“Your body knows exactly what I am. It’s screaming at you to run. To fight. To do anything but stand here trembling in my arms. “
He inhales slowly at the curve of my neck, and I feel my knees buckle at the icy vibration of his voice.
“So why aren’t you running, little pathologist?”
He demands.
The question hits harder than the grip on my throat. The second of silence that follows is the heaviest of my life. And then, finally, my instincts snap into gear.
I wrench myself from his grasp with every ounce of strength I have. He doesn’t seem to fight me. He simply lets go. As if he’s curious to see what I’ll do next. I bolt down the corridor as if my life depends on it. It probably does. All I can hear is a deep, almost manic laugh echoing off the sterile walls behind me. I don’t look back. I run straight for the elevator.
No footsteps chase me. The lights behind me die one by one as the motion sensors stop registering my presence. Darkness swallows the hallway in sections, chasing me toward my goal. It looks almost poetic, viewed from the place where I’m currently gasping for air.
I hammer the elevator button frantically. First floor. I need to tell Bryan. Maybe he saw something on the cameras. Maybe…
The doors slide open with a soft hiss. I stumble inside and immediately spin to face the corridor, my finger poised over the close door button.
He’s standing there. In the dark, looking as if he was carved from it. The black hood. The black tactical gear. What looks like a common thief is, in reality, something much worse. A phantom who has chosen me.
The ember of the cigarette glows, briefly illuminating his lips. It feels like time has stopped. He’s smiling. Not wide. Notexaggerated. Just enough. Like he knows something I don’t. Like he’s already won something I didn’t realize we were playing for.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifts the cigarette back to his lips. He doesn’t break eye contact. Not once.
Then, instead of flicking it away, he presses the burning tip directly against his tongue. A sharp hiss fills the narrow space between us. The faint, sickly smell of scorched flesh reaches me even from here. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn't blink. He just watches me through the rising smoke, showing that he is the master of his own suffering, and potentially, mine.
The ember dies between his teeth, extinguished by his own body. Darkness swallows him whole as the light of the cigarette vanishes. My breath stutters.What the fuck.
Heavy footsteps suddenly shatter the silence of the corridor. Fast. Intentional. Coming straight toward me.
The elevator doors begin to close with an agonizingly slow mechanical groan. The footsteps get louder. Closer. Almost there. Then, with a heavy thud, the doors slam shut.
Metal seals us apart. Silence drops like a blade, severing me from the monster in the hall. The elevator jerks downward. My legs give out. Not from weakness, but from sheer, staggering shock of it all.
I slide down the cold metal until my knees hit the floor. Air won’t fill my lungs properly; my chest feels constricted by an invisible wire. My hands are shaking violently. Not because he touched me. Not because he threatened me. But because he stopped. Because he wanted me to see him. To run. To feel hunted. And god help me, because he didn’t chase me hard enough.
This wasn’t an attack. It was a demonstration. A lesson in power.And I realize something far more terrifying than the cigarette, than the whispers, than his hand around my throat:He let me go. For now. He’s playing with his food, and I just find out how delicious he finds my fear.
The elevator doors chime and open to the first floor. My legs are steady now. My mind isn’t. I walk straight to security.
Bryan looks up from his monitor. He’s leaning back in his desk chair, arms crossed over a chest that looks like it spends significantly more time in a gym than behind the monitors. Broad shoulders stretch the fabric of his black security uniform, sleeves rolled just high enough to expose strong forearms.
He’s not subtle about his size. Or the way he carries it. Six-foot-something. Built like he expects to use it. He’s built like a fortress, but tonight, even he feels like a cardboard shield against what’s waiting upstairs.
Short dark hair, always a little too perfectly styled for someone who claims he doesn’t try. Sharp jawline softened by the faintest hint of stubble. Warm brown eyes that usually hold humor.
Bryan looks like a safety. Like someone predictable. Human. Nothing about him blends into shadows. Nothing about him disappears in the dark. And for a split second, I hate that the comparison forms in my head at all.
“Jesus, Mali. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Bryan’s eyes are full of genuine worry.
“I saw something worse,” I rasp, forcing my voice to stay level despite the tremors racking my frame.
“There was someone upstairs. In the corridor. He touched me.”
His posture shifts instantly, his protective instincts flaring.
“Touched you how?”
