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I can move again.
“When were you going to tell me where you found this rose?” She asks. “Did you know he was in here last night?”
I move over to her, taking the rose from her as she sets it back on the countertop and tucking it behind my ear.
“How long are you going to stalk me… interrogate me on the actions of a man I don’t know?” I ask.
As now I stand, arms folded and completely resolute, not backing down from this, Rory shrinks away from me.
“What I’m doing is nothing compared to this man-” she starts to say. “How can you stand there and defend the actions of your actual stalker over your own friend? How long have we known each other?”
I can see actual tears forming in her eyes now. It almost draws me back, but I’ve already committed to this path.
She won’t shake me from it. Something about this man, or creature, or whatever it is stirs me to action.
“I thought you said you weren’t getting involved anymore?” I ask simply.
“Quinn, this isn’t some puppy infatuation you can double down on,” she yells. “This man is actually dangerous to you!”
I move to console her, wrapping my arms around her as she weeps. This chase is starting to break her. Ironically, I never wanted her involved in the first place.
“You have to move away,” she says simply, eyes cast down to the ground. “I’m going to miss you, but it’s the only way.”
“I’m not doing that,” I reply. “If he ever hurts me, then I might consider it. But I keep telling you he’s harmless.”
Whether she’s being paranoid or not, I hope this ends soon. I hate having to lie to her.
I’ll just have to be more careful next time. Because I know he’s not going to stop - I don’t know if he would if I asked him to. She’s abnormally perceptive, and she knows me incredibly well, so hiding this in the future is going to be complicated.
I walk her out of the apartment, telling her good night.
I can imagine him sitting there on the couch, watching me walk her out. He’s got a twisted smirk on his face - a face I can’t imagine, contorting into and out of life.
“Our game continues,” he says smugly.
I scoff at him.
Whoever this guy is, he’ll never taste my fear.
12
CASPIAN
I’ve left so many roses for her - so many gifts, testing her loyalty to me. Every step of the way, I have gazed upon her, admiring her as she proved the depths of her commitment to me. I’ve tested her bond to me… watched as with no hesitance, she’s fallen for my every gesture.
“And she’s always been mine,” I say.
But now she wears the rose that I left on her pillow behind her ear. It wasn’t even an intentional gesture - the rose was symbolic of her, a delicate, wilting flower desperate for my care, prone to the passage of time. I left it in a moment of weakness.
However, she made it a gesture… took meaning from metaphor. She wears it proudly now, as though it’s a flag she can wield freely to draw me toward her.
I watch her, living in squalor, so grateful for my every display of generosity and wealth, and at the same time that it stimulates me, driving my inner beast to howl with vigor, it saddens me. I hear her cries for attention… her desire to have more, but her unwillingness to ask for it. She needed a facilitator to teach her what she lacked, and I just happened to have stepped into that role.
But it’s so much more than that. I am not merely a generous benefactor, enabling her, giving her the things she is unable to possess.
I can sense her need.
With every thrum of the amulet, I understand her true motivations, and her thirst for me. It speaks to me, showing me her heart, and the deeper parts of herself that she would rather not confront. I see the light inside of her, and the shadow - witness her own monsters, as they war with the angels in her soul.
