I pick up a pen from her desk, rolling it between my fingers, imagining her out there right now, wandering between the rows of steel drawers in the red light. She’ll check the corners. She’ll check the lockers. And eventually, that analytical brain of hers will realize where I went.
She’ll come back here. To her sanctuary. To the one place she thinks she’s in control. I lean my head back and close my eyes, listening to the silence of the hallway, waiting for the sound of her frantic footsteps.
Come to me, Mali.
The phone is heavy in my hand, a window into the red-tinted world I just left behind. On the screen, Madeline is a portrait of beautiful, desperate chaos. She isn't the composed Dr. Emerson anymore. She’s half-undressed, her scrubs discarded somewhere near the table where I marked her, leaving her in nothing but the shirt and the white coat. She looks small against the towering stainless steel of the cooling units. Vulnerable, exposed, and utterly captivating.
I watch her arms wrap around herself, a futile attempt to shield her skin from the clinical chill of the morgue. She’s shivering, but it isn't just the cold. It’s the hunt.
She stops at a corner, her eyes darting upward. I see her gaze land directly on the camera lens. She’s checking them, searching for the tiny red indicator light, trying to see if I’m watching.
She’s smart. She knows the game hasn't ended; it has only changed shape. She looks ashamed, her cheeks flushed even in the infrared view, but she doesn't stop.
A low, dark chuckle vibrates in my chest.
She’s looking for me. Not out of fear, not to escape, but because she wants to find me. The realization is a drug, more potent than anything I’ve ever felt.
For a while now, I’ve been the one chasing, the one haunting her steps. But now, the roles have shifted. I’ve become her north star, and she is navigating the darkness just to get back to me.
I watch her fingers trail along the edge of a dissection table. The one where she tried to do her examination. She’s tracing my path, trying to guess where I vanished. Her movements are frantic, yet there’s a new fire in her eyes, a hunger that mirrors my own.
“That’s it, Mali,” I whisper to the empty office, my thumb tracing the curve of her hip on the glass screen.
“Keep looking. Realize that there is nowhere left to hide from what you feel.”
I lock the phone and set it face-down on her desk. I don’t need the screen anymore. I hear the distant, muffled chime of the elevator. Then, the rhythmic, echoing click of boots on the linoleum in the hallway.
She’s coming.
I can feel the sting on my neck pulsing in time with her footsteps. The door handle begins to turn slowly, tentatively. I don’t smile often, but as the door creaks open, a triumphant grin carves its way across my face.
The storm has finally come home. To me.
“Fast catch,” I praise, my voice a low vibration in the quiet office.
My gaze snaps immediately to her exposed body, to the place I bit just minutes ago. I lick my lower lip unconsciously. She closesthe door behind her and turns to face me, silent, waiting for my next order.
“Get on all fours,” I command.
She furrows her eyebrows at me, a flicker of her old defiance, but it’s gone in a heartbeat. Slowly, her knees and hands touch the floor. My eyes remain locked on hers, pinning her down more effectively than my hands ever could.
“Crawl to me.”
I fix my posture, leaning forward to get a better view as my little storm crawls toward me like I’m her God. I let my elbows rest on my knees, head tilted slightly.
At the moment she reaches me, still on all fours, I unbuckle my belt. My pants are already so tight it hurts. She decided to find me. She chose to serve her own monster.
She stops as she changes her position, kneeling in front of me between my boots. I part my legs more, offering her the view she’s been craving. My hand brushes her cheek, my fingers trailing over the skin as my eyes bore into hers. Desperate. Wanting. Exactly what I need.
I grip her chin, forcing her head up until she has no choice but to meet my gaze. I want her to see the darkness she’s invited in. I want her to see that there is no doctor left in this room, only the man who broke her world and the woman who let him.
“Look at me, Mali,” I rasp, my thumb dragging across her lower lip, still stained with the ghost of my blood.
“I want you to remember this. Tomorrow, when you sit in this chair and write your reports, when you look at the bodies on those tables, you’re going to feel the ghost of this moment. You’re going to remember that in your own sanctuary, you knelt for the villain.”
Her breath is coming in ragged hitches, her eyes wide and dark with a hunger that matches the ache in my own gut. She doesn'tpull away. She leans into my touch, a silent confession of how much she needs this destruction.
I lean back, the leather of the chair creaking under my weight, and my hand slides from her jaw to the back of her head. My fingers tangle in her hair, gripping just tight enough to make her gasp.
