invisible cage.

A gunshot rips through the silence, and his head snaps back. His body jerks. Blood explodes from the wound, painting the walls, the floor, his face. I feel it before I see it, the red. It coats my hands. My skin. My dress. I’m drowning in it.

I wake up with a scream that feels like it’s tearing me in half.

I’m shaking. My chest heaves, struggling to catch the air I can’t seem to find. Stepan’s blood. I can smell it, like iron and death, still on me. It clings to my skin, to my soul. The heat of it feels like a sin.

And then, the door bursts open.

Misha.

“Luna!” His voice is frantic. He’s there, hovering in the doorway, panic flashing in his eyes as they scan the room for danger.

I scramble back, my back hitting the headboard, the sheets tangling around me. “Don’t touch me!” I scream, my voice raw, desperate.

His hands freeze, suspended in the air. His face softens with something I can’t place. “Luna, it’s me.”

But all I see is green eyes. Stepan’s eyes. His blood. His body. The necklace.

I reach for the glass of water beside me, and without thinking, I throw it at him. The water shatters, spraying across the floor in a deadly dance with glass shards.

He doesn’t flinch. Not even a twitch.

“Get out.” My voice cracks, the last shred of control slipping away.

Misha steps back. It isn’t because he wants to, but because he knows. He understands. He knows what it’s like to wake up haunted by the past.

He stands there in the doorway, silent for a long time, then speaks in a voice so quiet, it almost breaks me.

“I see him Stepan... He was shot...” My voice trembles, but it comes out anyway.

His throat tightens. “I see him too,” he says. “Every time I close my eyes.”

He takes a slow step forward, and I flinch.

“Leave,” I whisper, raw. “Please... just go.”

But he doesn’t move.

Not yet.

“I’m not your enemy,” he says softly, his tone almost too tender. Then he turns, and this time, he goes.