JULIAN
Iwake up choking on it. The ache. The want. The fucking dream.
I was warm. That’s the worst part. I was warm, and it was quiet. I could feel his fingers trailing down my back, slow, reverent, tracing the tattoo he used to pretend he hated—If I fall, let me burn—his breath catching on the last word every time. His mouth followed the words down like they meant something, like I meant something.
In the dream, it was still real.
Nathan’s voice was soft, not sharp. His laugh low, pressed into my neck like a promise. We were still in hotel rooms with blackout curtains and locked doors, where everything was safe, where it was just us and the world couldn’t touch what we had. I’d forgotten how much he used to look at me like I was a secret worth keeping. How his hands shook the first time he held me. How he used to whisper things to me in the dark, things I’d believed, things I’d wrapped around my spine like armor.
You’re mine. It’s always been you. You make me feel like I exist.
And I’d believed it. God, I’d believed all of it.
I wake up with tears already dried on my cheek. The pillow under me is damp. My throat aches. I’m still curled on my side in the container, the blanket tangled around my legs, chest tight, like I’ve been held down by the weight of that memory.
I miss him.
It’s stupid. It’s poison. But it’s true.
I miss the way he used to say my name like it tasted good. I miss the way he used to fuck me like he needed it. I miss the way he made me feel like I belonged to something—before he sold me out.
Before the tape. Before the betrayal. Before the silence.
I dig my palms into my eyes until colors bloom behind my lids, fierce and angry. I want to scream. I want to crawl out of my skin. I want to go back. Not to the betrayal. Not to the blood.
But to before. To when love was still love, not a goddamn noose I wrapped around my own throat.
My body hurts. My chest hurts. My fucking heart hurts.
And I hate that I still want him. I hate that even now—after everything—my brain gives me sweetness in my sleep. He’s still got a room in my head. And I can’t evict him no matter how much blood I lose.
I try to ignore it. I really do. I roll over, bury my face in the thin pillow, press the heel of my palm to the center of my chest like I can physically force the feeling back down into whatever hole it crawled out of. But it won’t go. It just sits there. Gnawing. Hollowing me out from the inside. Like someone scooped out my ribs and left the memory of him in their place.
I can still feel his fingers in my hair. His mouth on my throat. His voice—soft, fucked-up, real—saying my name like it was a secret he was proud to keep.
I need to see him. God. I need to hear him.
Fuck.
But there’s no phone, no laptop. Nothing but steel walls and silence and the sound of my own heartbeat trying to crawl up my throat.
If I had a phone, I could at least look at pictures, old videos. The ones we never meant to save. Stupid ones. Him in a hotel bed, smirking. Me under the covers whispering shit into the camera. Him wrapping his arms around me in the backseat of a bus after a game. The way he used to look at me when no one else was around—like maybe I wasn’t a dirty secret.
I need it. I need it now.
I roll out of bed, half-dressed, no shoes, shirt hanging off one shoulder, hair a sweaty mess, still half feral from the dream, and I don’t even think. I stalk barefoot through the compound, gravel biting at my soles, barely noticing.
I know exactly where I’m going. Misha.
The psycho’s got everything. Wires, devices, illegal shit no one’s allowed to ask about. If anyone’s hoarding a burner phone or something close to it, it’s the fucking Siberian wrecking ball in silk robes.
I get to his container and bang on the door like I’m about to start a fight. It creaks open a second later—no rush, no surprise.
Misha stares out at me. In full silk pajamas. Midnight blue and glossy. Wrinkled only where they cling to the scarred slab of his chest. No shirt underneath, top open. The man looks like a Russian Bond villain who fell asleep in a liquor ad.
I blue-screen. Just a second. Brain completely fried.
“What,” Misha drawls, voice thick and heavy, “does little ghost want?” His accent makes every word sound like a threat wrapped in honey.
