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“Happy Sunday, my lovelies,” you cooed smoothly into the pop filter-protected microphone, the camera on your laptop capturing and streaming your crystal clear image to your thousands of viewers. “Welcome to another special Sunday edition of Seriality where we discuss anything and everything serial killers. Why special, some of you new kids might ask? Well, over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about … wait for it …” You tapped a key and the chilling sound of a lone church bell filled your headphones. “The Sunday Sinner.” 

The chat window in the corner of the screen began to scroll as your viewers greeted you and instantly began debating the Sunday Sinner case as if they were FBI agents in their own right. A smile crept on your face—each of those usernames represented little dollar signs, and you had the absolute pleasure of earning them while indulging in your darkest obsession.

Rain pelted the window beside you as you went on.

“The serial killer whose gimmick is to kill the victim on a Sunday and, some way or another, make sure they’re discovered on a Sunday. Could be the same Sunday. Could be six months later. But it will always. Be. A Sunday. So, it was only appropriate that we move the show to when? Sunday! And if you’re new here, let me catch you up.” You inhaled deeply through your nostrils, resting your arms on the table in front of you. “The Sunday Sinner has been working, we think, over the past two years. The areas he uses to hunt are always the same: college towns. The victims are all female, in their early 20s, actively enrolled in school, and, well, they all … kind of look like me—same hair and eye color, same general build. Why am I still alive? Who knows? Maybe I’m next? Or more likely, I probably just give him the ick.” Your laugh was dry, kind of hollow. “His sole method of killing is strangulation. And not only that, the medical examiners were able to determine, by the marks on the necks, that he almost assuredly strangled them from the front. Which means he’s looking into her eyes while she’s dying.”

Your own eyes drifted to the floor while taking a sip from your Stanley cup of ice water, your mind briefly flashing to a dramatization of such a murder—the terror, the confusion, the pain from the hands tightening around her windpipe—which then evolved into a memory from this morning, when your boyfriend had shown up at your place from his third shift job, viciously hard and aggressive, and you’d been all too happy to let him use you in every way he desired. He’d held you down, fucked you senseless, and at one point, his huge hands had made their way to the delicate column of your neck. The pressure had been gentle at first, increasing with the pace of his hips as they slammed into you. He’d commanded you to look him in the eyes as he exploded into the condom while buried to the hilt inside you. And then he’d kissed you so softly afterward, leaving you wondering how he could so easily switch gears from rabid dog to clingy cat, but god, you loved it. You’d loved even more having a slight painful hitch to your step as you walked to class afterward.

“Anyway,” you said, shaking your head. “There are eleven victims that we know of. And absolutely no fucking clues. Again, that we know of. The cops could be withholding information, we all know how they love to do that. It’s just …” You shook your head, glancing off camera. “It’s so hard to kill someone and leave absolutely nothing behind these days. With all the technology and advances in forensics. Does he wear a freaking HAZMAT suit? No, because of mobility and other issues and because that’s fucking ridiculous. But he has to wear something, right? Or is he just free-balling it?” Your head tipped back with a cackle. “Does he shave every hair on his body and then just take all his clothes off before he attacks his victims?” You shook your head, eyes attempting to focus on the chat. “Sorry, guys. You know how I am.” You giggled.

User1: aren’t you scared? because you really do look like all the dead girls.

“Am I scared? No, I’m not scared. If I don’t give him the ick, then I’ve recently acquired a bodyguard. I think he could take him.”

User2: some of those other girls probably had boyfriends too

“That’s true, but mine—”

A click rippling through the atmosphere had you pausing. The live stream caught you turning your head to look down the darkened hall that led to the living room and front door. You didn’t call out like they did in the movies—you knew you were the only one here—but you did listen for a few moments in case it happened again. Only silence followed.

You shrugged, turning back to the laptop. Houses make noises, you reasoned, especially old ones like this one that had been home to countless other college students. “Thought I heard something. Anyway. No more boyfriend talk, no more I fit the profile of the victims talk. I want theories, guys. How’s he getting away with it?”

User3: maybe there’s more than one guy User4: the cops are in on it

“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense,” you remarked, shaking your head. “What would the cops—”

A creak in the floorboard, and you jumped, your heart starting, an icy worm of terror slithering slowly throughout your chest. But when you looked at the hall this time, it wasn’t empty. A yelp squeaked from your mouth before your hand clamped over it. Standing at the threshold of the kitchen where you were streaming was very clearly a man judging by the height, the broad shoulders, the thick thighs straining against dark jeans. Everything he wore was black, including the hood covering his head and the top half of his face. The bottom half sent your stomach sloshing—a mask, thick, black, solid, concealed the rest of his identity. Eyes welling with tears, your gaze fell to the gloves on his hands, the black tactical boots on his feet.

Your throat burned as you forced bile back down your esophagus. You turned slowly in your chair, hand falling from your mouth to grip the back of it. Maybe, just maybe …

“Hilarious, Seth,” your voice trembled. Maybe it was your boyfriend. It had to be your boyfriend, and this had to be a sick fucking joke, and you would be breaking up with him. 

Except Seth didn’t have a key. No one other than you and your roommate who was hardly ever home had a key to this house.

You started to stand without a second thought, without a plan of action, having no idea what the hell you would do once you made it to your feet. Run? Tackle him? Escape to a room with a lock?

The man held up a gloved finger, your body instantly freezing. For a moment you thought you might puke or even pee or maybe both. The finger tapped downward, deliberate, an order, not a suggestion. Swallowing what felt like hard packed sand and water, your throat clicking, you slowly sank back into your chair, returning to the camera's frame, though you’d forgotten about the podcast altogether. The gloved finger turned in a steady circle, and your muscles automatically responded, turning so your legs were under the kitchen table and your body was facing the laptop, your eyes, though, never leaving him. Your heart hammered so hard against your ribs you thought they might crack.

“Seth,” you tried again, voice trembling. It was all you had to hold onto, the only light at the end of the macabre tunnel you were headed into. Your boyfriend was an asshole who was playing an all-too-real prank on you. “Seriously. I’m live right now. And shouldn’t you be at work?”

He darkened the doorway for a moment longer before eventually moving, each footstep silent, undetectable, despite the man’s size. It took him three strides to make it to the table where you sat, your lungs involuntarily sucking in a burst of oxygen at his sudden nearness. He was soaked, the hood dripping and casting a shadow over his face beneath the harsh overhead light, and he smelled earthy, a mixture of dirt and rainwater. There was a hint of something else, too, something spicy, something … He slid suavely into the lone chair across from you, gloved hands resting palms down on the table hidden by the laptop’s screen.

The stream showed you suddenly rigid, eyes wet, rounded and focused on something behind the camera, lips parted, chest heaving.

“Seth,” you whispered. “This isn’t funny.”

The man was a void, the utter absence of all colors, and his hands lifted without warning, shocking you into the back of your chair. He didn’t reach for the laptop or the microphone or even for you—he gripped the edge of the hood and pulled it back, settling it uniformly on his shoulders. The tears welling in your eyes streaked down your cheeks. You knew those heavy, espresso-colored eyes gazing back at you and the chestnut hair that bled into blonde at the tips that was just as soaked as the rest of him—How long had he been standing out in the rain to get so drenched?—and you suspected you knew the nose, lips, and beard likely hidden under the mask as well. 

The mask itself was unnerving. A big, black, hulking thing held flush against his cheeks by a thick strap around the back of his head.

Unable to look at him any longer, your eyes dropped to the chat in the corner of the laptop screen.

User5: is this a true crime podcast or a lesson in bad acting? User6: why ruin a good show like this? User7: isn’t this kinda disrespectful to the victims?

If this turned out to be real, clearly nobody was going to believe it. None of your viewers were about to call the cops to report a possible crime happening live on a true crime podcast. Who would believe that? Your eyes shifted again, attention immediately drawn back to Seth as if he were a life-size magnet. Seth—or was it the Sunday Sinner? Or—Jesus Christ—were they one in the same?

“Please just tell me what’s going on,” you whispered.

The man’s head cocked only slightly, eyes you’d seen warmth and passion and humor in this morning were now devoid of all emotion and locked on you. “I think you know,” he replied, voice muffled behind the mask, but clear enough to be understood.

You gulped, eyes snapping to the laptop to be sure the live feed was still streaming. Even if no one believed you now, if something were to happen to you, there would at least be a record. Was that part of his plan? Returning your attention to the man across the table, you inhaled, breath tremulous, and felt your heart slow by a mere few beats per minute. Escape, of course, was on your mind. There was a door in the kitchen near you that led to the backyard, but he’d almost certainly catch you before you could turn the knob and open it, just like he’d snatch you if you made a break for any other direction. You were trapped. And you refused to let your mind unravel the truth of just how long you’d been trapped without even knowing it.

So if you were gonna die, what did you have to lose?

Heart still thundering, hands trembling, you tried to settle into the chair, tried to appear nonchalant, tried to slip back into your podcast space. Clearing your throat and swiftly wiping the tears from your cheeks, you rasped, “You told me your name is Seth Rollins.” A tilt of his head in the opposite direction. “But it’s not, is it?”

He shook his head this time, eyes nearly black now never leaving you. “No,” he rumbled.

You swallowed. “Then what is your name?” 

The corners of his eyes crinkled with what had to be at least a smirk under the mask. “You know who I am.” For a moment, you forgot where you were, who you were and what the hell you were doing, but by god, you knew who he was. He turned his head a bit, eyeing you sideways, brows rising just a bit. “Say it.” He used that voice—the tone he knew melted you, the domination he knew overwhelmed you and forced you to unconsciously submit to him. “Introduce me.”

You blinked back a brand new set of tears despite your previous courage. Licking your dry lips, sucking the bottom one into your mouth and biting down to suppress the returning need to vomit, you leaned closer to the pop filter. “Ladies and gentleman, we have a—” You gulped down more bile, hand covering your mouth, remembering the things he’d done to you, the things you’d done to him. “... We have a special guest joining us tonight.” Your eyes rose from the chat—the chat that was one hundred percent convinced this was a skit and, as such, you’d gained thousands more viewers who were actively ridiculing you. Would they all be witnesses to your murder? “We all know him as …” Swallow, stomach somersaulting. “The Sunday Sinner.”

After a moment of staring at the screen and seeing nothing, your glassy eyes rose. “What do you want?” you sobbed.

Seth appeared to relax just a bit, his movements more fluid as he settled into his own chair. “You have a podcast about serial killers.” His voice was so muffled by the mask that you knew, even if police got a hold of the stream, they’d have almost nothing to go on as far as his voice was concerned. Fuck, how long has he been planning this? “And now you have one sitting in front of you.”

Your eyes locked over the laptop, your teeth grinding out of a sudden sprouting anger. He wanted to play with his food before he ate it. But … maybe if you played along … just maybe …

You started talking without a single thought in your brain. “How many women have you killed?”

“Twelve.”

“Only eleven bodies have been found, but you’ve killed twelve?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s the twelfth?” 

Silence. 

You fidgeted in your chair, worried you were already losing him. “Have you ever killed any men?”

“Yes.”

The oxygen seeped from your lungs, your throat seizing for a moment. “For pleasure, or …?”

“Necessity.”

You glanced down at the chat.

User8: wow this is so shit lmao User9: do they give razzies to podcasters? User10: peace. here for true crime not americas got no talent

“Do you plan on killing more?” you asked, eyes lifting.

He blinked. “Only one.”

Tears flowed freely down your face, streaking your makeup, raining onto your t-shirt. You couldn’t ask what you really wanted to know, and even if you could, what could you possibly do with the information other than vomit?

“Why did you kill them?” you asked instead.

His brows rose, seemingly surprised, and his eyes dropped to the tabletop for the first time since he’d sat down, though they quickly returned to you. “I enjoy it.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” you gasped.

He shook his head, pensive. “No.”

“Why young women? They had their whole lives ahead of them! Their parents—”

A gloved finger rose above the laptop screen, and your jaw closed so hard your teeth clacked.

Following a moment of silence, he explained, “Because I can’t stand how much I love beautiful things.” He leaned slowly forward, his height bringing him to your laptop, and you pushed back into your chair as far as you could without actually moving it. “I love too hard,” he said, finishing with a prayer of your name. “Do you know how close you were today?”

You shook your head, arms wrapping around your middle as a pathetic comfort and an ineffective shield. “Please,” you whimpered.

“I’ve never held back like I did with you. You’re special.” 

Hope flickered in your chest, and you were torn as to whether that was a good or a bad thing. “Then please let me go,” you begged.

Those hardened, empty eyes of his flickered. Just a flash, but you caught it. A brief sanding of the sharp edges. Your hands gripped the seat of your chair as Seth—the Sunday Sinner, you reminded yourself. He wasn’t your boyfriend anymore, despite those bewitching eyes you’d thought this morning you’d been falling in love with—grabbed his own chair, pulling it around the table so he was now seated to the right of you. Still out of view of the camera.

“I already let you go once,” he replied, and even his tone was tempered. “This morning.” You swallowed, nearly choking—or were you gagging?—on your own spit, throat bobbing as you began running through the details of the illicit acts he spoke vaguely of. “I can’t let you go again, my sweet girl. You’re too beautiful. Too perfect.” He reached out with a gloved hand, your entire body flinching, though he continued on as if he’d expected the response until the leather grazed your cheek. “I love you too much.”

You were openly weeping now, your muscles petrified pieces of useless tissue. “You don’t kill people you love,” you whimpered.

His thumb and first finger slid gracefully under your chin, applying forgiving pressure. The stream still had you as the focus, an arm covered in the thick black sleeve of a hoodie and the equally dark glove a striking contrast to your skin that had long since been drained of any color. You tried to breathe, but your lungs were just as unyielding as your muscles, and the way he cradled your chin, you knew exactly what he wanted. 

Should you give in? Could that somehow make whatever he had in store for you a little less painful and/or drawn out? His previous victims had shown no evidence of sexual assault, or assault of any kind for that matter. Other than the strangulation, obviously. It was almost as if they’d … let him do it? 

Stop, you berated yourself. Focus!

If you didn’t go along with him, if you tried to run, would it be worse than it would have been had you not tried to escape? You wouldn’t make it far—not with his long legs and incredible reach. So your only choice was to play along.

“I do,” he suddenly replied to your earlier statement, head tilting, fingers tightening on your chin just enough for you to notice. “I know what I am.” Grip constricting further. “And now you know what I am.” You shook your head as much as he would allow. “So do you still want me?” The question gave you pause, that frozen worm of terror slithering and wrapping around your heart, and your eyes widened, head no longer shaking. “Will you marry me? Have my children? Can you just forget about the women I enjoyed killing?” You gulped, the reflex nearly impossible due to the thumb pressing into your esophagus. “Of course you can’t.” He pulled you closer. “Neither could they.”

“I can,” you lied, pathetic and unconvincing.

Seth’s—the Sinner’s—brows arched, pitying, his mahogany eyes searching your face. “You can’t. We both know that. And if I can’t have you, my little firefly … nobody can.” God, not the nickname. Did he call them his fireflies, too? “Say goodnight to the podcast.”

“Please,” you cried.

“Say it.”

Your eyes slid sideways to the laptop, the chat still mostly on the side of disbelief, though there were a few who showed mild concern. Clearly not enough concern, as you heard no sirens in the distance. “Goodnight, my lovelies,” you mewled. “I hope you enjoyed the final episode of Seriality.” As Seth tugged on your jaw, you resisted long enough to spit into the microphone, “And fuck you all for not believing me.”

Your murderer pulled you to your feet, your knees hardly able to support your weight. He walked you backward down the hall to your bedroom, his eyes never leaving yours, already familiar with the layout of your tiny home. Your roommate was visiting family—you remembered mentioning it to Seth. Jesus, maybe you did deserve to die—you were the dumbass actress in the horror movie that ignored all the red flags and ran upstairs instead of going out the front door to escape a killer. Once inside your room, he kicked the door shut and shoved you away, your feet stumbling over each other, but you caught yourself before falling.

The two of you watched one another for a few moments, the crackling between you but utterly silent. Until Seth began to burst out into laughter. You recognized that laugh—the full belly, nasally, tooth-gap laugh you only heard when he occasionally watched your favorite comedy movie—as he doubled over, clutching his stomach and leaning on the dresser. You weren’t sure how long you stopped breathing, but your brain was literally throbbing before you gasped desperately for oxygen.

“What … What’s so funny?” you sniveled. 

“Gotcha!” Seth cackled.

Disbelief. Shock. Confusion. Suspicion. Unadulterated rage. You gaped, eyes glazed, your boyfriend still howling. The both of you were crying by now, though for completely different reasons.

“Seth, are you serious?” your voice trembled still with fear, but now infiltrated with fury. He only continued laughing, wiping at the tears above the mask. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“What?” he giggled. “We prank each other all the time.”

“Not while I’m streaming, you fucking idiot!” You stomped across the room and swung without thinking, slapping him on one of his rocklike pecs. He didn’t even flinch. “I’m gonna lose so many subscribers. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Come on, it’s not a big deal,” Seth said.

“Yes, it is! Did you see the chat? Someone said it was disrespectful!”

“Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke,” your boyfriend snapped. “It’s just one episode.”

“Seth,” you sighed, “will you please take the mask off so I can cuss you out properly?”

Seth rolled his eyes as he reached behind his head to release the strap. The edges of the mask and the tightness of the strap had left a red line of indentation across the middle of his handsome face. Your knees weakened upon the revealing of his true beauty, and usually you liked the way your body responded to him, but now certainly wasn’t the time.

“This episode,” you spat, “is gonna go viral for all the wrong reasons. Everybody is gonna hate me.”

Seth’s eyes connected with yours and the voids from before had been replaced by a familiar warmth and a dash of sympathy. “Nobody’s gonna hate you,” he said.

“Seth—”

“Listen.” His still-gloved hands gripped your upper arms maybe just a little tighter than he normally would have—or you were imagining it? What the hell was real anymore? He’d had you so convinced, but there’d been a tiny voice in the back of your mind that reasoned it really was your boyfriend playing a prank. “I’m sorry,” he rumbled, head tilting in the same chilling way it had at the kitchen table. “Okay? I didn’t … think about that. I thought people would think it was funny.” He laid his beautiful puppy dog eyes on you, extra puppy, and the frozen worm of fear in your chest began to thaw. “I really am sorry.” The gloves slid down your arms to grip your hands. “I’ll even go on live and tell everybody it was all my idea and you didn’t know anything about it.”

Hardly anyone would believe it, you knew that, but the fact that he was groveling and willing to do it cooled your fury like throwing baking soda onto a grease fire. He had that effect on you, and sometimes you liked it, but mostly it made you uncomfortable because you knew that he knew you would cave. When you should have had him wrapped around your finger, it was the exact opposite.

“You really scared me,” you pouted as your way of accepting his apology while at the same time dismissing it.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, the toes of his big black boots pecking your sock-covered feet. “Let me make it up to you.” His eyes descended deliberately down your body, taking a moment to enjoy your curves in the tank top and leggings you wore—this wasn’t exactly a job you had to dress your best for. His hands slithered under arms to grip your ribs, sliding nearly unnoticed to gently cup your braless breasts. You loved when he touched you, even if his hands were still tucked inside the leather gloves. And maybe you even liked the way the cool, thick material felt against your soft, warming skin. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll worship my sweet girl.” One hand rose to cup the side of your face, and you found yourself nuzzling him without even thinking about it. “And once I’m finished …” He eliminated the remaining space between you, his hard body pressing against you, the rigid outline in his pants unmistakable. “I’ll tuck you in—” Your neck bloomed with heat that climbed quickly up to your cheeks, eyes downcast. “—and then I’ll go in there and make a video explaining everything.”

You’d shown him how to bring the podcast to life—how to record, how to adjust the microphone levels, the basics of how to edit a prerecorded episode—so you knew he could handle it on his own. But damn it, he still owed you big time.

“Well, you have a lot of making up to do,” you drawled, eyes hooded, because even when you were pissed off at Seth Rollins, your hormones either didn’t care or didn’t notice. 

Seth’s smirk was like nothing you’d ever seen before—it literally sucked the oxygen from the room, leaving you gasping like a fish on land. For a moment, you swore you were looking at the devil himself, in the flesh, staring back at you with your boyfriend’s bewitching chocolate-colored eyes. You half-expected horns to sprout from his still-soaking hair—Would it still be this wet from the rain? Did he have some sort of conditioner in it? Why would he do that?—but then the smirk relaxed back into the familiar Seth smirk, again, like you hadn’t even seen it in the first place. He took your hands into his protected ones, the mask hanging from the pinky of one, unnoticed, as he turned you both until his back was to the bed, and he started pulling you toward him.

“Come sit on my face for a while,” Seth growled. “That always makes you feel better.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

He slowly removed your leggings, fingers lithe even while balancing the strap of the mask on his pinky, licking his lips as he found you bare underneath, no panties and recently waxed, just the way he liked you. He muttered something about a good girl and sweet little angel as he then raised your tank top above your breasts. He impishly flicked your already-peaked nipples, and you responded automatically with a smack to his shoulder, gaining only a satisfied grin. Your fingers fisted into the shoulders of his hoodie, Seth sucking as much of your tit into his mouth as he possibly could, your head dipping back. He cupped your other breast, massaging this time, groping, memorizing, the leather catching on your skin every so often.

“Aren’t you gonna take the gloves off?” you whispered. “Maybe put the mask down?”

“You don’t like the way they feel?” Seth purred, ignoring your second question,  pulling you with him as he scooted further back on the bed. You straddled his hips—you half-naked, he fully clothed, and you would need to study further why this turned you on so fucking much. You did like the way the leather felt against your hot skin, you loved the scrape of his jeans against your inner thighs, and you’d be a dirty, rotten, filthy liar if you said the mask didn’t turn the fucking faucet on deep within your already weeping cunt. “Don’t lie,” Seth advised, pointing a finger, seemingly reading your mind. “You know I can tell when you’re lying.”

A smirk twitched at your lips as Seth’s hands, made even bigger with the gloves on, moved you effortlessly up his body. “Maybe I like it a little,” you sighed, those capable hands settling you just where he wanted you over his face before bringing your swollen pussy down to his mouth. “Fuck, Seth,” you whimpered, hands reaching out for the headboard, gripping until your knuckles turned white.

His tongue worked in slow circles at first, always a bigger fan of the slow burn than you were. The gloves dug into your hips, his sable eyes zeroed in on you, watching each and every crease of your brows and soft breath puffed from between your parted lips. Without thinking, you grabbed his hands and lifted them to your breasts, both sets squeezing, and you cried out, hips rolling now, using Seth’s face and beard as friction. You felt the hot breath of a laugh through his nostrils on the mound of your pussy and it sent a chill straight up your spine, your cunt reflexively pulsing. He wrapped his lips around your clit then and sucked, his teeth grazing the sensitive flesh, the pads of his leather-clad fingers foxtrotting along your satiny skin, and you thought for a moment you might cry again. He was pressing all of your buttons, using all of his tricks, putting every bit of himself into getting you off. 

“Baby, I’m gonna come,” you mewled, hand falling to the top of his head, finding his hair wasn’t just wet, it was slick, doused in conditioner. You were about to wonder why when you felt it—a gloved hand climbing your chest, the thumb playing at the hollow of your throat, no pressure applied. “Christ, Seth, I’m—”

The orgasm rippled through you like rogue waves out in the middle of the ocean—one trembling burst after another, your fingers digging into Seth’s soggy hair. He drank every bit of you, save for the trail of your cum sliding down the side of his face and curling in the wiry hairs of his beard. You couldn’t wait to see what his chin looked like, but before you could even imagine, he had you on your back, your thighs spread wide, and he was climbing between them like he belonged there. He does, you thought, this is exactly where he belongs.

You drank in the sight of his beard, glistening with the remnants of you, as he reached into the nightstand and pulled out a condom. You’d always appreciated his respect for safety, biting your bottom lip while watching him roll the latex onto his long, slightly curved cock.

“What do you think?” he rasped, holding the mask up with one hand, holding it over his face and then pulling it away. The very mask that had terrified you and almost made you piss your pants, but somehow now had shifted into something else entirely. “On or off?” he taunted, that wicked leer from before making an unexpected return.

You knew you should say no. You knew how fucked up it was. You knew it was disrespectful. But fuck …

“Put it on,” you pressed, your legs tightening around his trim hips, pulling him closer. “Put it on and fuck me. Please.”

“That’s my girl,” Seth praised, smoothly reapplying the mask, tightening it at the back of his head, leaving only his eyes, forehead, and hair visible. “I knew this was what you wanted this morning.”

He slid inside your slick hole like he had dozens of times before, but this felt different. He somehow was bigger, getting deeper, and in the bulky, dark clothes, appeared even larger than he was under them. More imposing. More frightening. His eyes rolled back as his hands settled on your waist, but only for a moment. His pumps became harder, quicker, and the gloves continued to climb. The pleasure was immeasurable, your own eyes falling closed for a brief moment.

Just a second.

Less than a second.

That was all it took.

When your eyes opened again, the man on top of you was not the same man as before you closed them. He was not the same man you’d met at the coffee shop. You knew then you weren’t going to class tomorrow, you weren’t seeing your family on the next holiday. You were never leaving this house again. Just another victim. Just another statistic. Forgotten by the next news cycle. How many times had you seen it happen? You tried to tell yourself it wasn’t your fault as the Sinner’s hands deliberately wrapped around your throat, his hips still slamming into yours, your pussy still responding like not a damn thing was wrong.

“It’s all making sense now,” Seth spoke from behind the mask, his eyes burning into yours, and you couldn’t have looked away if you tried. He leaned down, his weight threatening to completely block off your windpipe. “God, you feel so good,” he moaned. “I love you so fucking much.”

“Seth,” you croaked, gripping his forearms.

“It’s okay, my sweet girl,” he cooed, the edges of your vision dimming, your hearing failing. “I’ll take care of you, I promise. You’re gonna be so beautiful when they find you.”