"Elara."
The door swung open, and Seth stepped inside. He didn't knock; he didn't hesitate. His gaze swept the room with a cold, clinical efficiency, landing first on the shattered remains of his phone and then on the mountain of crumpled photo's on her desk. He didn't flinch. Instead, he moved with a terrifyingly casual grace, leaning his shoulder against the wall beside her desk. He reached out and picked up a single photo—one of him and the brunette in bed—along with the jagged note. His expression remained a smooth, unreadable mask. No guilt, no panic, no heat.
With a flick of his wrist, he crushed the paper into a tight ball and tossed it over his shoulder without looking. It bounced off the floor and rolled into a dark corner.
"I told Natalie not to do this," he said. His voice was flat, a hollow vibration that carried no apology. He shook his head slowly, his whiskey eyes fixed on Elara with a dull, heavy stare. "But she went and did it anyway."
Elara sat perched on the edge of her bd, her head heavy in her hands. Her eyes were raw, stained bloodshot from the tears she couldn't stop. When she finally looked up, her gaze was a fractured map of hurt and disbelief.
"That's it?" Her voice cracked, barely a whisper. "That's all you have to say?"
Seth didn't move toward her. Instead, he stayed by the door, crossing his arms over his chest in a defensive wall. He offered a casual one-shouldered shrug that made her stomach churn.
"You want an apology? Fine. I'm sorry," he said, the words sliding out with a practiced, hollow smoothness. "But honestly, Elara? I wouldn't have been looking elsewhere if you weren't such a—" He cut himself off, letting the insult hang in the air like a poisoned fog. He exhaled a long, weary sigh, as if he were the one being exhausted by her reaction.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "You're just going to hear what you want to hear anyway."
"Such a what ?" Elara demanded. She surged up from the bed, her grief sharpening to a broken, desperate edge. She marched toward him until she was inches from his chest, her voice trembling but firm. "Get out, Seth. I don't ever want to see your face again."
Seth didnt flinch. He looked down at her, his whisky eyes darkening until the gold was swallowed by a bruised, ink-black shadow. He slowly uncrossed his arms, his posture shifting from defensive to predatory.
"I said get out !" Elara screamed, unable to endure his callous silence a moment longer. She lunged forward, shoving his chest with every ounce of her strength.
Seth stumbled back a half-step, his boots scuffing the floor. The silence between them was thick, charged with a erratic energe of unease and mounting anger. Elara stood on the percipice of a breakdown, her breath coming in shallow hitches, tears pooled in the corner of her eyes. Across from her, Seth had gone still. There was a new, lethal edge to his gaze—filled with contempt—a look that struck her motionless, making her realize she was looking at a stranger.
"Seth?" Her voice was a fragile thread as she called his name, her hand trembling as she reached out to bridge the distance between them.
Something in Seth snapped at the sound of her voice.
He didn't fight for control; he let it go, the last of his restraint giving way to the wreckage beneath. In its place, something abysmal and livid coiled in his gut. His hand shot out, like a trap, his grip bruising as he snatched her arm. With a sudden, violent pivot, he slammed her back against the wall. The impact rattled the frames on the desk, and he hovered over her, his shadow swallowing her whole.
"You dare try to kick me out?" He growled, his face hovering inches from hers, his breath hot and smelling of alcohol. "Yeah, I cheated. So what? You're the one who keeps refusing me like some pathetic, chaste brat. I have needs, Elara, and Natalie is ten times the woman you'll ever be."
He spat the words like venom, his grip crushing her wrists until she felt the sickening grind of bone against bone. Elara stared at him, her vision swimming through a thick veil of tears that wouldn't stop.
"Let me go!" She choked out, twist her arms in a desperate, useless struggle that only made the pain flare white-hot.
Seth didn't let go. With a sudden, forceful jerk, he gathered both her wrists into one of his large hands and pinned them high above her head against the wall.
Then, his voice shifted. The rage smoothed out into a lo terrifyingly calm murmur. "We don't have to do this baby," he whispered, the gentleness in his tone dripping with menace.
He reached out with his free hand, his fingers tracing the path of a tear down her cheek before cupping her face. "I can make this better. I can make you forget all about Natalie." He leaned in, his head tilted to the side as he pressed a kiss to her jaw, as he shoved his knee firmly between her thighs, pinning her body against the cold drywall.
"Seth, let me go!" Elara's scream was muffled against the stifling heat of his skin.
He was a crushing weight, pinning her so hard into the drywall that the plaster bit into her spine. He didn't just ignore her tears—he seemed to feed on them, his expression twisting into a dark, triumphant mask. To him, she wasn't a person anymore; she was a trophy to be broken, a conquest to be claimed.
"Stop," she gasped, the word splintering in her throat as his hand hooked into the collar of her top. With a sharp, violent jerk, the fabric gave way, the sound of the seam ripping echoing like a gunshot in the small room.
He didn't wait or hesitated. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his teeth grazing her skin in a way that felt like a predator marking prey than a lover's touch. Like he wanted her to hurt. His free hand surged toward the hem of her top, his knuckles cold and bruising against her skin, as he forcefully pulled her closer by his free hand.
Elara bucked against him, her heels scuffing a useless, frantic rhythm against the floor. But Seth was an athelete, he simply drove his knee deeper between her thighs, anchoring her lowder body against the wall until she couldn't move.
The man she thought she had love for eight months was dead; the stranger in his place was a monster of pure entitlement she failed to notice.
When he lunged for her mouth, Elara wrenched her head aside. He snarled in response, his fingers digging into her jaw with bone-crushing forced as he yanked her face back towards him. His tongue licked across her lips, a wet demanding intrusion.
Elara didn't scream this time. She waited. As he mouth pressed hard against hers impatiently, she parted her lips just enough to let him in—and then she clamped her teeth down on his tongue with every ounce of her terrified white-hot rage.
Seth let out a strangled yelp, recoiling as the metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. He pulled back, his hand clapped over his lips, his eyes wide with sudden, flickering shock that instant curled into pure, murderous rage.
"You stupid bitch," he hissed through his fingers.
In a desperate attempt to get away, Elara lunged for her the door, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She was inches from the handle when a hand shot out, threading into her hair and snapping her head back with a violent jerk. A cry of pure agony tore from her throat as he dragged her backward, deeper into the shadows of the room.
"I tried!" Seth roared, his voice cracking a self-righteous fury, as if he was the one being wronged. To him, maybe he was. "I tried to make this work! I tried to give you everything, to make you happy, but you just had to be a fucking brat!" He yanked her closer by the roots of her hair, forcing her to look up at him. His other hand clamped onto her jaw, his thumb digging into the soft underside of her chin with enough force to leave deep, darkening bruises.
"All that time,: he snarled, his face inches from hers, his breath hot and smelling of blood. "All the months I wasted on a girl who doesn't know her place. What are you going to do to make up for that, huh?"
Tears blurred her vision, the skin of her scalp feeling like it was being scorched off. She clawed at his wrist, her fingernails scratching at his skin in a desperate, weak attempt to pry him off. "Seth, stop! You're hurting me!"
"Good," he snapped, a ugly grin twisting his blood lips. "A bitch like you needs to learn what pain feels like."
His grip on her jaw tightened, his fingernails biting into her skin like talons as he began to force her mouth open, his strength absolute and terrifying. Seth’s mouth crashed against hers again, a wet, suffocating weight. He forced her jaw open, but Elara’s survival instinct flared into a blind, white-hot focus. Her hands scrambled upward, her thumbs finding the soft tissue of his eyes and digging in with everything she had.
He let out a jagged growl of pain and recoiled, his hand whipping back to strike her. The backhand caught her across the cheek with a sickening crack , jolting her head to the side and leaving her vision swimming in a haze of gray.
Before she could breathe, he grabbed her in a bruising grip and threw her onto the bed. The mattress dipped violently as he mounted her, his hands tearing at her top until the fabric gave way in a chorus of shredded seams. He pinned her wrists above her head, his mouth dropping to her neck to leave dark, punishing marks, ignoring the guttural, primal screams that tore from her throat and echoed off the walls.
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" he roared, silencing her with another sharp blow to the face. He shoved a crumpled handkerchief into her mouth, gagging her until her cries were reduced to muffled, desperate whimpers. He kept her wrists locked in one hand, his other fumbling with the metal buckle of her jeans, frustrated by the frantic, rhythmic thrashing of her legs.
Suddenly, a sharp knock shattered the rhythm of the struggle.
Seth froze, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and wild as he stared at the door. No one was supposed to be on the tenth floor. Not tonight. Not while the party was still going on.
"Elara? Are you okay? I heard... I heard screams."
Recognition hit Elara like a physical shock. Nicole.
Adrenaline flooded her system. She bucked upward, her knee catching Seth hard in his side. He let out a strangled groan, but he didn't fall. Instead, his hand flew to her throat—not to choke her, but to claim it. His fingers wrapped around her neck, his thumbs pressing firmly against her pulse points.
He ripped the gag from her mouth, his face inches from hers, his voice a lethal, low-vibration whisper.
"Tell your friend to leave. Now," he breathed, his thumbs twitching against her carotid arteries. "Do not test me, Elara. I will end this before she even gets the door open."
The door handle rattled—a frantic, metallic sound that felt like a lifeline. "Elara?" Nicole’s voice was sharper now, the worry finally overriding her politeness.
Seth’s hand tightened, his thumb pressing into the soft hollow of Elara's throat. His eyes were blown wide, a manic flickering of rage and mounting panic. "Do it," he hissed, his voice a jagged sliver of a whisper. "Tell her to get lost."
Elara’s breath hitched, her words coming out in a bruised, choked rasp. "She... she won't go. Not until she sees me. You know how she is."
Seth stared at her, his jaw working as he calculated the risk. He knew the bond between them; Nicole was the kind of friend who would call the RAs or the police if she didn't get an answer. He abruptly stood, the mattress springing back as he loosed his grip.
"No funny business," he warned, his voice dropping into a terrifying, flat calm as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. "If you breathe a word, I will make what just happened look like a favor. Understand?"
Elara nodded, her movements stiff and robotic. She tried to stand, but her knees buckled, her entire being vibrating with a fine, uncontrollable tremor. She hit the floor, her palms flat against the cold linoleum. She couldn't let Nicole walk away. She couldn't let the door close again.
"Elara," Seth snapped, stepping toward her. "Stop wasting my time."
Thud-thud-thud. Nicole knocked again, the sound echoing like a heartbeat.
Elara’s breathing fractured. She stayed crouched on the ground, her eyes darting frantically until they caught a glint of steel beneath the bed frame—her heavy, stainless-steel water bottle.
Adrenaline, cold and electric, flooded her system. She collapsed into a fetal ball, clutching her chest as her lungs seemed to seize. "I can't... I can't breathe," she wheezed, her eyes wide and pleading as she looked up at him. "Seth... help..."
Seth clicked his tongue, a sound of pure, arrogant annoyance. He stepped over her and reached down, his fingers digging into her bicep to haul her upward.
It happened in a blur of survival.
As he pulled her up, Elara didn't fight the momentum—she used it. Her hand shot under the bed, fingers curling around the cold metal of the bottle. In one fluid, explosive motion, she swung.
The heavy steel connected with the side of Seth’s temple with a sickening, hollow thunk .
Everything stilled. The knocking stopped. The air in the room seemed to freeze.
Seth’s eyes remained wide, frozen in a look of absolute shock as he slumped to the floor. A dark, viscous pool began to spread across the white linoleum, staining the edges of the rug. He didn't gasp. He didn't groan. The ragged, entitled breathing that had filled the room for the last hour simply... ceased.
Elara scrambled backward, her heels skidding on the linoleum as she put distance between herself and the heap of muscle and bone that used to be Seth. The steel bottle slipped from her numb fingers, hitting the floor with a heavy, hollow clang that echoed like a bell.
She waited for the shock. She waited for the sob to tear through her chest, for the crushing weight of what she’d just done to make her knees fail.
It never came.
Instead, a strange, cooling relief washed over her, stilling the tremors in her hands. She wouldn’t be hurt again. She wouldn’t have to look into those whiskey-colored eyes and wonder which lie was the truth.
She caught her reflection in the vanity mirror. Her bottom lip was a jagged, swollen mess of red. Dark, finger-shaped bruises were already blooming like rot across her throat, and her left cheek was a map of broken capillaries where he had struck her. But it was her eyes that held her gaze. The terror was gone, replaced by a hard, crystalline clarity.
Nicole was still screaming her name, the door handle rattling so violently it sounded like it might snap off.
Elara didn’t hurry. She moved with a slow, deliberate grace, plucking a clean flannel shirt from her laundry basket and pulling it over her shredded top. She walked to the door, turned the deadbolt, and swung it open.
Nicole stood there, breathless and pale, her phone already out to call for help. She began to speak, her voice a high-pitched frantic blur, but Elara didn't hear a word of it. She simply turned her back on her friend and walked back to the edge of the bed.
She sat down, her posture perfect, and stared at Seth’s vacant, staring eyes. A slow, sharp smirk pulled at her wounded lip, the sting of it feeling like a reward.
She sat down, her posture perfect, and stared at Seth’s vacant, staring eyes. A slow, sharp smirk pulled at her wounded lip, the sting of it feeling like a reward.
"Who’s scared now?" she whispered, her voice low and mocking as she threw his own words back at his corpse. "You fucking brat."
Victim 1: Seth Morris
Rule#3: To stop being the prey, you must become the predator.