"Still with me?"
The voice slid through my head in a haze, too close yet distant all at once. My ears were ringing, my heart thudding in my chest like fists rapping on a wall.
There was no door opening this time. No footsteps that I noticed. He was already there somehow.
The room was swimming. My limbs trembled with a cold that had sunk into my bones. My hands — I couldn't even feel them anymore. The straps had cut off blood circulation, and now my arms were nothing but dead weight on the table. I couldn't see Jack, I just presumed he was hidden in the shadows.
Tyler was leaning against the edge of the table like he'd never left. He barely smiled, just the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth when I lifted my head to look at him.
I tried to say something but my mouth didn't move. I hadn't even noticed the tape until now. Had he put it on before I woke up — if I'd even been asleep at all?
He uncrossed his arms, stood, and turned to me. Braced both hands on the table, lowered his head, and leaned in. Not threatening. Reverent, almost.
"You're shaking," he murmured. I didn't know whether he was referencing what I'd said the other day or if it was just an observation. It felt like both.
Then his fingers found my jaw, lifting gently — so unexpectedly soft, it made my skin crawl. I hated how warm his hand was. I hated that my pulse quickened when he touched me like that. The air between us buzzed.
Close enough now that I could smell him: faintly minty breath, musky cologne, something earthy and rich. My breath caught in my throat, trapped in my lungs.
"You want me to kiss you," he whispered, his voice lower now. "Don't lie."
That stopped me. I let out the breath I'd held and turned my head away with a scowl, knowing full-well I couldn't escape this situation.
But part of me… didn't even want to. Not when he teased me like that. The flutter in my lower half had said it all.
Still, I pulled away.
His mouth hovered too close. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. I was trembling, and not just from the cold anymore.
"I could..." he whispered, voice like poison-soaked silk. "But I won't. Where's the fun in that?"
And as if it didn't mean a thing, he stood back. Inhaled sharply. Straightened his suit jacket.
Maybe that's what he wanted to believe.
I let out a shuddering breath, humiliated by the sound of it — desperate.
And like it was nothing at all, he turned and casually picked up the scalpel. Like grabbing a pen off a desk.
My stomach plummeted.
"Act Three begins now."
He took my left arm first, examining it with a kind of twisted care as he slid into the chair opposite me. His fingers glided across my skin like he was learning it, memorising it.
"Soft skin..." he murmured. "Pretty veins."
His fingers brushed, featherlight, along the blue branches under my skin, giving me goosebumps. It felt... strangely intimate.
Until it didn’t.
He looked up at me, something dangerous gleaming behind his pupils. "Shame I have to ruin them."
The scalpel glinted in the light as it moved to my arm.
The first cut was shallow. A thin, clean line that burned more than it bled. I gasped, clenching my teeth hard to stifle a scream.
The second cut was slower — much deeper. Cruel. A scream exploded from my chest, muffled through my nose.
Tyler didn't falter.
"You're so loud today," he said, almost amused. "I like it. Don't hold back, princess. Let me hear you."
Princess.
I loathed that word. Detested how he said it. Despised the way it so easily crawled under my skin and embedded itself in my core.
He paused for a moment after the second cut, his gaze lingering on the way my blood trickled across the table. He looked satisfied.
His fingers touched the edge of the tape over my mouth. Slow. Testing.
"You know," he said quietly, conversational now, as if we were sitting at dinner, "if you just asked me to stop — really asked — I might consider it."
I stared at him, bewildered. Then began to plead, eyes wide, nodding. Like a dog begging for a treat.
"Not that I'd say yes, of course... but you'd feel better thinking you had a choice."
He reached for my right arm.
I choked, thrashing uselessly against the restraints, still pleading for him to stop at two.
The third cut landed near my elbow, slicing through thinner, more sensitive skin.
I cried out again, my legs trying to kick him under the table despite being restrained. Tears blurred my vision, hot and sudden. My body was fire and ice, simultaneously burning and freezing.
"Pain is the only thing the body never forgets. Everything else fades — the warmth of a hug, the thrill of desire, even grief. But pain?"
He said it with quiet conviction, like it was scripture. "Pain is permanent."
And for just a second, his expression changed. Not cruel. Not smug.
Something closer to... admiration.
"You look beautiful," he whispered, transfixed. "I don't think you realise how much you shine when you're in pain."
I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't look at anything. My head hung low.
"Eyes on me, princess."
I whimpered. Both hands came to my head, gripping me, not too tight.
"Look at your arms."
"Mmmph—hhnnnph!"
"Look at them, baby."
I was too caught up in trying not to look to notice the new pet name — baby.
But I looked.
And I immediately wished I hadn't.
Blood.
So much fucking blood.
Dark red lines weeping across pale skin. I wasn't even sure how deep they went anymore. I couldn't tell where the pain ended and my body began. The whole room tilted. I couldn't breathe. I let out a broken sob, a mixture of distress, fear, and shock.
"Good job," Tyler said, his voice unusually gentle. "You're doing so well."
I tore my face away from his grip, jerking violently to the right. My hair spilled forward, sticking to my cheeks.
And when I lifted my head, everything changed.
The edges of the room pulsed, rippled, shifted.
Something skittered along the ceiling, just above my line of sight. My eyes shot up to catch it. The room changed.
Blood everywhere.
Coating the walls.
Pooling rapidly on the table.
Dripping thickly from the ceiling.
Tyler, too. Drenched head to toe in blood. Face twisted, melted, smiling too wide. His eyes just gaping black holes. And I could've sworn for a second I saw bone.
Once again, I was losing it. Just like I had in the restroom. It was happening again.
"Emily." His voice was distant now. Indistinct.
I couldn’t answer. Barely heard him. My eyes were wide with panic, my breathing erratic and chest shuddering as I dragged in lungfuls of air through my nose.
Everything burned; my skin, nose, eyes, arms where he'd cut me, and something on my tongue like hot sauce.
"Emily?"
My eyes were staring — I don't even know where.
And then, suddenly—
I felt something touch me.
Warmth.
Pressure.
On my mouth.
Tyler's lips were pressed against the tape.
Firm. Deliberate. Possessive.
He kissed me.
When he finally pulled back, I was staring — not into the void — into those onyx eyes, breath gone but back in focus.
He smiled, small but genuine.
Like he was satisfied. Satiated.
"There you are," he murmured, his thumb on my chin, pressing lightly as if to keep me present. "Good girl."
I stilled. Blinked a few times. Calmed down momentarily, though the panic hadn’t quite fully left.
"Was starting to think I'd lost you."
When he finally stood, he exhaled slowly, as if also collecting himself.
And then reality came flooding back for the both of us.
"Jack," he said. "Get Dr. Thorne."