kitty

Now

The first sensation you register upon waking is stickiness.

Not warmth, not comfort, not even pain. Just that primal, visceral wrongness—skin slick with sweat and something thicker, heavier, clinging between your thighs and drying into the crooks of your knees. Your lips are chapped. Your throat is raw. Your stomach aches like you were punched from the inside out. And your lungs forget how to breathe.

You jolt upright—or try to. Everything hurts. Your limbs feel heavy, distant, like they belong to someone else. Your back sticks to the sheets with a grotesque, peeling sound, and something inside you pulses as you move—deep and bruised and full in a way that makes your body flinch.

There’s a smear of blood across your collarbone. A constellation of fingerprints on your hips. Your thighs are mottled in purpled crescents, as if you were clutched too hard by hands that didn't know how to hold, only how to take.

You’re naked. The sheets are twisted beneath you like you were thrown into bed, not placed there. A pillow lies discarded on the floor, next to what looks like a torn-off button and something blackened and crispy—burnt paper, maybe? It smells like a match was lit and never put out. It smells like sex and fire. And blood.

“You’re awake.”

The voice comes from the corner of the room—croaky, half-asleep, low and lazy in that familiar Midlands accent that used to make your chest flutter. Now it feels like it’s scraping along your spine. You turn your head too fast. You feel it all the way down to your core.

Cook is slouched in the armchair across from the bed. Bare-chested. Blood-speckled. One leg propped on the windowsill like he owns the fucking sky. His tracksuit bottoms are unzipped halfway. A half-burned cigarette dangles from his fingers. And he’s watching you like a wolf would watch a rabbit after it’s already snapped the neck and is deciding whether to chew now or savor it.

His mouth is pink and raw, split in one corner. His eyes are dark, rimmed in something shadowy—sleep deprivation or something else. He doesn’t blink.

He smiles, slow and wide.

“Didn’t think you’d get up yet. Took it like a fuckin’ champ though, didn’t ya?”

You can’t answer. You can barely swallow. You’re dry everywhere except where you’re not. Every breath feels like dragging broken glass down your throat. Your eyes sting. Your legs tremble just from shifting an inch. There’s a coppery taste behind your teeth like you’ve been biting your own tongue in your sleep. Like something clawed its way down your throat while you weren’t looking.

“You alright?” he asks, too casual. “You’re still breathing, so…that’s good.”

There’s something off about him. More than usual. His skin is too flushed, sweat-damp, and not just from sex. His pupils are blown wide, eating the color in his eyes. There’s a sticky streak down his chest—dried red that isn't yours. Not entirely. And in the dull light coming through the cracked blinds, you can see the faint shimmer of something under his skin. Not quite veins. Not quite human.

And still—your thighs clench. Some sick, shameful part of you wants him to come closer. Even now. Especially now. Because there’s a ringing in your ears and a throb between your legs and this hole inside you that still feels stretched open in the shape of him.

You whisper, croaky: “What happened?”

He leans forward, cigarette bouncing between his lips. He doesn’t smoke it. Just chews on the filter like a man trying to keep his mouth busy with something other than you.

“You don’t remember?” He grins. “Fuckin’ hell. That good, was it?”

You blink, trying to piece together anything. There were flashes—flesh, firelight, the bite of your own nails in his biceps. Your legs over his shoulders. His voice growling in your ear: “Take it. That’s it, love. So fuckin’ sweet for me.”

And teeth. Sharp ones. Too sharp.

“You… didn’t…” you try to say, but your voice dies out.

He raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t what? Hurt ya? Eat ya? Leave ya drained in a ditch?”

He laughs. Then doesn’t. The air stills.

“I didn’t,” he says, lower now. “Could’ve.”

He gets up. Walks toward you, slow and unhurried like he knows you’re not going anywhere. He’s barefoot. Blood on one ankle. One of his hands trails along the wall as he moves, fingers dragging across the plaster like he’s reminding himself what solid ground feels like.

You don’t move. You can’t. He crouches next to the bed. Elbows on the mattress. Eyes on your face.

“Could’ve taken everything from you,” he murmurs. “Could’ve sucked you dry. Fucked you hollow. Made you beg for more even as you died with my name in your mouth.”

He leans in. You smell him. Ash. Sweat. Sex. Blood. Something older. “But I didn’t,” he whispers. “You know why?”

You stare at him.

“’Cause I like you,” he says, soft and mean and terrifying in its sincerity. “Like, properly. That fucked-up, ruin-me, wanna-keep-you-on-a-leash kinda like.”

His mouth presses to your cheek. Not a kiss. Just contact. His breath is scalding. You flinch. “You tasted so fucking good,” he whispers.

You shut your eyes. And suddenly, you remember. You remember the way his tongue traced the lines of your stomach, the way his voice changed—warped around your name, like he was tasting something sacred. The way he hovered over you like he couldn’t decide whether to fuck you or devour you whole.

You remember saying yes. You remember screaming his name. You remember coming so hard you blacked out. And now he’s here. Watching. Waiting. Hungry. But you’re still alive. And maybe that’s worse.

You keep your eyes closed like that might somehow put space between you. It doesn’t. If anything, it makes the room feel smaller. Hotter. Like he’s taking up all the oxygen just by being here. You can feel the heat radiating off his skin—warmer than it should be, bordering on feverish. The scent of him is stronger now, like sweat and iron and something scorched. Like lust filtered through brimstone.

His fingers brush your chin. Just a tap. But it makes your whole body jolt. "Don’t go disappearing on me now," he says.

You open your eyes. He’s still crouched beside the bed, shirtless and barefoot, eyes tracking every twitch in your face. His hand stays near your jaw, fingers relaxed but ready. His mouth is parted just slightly, the corner still cracked from god-knows-what, and he’s looking at you like he’s trying to decide if he wants to fuck you again or sink his teeth into your neck just to see what happens.

"Tell me what you remember."

You hesitate. Because you do remember. Not all of it. Not yet. But enough. Enough to know it wasn’t just sex. Enough to know it wasn’t normal. You remember the heat first. Like a fever, but lower. Like something curled up in your gut and started purring. You remember the way his eyes changed—gone black, pupils swallowing the blue. You remember how he groaned when he pushed inside you, like he’d been starving for centuries and just got a taste of the divine.

You also remember thinking: “This should feel wrong.”

It didn’t. It felt perfect. You don’t answer him right away. So he climbs onto the bed. Not like a person. Not the way people move when they’re trying not to crowd you or scare you or cross a line. He moves like something that knows it already owns you. Knees on either side of your legs. Hands planted beside your head. His body hovers above yours, lean and pale and scraped raw at the edges. There are scratches on his arms that weren’t there before. One of them is still bleeding.

He’s looking down at you like a lion does right before it goes for the throat. “I said,” he murmurs, “tell me what you remember.”

You swallow. “You didn’t stop,” you whisper. “I told you to stop and you…didn’t.”

His expression flickers. But not with guilt. With something closer to disappointment.

“That’s not true,” he says. “You said—‘don’t stop.’”

Your breath catches. He’s right. God, he’s right. You said it more than once. Said it while your nails raked his back. Said it while his mouth was between your legs. Said it with your thighs locked around his waist like you were trying to pull him deeper, trying to fuse your body to his and disappear inside the bottomless chasm of his appetite.

You remember now. Him licking into you like he was starving. His voice, low and reverent: “Gonna fuckin’ ruin you, love. Let me.”

The way he laughed when you came. The way he groaned when you begged for more. Your cheeks flush so hot it makes your eyes sting. He sees it. Of course he does. He smirks—sharp and slow—and leans closer, his mouth just hovering over yours.

“See?” he says. “Told you. You were beggin’.”

You turn your head away. His mouth follows. Doesn’t kiss. Just hovers. You feel his breath skate across your skin. Warm. Damp. Electric.

“You liked it,” he whispers. “Liked the way I touched you. Liked the way I took you.”

You close your eyes. “I don’t know what you are,” you say, voice small.

He laughs. Really laughs. That low, mean, shit-eating laugh you used to hear in school hallways, after he got away with something he absolutely shouldn’t have.

“You’ll figure it out.”

You open your eyes again. His face is right there. His pupils are still blown. There’s blood drying in the corner of his mouth. And when you look at him like this—this close, this raw, this fucking wrong—you realize something that makes your chest squeeze tight:

He hasn’t kissed you. Not once. You’ve had him inside you. You’ve sobbed his name. You let him ruin you last night. But he still hasn’t kissed you. He notices your stare. Tilts his head.

“What?”

“You didn’t kiss me,” you say.

He grins. Crooked. Unfair. “Didn’t want to.”

Your face falls before you can stop it.

But then he adds: “Didn’t trust myself.”

Your breath stutters, "what does that mean?”

He leans in, freckled nose brushing yours.

“Means I could’ve fucked the soul outta you just by kissing you.” His voice is lower now, rougher. “Means you’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted to taste that bad. Means if I’d kissed you, I wouldn’t’ve stopped until there was nothin’ left.”

You make a sound. Not quite a gasp. Not quite a moan. He hears it. And fuck, the look on his face. Like he’s going to devour you just for making that sound.

“Say it,” he whispers. “Say you want me to.”

Your lips part. Your body sings screams. And then, before you can even make the decision—

He pulls away.

“Nah,” he mutters. “Not yet.”

He rolls off you and sits at the edge of the bed like nothing happened. Lights a cigarette. Offers you the first drag like this is just another morning after some dumb party.

You stare at him, still naked, still ruined, still bleeding a little between your thighs. And he grins at you with that blood-slick mouth and says—

“You’re gonna let me fuck you again, yeah?”

He asks like it’s rhetorical. Like it’s obvious. Like your body hasn’t already answered for you—stretched and leaking and bruised into shape.

You don’t respond. You just stare at his back. The curve of his spine. The flex of his shoulder blades. The way his hand hangs loose, cigarette pinched between his fingers like an afterthought. His knuckles are stained—dried red, crusted over. Not yours. Or not just yours. You can see now there’s blood under his nails.

And your gut curls because you don’t know where he was before he crawled back into bed this morning. Or who he was inside.

Something shivers through you. Not cold—your skin’s too hot, feverish. But inside, beneath your ribs, you feel a flicker of something sick and soft and stupid. Something that tastes like fear. The ache between your legs is deepening now, shifting from soreness to pressure—like your body’s waking up and remembering everything it shouldn’t.

You try to sit up again. Slower this time. The sheet falls off your chest. He turns his head immediately—eyes flicking down, mouth twitching.

“Fuckin’ hell.”

It’s not even lust, not really. It’s worse. It’s worship. Like he’s looking at a shrine. Like your tits have hymns written across them.

You yank the sheet back up. “Don’t.”

He just grins, doesn’t look away.

“Don’t what? You were the one moanin’ for it last night like a proper slag.”

Your breath catches. Your thighs squeeze instinctively. There’s still slick between them—his—and the movement pushes it higher. Sticky. Shameful. Sweet.

You feel your face flush. “You fed,” you whisper.

That gets his attention. Slowly, he turns to face you. One knee bent up on the mattress. He flicks ash onto the hardwood and tilts his head at you like you’re a riddle he wants to fuck open.

“You remember that?”

“I…I felt it.”

You did.

It didn’t feel like blood being drained or your soul getting ripped out. It felt like every nerve in your body got dragged to the surface and kissed raw. It felt like your spine arched and your mouth opened and something left you in waves. Not pain. Not death. Something gentler. Deeper. It felt like he pulled out pieces of you you didn’t know you were hiding.

And he moaned when it happened. Like your name on his tongue was the only thing that could keep him tethered to this world.

“You didn’t take all of it,” you say, voice hoarse.

“Didn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

He pauses. Then, like it’s the simplest answer in the world—

“Didn’t want you gone yet.”

Your stomach flips. Not from fear. Not exactly. From how calm he says it. Like if he had wanted to kill you, he would’ve. But he didn’t. So he didn’t. That’s it.

And that means you’re alive because he chose you. Not because you fought. Not because you screamed. Not because he showed mercy. You’re breathing because Cook fucking wanted you to be.

That should terrify you. And maybe it does. But not nearly as much as it should. You swing your legs over the side of the bed, breath caught shallow in your throat.

Your thighs protest. Your hips ache. You feel him all over you, in you still. When your feet touch the ground, your knees buckle slightly, and he laughs—low and smug and fond.

“Jesus. Fucked you that good, did I?”

You don’t dignify that with a response. You just grab the nearest hoodie—his, oversized and still smelling like weed and sweat and whatever supernatural rot is growing under his skin—and pull it over your head.

It barely covers you. Your panties are still missing. You don’t ask. You don’t want to know what he did with them. You limp toward the bathroom. You need water. Soap. Maybe holy water.

“Y’look good like that,” he calls after you. “Wrecked. Mine.”

You freeze in the hallway. Something shudders in your chest. You can still feel the echo of his mouth between your legs. His voice in your ear. That low, filthy praise.

“My sweet little thing. You were made for me, weren’t ya?”

You brace yourself on the bathroom counter. The mirror’s streaked, cracked near the top. You wipe a hand across the glass. And see yourself.

Bare thighs marked with bruises. Lips swollen. Hair tangled like you’ve been dragged through a thunderstorm. There’s a bite mark on your neck. Your inner thighs are slick and tender. Your eyes are glassy, wide, bruised at the edges.

You look like you’ve been fucked and fed on. You look like you liked it. Behind you, Cook’s reflection appears in the doorway. He doesn’t say anything. Just watches you watch yourself. Then, very softly—

“Want me to kiss you now?”

The question hits you like a dropped match in a dry forest. Your heart stutters. Your hands grip the counter tighter. In the mirror, you see him behind you—shirtless, barefoot, still bleeding a little from the knuckles, eyes gleaming under the flickering lightbulb.

You don’t answer. Can’t. Because the air feels different now—heavier. Dense with heat and history and something else. Something pulling. His voice has weight to it, like it’s reaching inside you and dragging your ribs apart.

You watch as he steps forward. Slow. Controlled. Not like a boy. Not even like a man. Like a thing that’s tasted too much of you to go back to pretending it’s human.

“It’s not like fucking,” he murmurs. “It’s worse.”

He’s behind you now, body barely grazing yours. You can feel the heat radiating off him, feel his breath when he leans in—not touching, but so close your skin knows exactly where he is.

“Kissing’s real, innit. You don’t kiss someone unless it means something.”

He lifts a hand. Doesn’t place it on you—just lets it hover beside your cheek, fingers twitching like he’s still deciding if he’s allowed.

“You want it?”

You nod before your brain catches up. And the second you do, it’s like something in him snaps.

He presses his palm to your lower stomach—flat, possessive, warm—and drags you back into his chest. His other hand comes up to your throat, not choking, just resting. Measuring your pulse.

“Still breathing,” he whispers. “Good girl.”

Then his mouth finds the side of your neck. Not kissing. Just there.

“Look at you.”

His voice is thick now. A little ruined. You don’t need the mirror to see what he sees—you feel it. The hoodie hanging off one shoulder. The bite on your neck. The bruise blooming between your legs. Your pulse hammering under his hand.

“You ever been kissed like this before?”

You try to answer. But he turns your head with gentle fingers on your chin—tilts it until your mouth parts on instinct—and then he kisses you. And it’s not gentle. It’s not soft. It’s not slow. It’s hunger, weaponized.

His lips are hot, plush, a little cracked. His mouth opens over yours like he’s breathing you in. Like this is the thing he’s been waiting to do since the second he crawled out of hell and into your bed. He moans low against your tongue like the taste of you makes him ache. And your knees go out beneath you, just a little, just enough for him to press you harder against the sink.

Your fingers find his hips. His back. You cling like you're drowning.

His tongue licks into your mouth like it’s claiming you. Like it wants to make you taste yourself on him. Like it wants to make you forget your name. And for a second, it works. You lose time. You lose everything but this.

The heat. The wet press of his mouth. His hand tightening on your throat just slightly—just enough to make you feel the edge of panic. His other hand slides up your hoodie, palm dragging over your stomach, your ribs, the underside of your breast.

He groans into your mouth when you whimper.

“You are mine,” he pants, “say it. Say it or I’ll stop.”

You gasp against his mouth.

“Yours.”

“Louder.”

“Yours.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you. His pupils are all black now, like a shark. He looks feral. Beautiful. Starved.

“Fuckin’ right you are.”

He kisses you again—harder now, sloppier—and when his teeth catch your bottom lip, he sucks until he tastes blood. Doesn’t apologize. Just moans like it feeds him. You let him take it. All of it.

When he finally pulls away, your lips are swollen and spit-slick, your eyes glassy. You’re panting. Shaking. You feel like you’ve been touched in places you didn’t know existed. You’re still wearing his hoodie. Still nothing else. He looks at you like he just took a bite out of God.

“That’s what it’s like when I kiss someone,” he says, voice shredded. “Now imagine what it’ll feel like when I really feed.”

You’re too stunned to respond. He just smiles. Steps away. And says, over his shoulder—

“Next time, don’t wear anything. Saves us both the trouble.”

Then

You weren’t expecting anyone.

It’s past one in the morning, your room is lit only by the blue light of your laptop, and you’re barefoot in the kitchen, wearing an oversized sweater and boxers, eating cereal straight out of the box because the milk in your mini fridge went sour two days ago and you haven’t bothered replacing it.

The knock comes at the back door—not the front, not your phone, not the buzzer, but the old paint-chipped door that leads from the kitchen into the shitty fenced-in alley behind your block. That’s what makes you freeze. No one knocks back there.

And definitely not this late.

Three sharp, rhythmic taps.

You swallow dry cheerios and move toward it slowly. Every hair on your body is already standing up. You know who it is before you even reach for the handle.

Of course it’s him.

You and Cook have history.

Not dating, not exactly. Not friends either, not in the normal sense. He’s the one who crashes in your bed after nights out, the one who whispered shit to you while pretending to be asleep, the one who almost kissed you once and didn’t. You’ve screamed at each other in car parks. Shared joints, secrets, drinks. But you’ve never crossed that line. Not really. Not until now.

You’ve known him too long, and you’ve let him get too close, and even now, something in you is always hoping he’ll show up—even when you know better.

You open the door.

Cook is standing there in the dark, hunched slightly, breathing hard like he’s just run a mile. His hoodie is zipped all the way up, but it’s dirty—streaked with something you can’t identify in the low light. His hair’s damp, jaw tight, and his eyes…his eyes don’t look like they used to.

He’s not bleeding. But he looks wrecked.

“Hiya,” he says, voice hoarse, like he hasn’t spoken in hours.

“You’re soaked,” you say before your brain catches up.

“Rain,” he lies.

“It’s not raining.”

He huffs something like a laugh. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t move. Just stands there with his shoulders up around his ears, eyes too wide, like his skin doesn’t fit right anymore.

“Can I come in?” he asks, quieter now.

You hesitate. Your mouth opens. Then closes again. Then—stupid, stupid—you step aside.

Cook brushes past you like he belongs there. Like it’s still last term and you’re still letting him in every other night. He smells like sweat and smoke and something...wrong. Not rot. Not quite blood. Something closer to iron and ozone—like metal left outside in a thunderstorm.

He walks straight into your kitchen and scans the space like he doesn’t remember it, even though he’s been here a hundred times. And then, without asking, he opens your fridge.

You blink.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Starving,” he mutters.

He bends low, rummaging through the small fridge like an animal, muttering under his breath. You watch, stunned, as he shoves aside leftover takeaway containers, a jar of mustard, a half-empty energy drink—and then grabs a sealed packet of raw mince.

Your stomach drops.

“No,” you say instinctively. “No—Cook—don’t—”

But he’s already tearing it open with his teeth.

The plastic rips with a wet sound. The smell hits you immediately—cold and bloody and raw. The meat had been sitting in your fridge for at least two days. It’s still pink, still damp with that weird sticky moisture meat has when it’s fresh but not clean.

He peels the plastic back, palms the whole cold mass in one hand—and bites into it. A chunk tears off. He chews. Swallows. Moans.

You cover your mouth.

“What the fuck, Cook—what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

He doesn’t answer. He’s too busy licking raw cow blood off his fingers. The meat is cold, and he’s eating it like it’s perfect. Like it’s better than anything you’ve ever given him. His eyes flutter closed for a second, lashes twitching, and you see his throat work as he swallows another mouthful. His teeth are pink with it. His lips are slick.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he mutters, jaw working. “God, I needed that. I needed—fuck.”

You back up until your spine hits the counter.

“That’s raw,” you whisper.

“Yeah?”

He looks up, grinning now. His tongue swipes along his bottom lip, chasing blood. “S’not a problem.”

You stare.

He shrugs and takes another bite, chewing slower now, savoring it. His eyes stay locked on yours the whole time. There’s something wrong with the way he moves—too fluid, too casual, like his body’s being piloted by instinct instead of thought.

“It’s cold,” you say.

“Don’t matter,” he replies. “Feels warm goin’ down.”

You don’t respond. You can’t. You’re frozen there in your own kitchen while the boy you used to wish would kiss you behind clubs is now standing under your shitty overhead light, barehanded, shirt-stained, eating raw mince like it’s a Michelin-star meal.

And he’s enjoying it. Too much.

“You ever eat something so good it makes your skin burn?” he asks, voice low and ragged. “Like—it hits you in the spine? Makes your blood go hot?”

You stare at the wet meat clinging to his fingers. The pink froth at the corner of his mouth. His pupils are too big. His jaw’s twitching.

He drops what’s left of the meat onto your counter. Wipes his hands on the hem of his hoodie. Then he looks at you and smiles—slow, lazy, like he didn’t just scare you half to death.

“Don’t worry, love. Didn’t come here for you. You’re not dinner.”

A beat.

“Not yet, anyway.”

Your fridge door is still open. The little light buzzes inside it, throwing sterile illumination across your cramped student kitchen: the warped laminate counter, the dented microwave, the tea towels stained with last week’s bolognese. The air smells like raw blood and plastic packaging. Cook is licking his thumb, casual as anything, like he hasn’t just unwrapped your dinner and tore it apart like a starved wolf.

You haven’t moved. Your back’s still pressed to the counter. Your fingers are cold and clenched too tight against the wood.

“You alright, love?”

His voice slices through the silence like a blade—too light, too calm, too him. But something in the way he says it makes you want to sob. He’s not supposed to call you that while he’s wiping blood on your kitchen towel.

He’s not supposed to look at you like this. All loose limbs and blown pupils and barely-suppressed tremors. He looks sated and starving at the same time, and that contradiction is burning itself into you.

“You ate raw meat,” you say numbly. “Out of my fridge.”

“Yeah.”

“Like it was a fucking sandwich.”

He shrugs. “It helped.”

“Helped what?”

He leans back against the opposite counter, hands braced behind him, that same stupid half-smile on his mouth—except it’s not stupid anymore. It’s cruel. Not intentionally, maybe, but in the way he doesn’t care what this looks like. What it’s doing to you. His lips are still shiny.

“I’ve been…off,” he says, eyes flicking upward. “Wired. Empty. Since it happened.”

You don’t ask what it is. You already know.

“This made it better,” he adds, voice lower now. “Not fixed. But…close.”

He breathes out, like it was sex. Like he just came. And your stomach flips, because somewhere in you, some fucked-up lizard part of your brain, wants to ask: "Do I make you feel like that?"

You push that thought so far down you taste blood.

“You need to leave.”

You say it too soft. It comes out too tired. Too breathless. He hears the crack in it. And it kills you that he smiles.

“I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He takes a step closer. You flinch. He stops, holds his hands up like he’s harmless. One of his fingers is still red beneath the nail.

“I swear. I just…I didn’t know where else to go.”

“So you came here to eat raw meat and stare at me?”

He licks his teeth. Not on purpose—reflex.

“No,” he says slowly. “Came here ‘cause you’re the only thing that still feels right.”

The words hit you square in the chest. You hate how they land. You hate that part of you wants to believe them.

He drops into one of the rickety chairs at your kitchen table, the one with the wonky leg, and leans back like this is some post-night-out crash visit. Like he’s going to roll a cigarette next and ask what you’re doing tomorrow.

He doesn’t look like someone who just walked away from something violent. But he smells like it.

And whatever just happened to him? Whatever he's running from? It's still on him. Clinging to his skin. Lingering in the meat juice drying on your floor.

You move to close the fridge, finally. Slowly. The suction noise sounds obscene in the silence. He watches you the whole time. Doesn’t blink.

“You’re shaking.”

You don’t answer.

“Come here.”

“No.”

“Just sit down, love. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m not sitting anywhere near you while you’ve got raw cow blood on your shirt.”

He sighs. Rolls his neck like he’s tired of this game already.

“Alright.”

He pulls off the hoodie. And underneath—he’s shirtless. You don’t mean to stare, not outright. But it’s impossible not to.

His torso is smeared with drying blood, yes, but more than that—it looks tight. Like the skin is stretched too thin. Veins sharp beneath the surface. Like something inside him is trying to burn its way out.

There are marks on him—slashes across his side, a bruise blooming over his ribs, visible even through the ink of his cross tattoo. None of it looks fresh, but none of it looks like it healed clean either. Like his body doesn’t quite know how to be human anymore.

“Better?” he asks, tossing the hoodie onto the table.

You can’t look at him.

“Cook, you need to go to a hospital or—”

“Nah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “They won’t know what to do with me.”

“And I do?”

“Didn’t come for help,” he says. “Came ‘cause I wanted to see you.”

You want to yell. You want to scream. You want to shake him by the shoulders and ask where the fuck your Cook went—the boy who made jokes in your bed and gave you his chips when you were hungover and never looked at you like you were made of glass and heat and something edible.

Instead, you say—

“Why now?”

He looks at you like he doesn’t understand the question.

“Why tonight? You said you didn’t come here for me.”

A pause. His jaw clenches.

“I didn’t want to come for you.”

You stare.

“But I did.”

The room feels too quiet now. No chewing. No fridge hum. Just Cook at your table, shirtless, streaked with blood, his eyes fixed on you with something between boredom and hunger.

You haven’t moved from the counter. You don’t want to sit. You don’t want to run. You want—

God, you don’t even know what you want.

“If you’re not going to leave,” you say finally, voice brittle, “then talk.”

He raises an eyebrow. “About what?”

“About what the fuck is going on with you.”

“I told you—”

“You didn’t tell me anything.”

He leans back in the chair. The wood creaks under him.

“You want the story, then?”

“I want the truth.”

A beat.

Then he says, casually: “They tried to kill me.”

You blink. He shrugs.

“Thought it’d be funny, I guess. Or maybe they thought it’d work.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

It does. But you don’t press.

“They took me out to the woods. You know the spot—by the train tracks. Said it was a ritual. A trade. Whatever.”

His voice is dry, like he’s telling you about a shit night out. But his hands flex on the table. Something behind his eyes flickers, fast and ugly.

“They had candles. Music. Fuckin’ robes, even.”

You stare.

“You’re serious.”

“Dead serious.”

He flashes you a grin. It doesn’t stick.

“At one point, one of ‘em asked if I was a virgin.”

You blink again.

A virgin? Cook?

Cook?

“So I said, ‘Yeah, sure, mate. Never even seen a tit before.’”

He smirks a little, shakes his head.

“Didn’t think much of it. Thought it was just part of the dumb script.”

He snorts under his breath.

“Guess that’s what they needed though. A virgin.”

He’s quiet for a moment, eyes far away.

“Shame they picked the wrong guy, innit?”

“You didn’t tell them?”

“Hell no.”

His eyes flick to you.

“What, you think I’m gonna announce to a bunch of limp-dick indie boys that I lost it in the back of someone’s mum’s Ford Focus when I was sixteen and half-drunk on corner shop vodka?”

He grins.

“They didn’t deserve that detail.”

You don’t laugh. You can’t.

“So…what did they do?”

“Cut me,” he says. “Right here.”

He taps his sternum.

“Thought it’d work. Thought I’d just die and make ‘em famous.”

“And did you?”

He leans forward, voice colder now.

“Nah. Something else happened.”

You don’t breathe.

“It filled me up. Cold and hot at the same time. Like it was chewing through me from the inside out.”

A pause.

“Then it left me standing.”

“And they left thinking you were dead.”

He nods.

“Didn’t check. Didn’t care. Ran off giggling like they’d just secured a record deal.”

You sit slowly, heart pounding.

“What…are you now?”

“Don’t know.”

“But you came back.”

He looks down at his own hands.

“Yeah.”

“Different.”

“Yeah.”

“Wrong.”

“Yeah.”

His eyes flick to yours, dark and burning.

“Feels good, though.”

The silence that follows is longer than it should be. He watches you like he’s waiting for something. A scream. A slap. A sob. But you just sit there.

The weight of everything pressing in—his words, the blood on his hoodie, the half-eaten meat on your counter, the sharp, animal scent of him filling your nose every time you breathe.

And then you say the one thing you shouldn’t: “You can stay.”

His eyebrows flick upward.

“Yeah?”

“Just for tonight.”

“Course. Just for tonight.”

He doesn’t thank you. He just stands. Stretches. Cracks his neck like he’s shedding something. And as he walks past you toward the bedroom, you feel the heat trailing behind him—that unnatural warmth he carries now like a second skin.

At the doorframe, he turns back. His eyes are darker than they were an hour ago.

“You’re not scared of me yet.”

“I am.”

“Nah.” He smiles. “You’re curious.”

And then he disappears into the dark, barefoot and bloodstained, and you’re left in your kitchen with the fridge still cracked open and a bloody tea towel in the sink.

Then

They find her just after dawn.

Jogger. Mid-thirties. Not from campus—someone local, someone early, someone unlucky. He thinks it’s roadkill at first. Then he sees the leg. The foot. Bare. Twisted at the ankle like a broken doll.

By the time the cops get there, the body’s been out for hours. The frost hasn’t preserved her. If anything, it’s made her look worse—like she’s been sculpted in wax and left under a heat lamp. Her skin is pale and blotchy, already discolored, marbled with bruises in shades of purple that don't belong to the living.

And her face—

You don’t mean to look. You don’t mean to stare. But someone posts a blurry photo in the uni group chat before the police can lock the scene down. One second you’re brushing your teeth, and the next, you’re staring at a screenshot of a girl’s face frozen in orgasm.

Her mouth is open. Her eyes are wide. Her lips are dark with blood. And her throat is—

Gone.

Ripped, not sliced. Jagged. Messy. Like something with teeth and hands and hunger tore into her and didn’t stop until it hit bone. There’s blood splashed up her jaw, smeared across her cheek like a lover’s kiss.

It doesn’t look like a murder. It looks like a mauling. You drop your phone. You don’t pick it back up.

The girl’s name was Evie or Ellie or something else soft and sweet and forgettable. Second year. Creative writing. Lived in halls by the quad. You never met her. But you know her now, because you can’t stop seeing her.

Her mouth. Her eyes. Her hands frozen in fists beside her hips like she fought at the last second—fought hard—but not soon enough.

You wrap your arms around yourself and try not to throw up. And then you think of him. Cook left your flat at some point around 5 a.m. Didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t climb into your bed. Just sat on the floor for a while, bare-chested and quiet, staring at the wall like he could see through it.

You thought he fell asleep. But when you woke up, he was gone. Your bloody tea towel was still in the sink. Your kitchen still smelled like raw meat.

And now—now you know why.

💋

You see him six hours later on campus, standing in the middle of the common green like it's just another Tuesday.

The sun hits him like it knows what he’s done and doesn’t care. He’s...glowing. Skin flushed. Eyes bright. A lazy, satisfied sway in his shoulders like he just got fucked or fed or both. His hair’s a mess, pushed back like he’s been sweating. His hoodie’s clean—different than the one he wore to your place, but you’d recognize that grin anywhere.

It’s the grin of a man who’s full. And you know. You know.

“Oi, babe!”

He sees you. Your stomach knots.

He walks over—hands in his pockets, shoulders loose, mouth tugging into that crooked, happy curve that makes your skin crawl now. He looks good. Too good. Like he stepped out of a music video and not a murder scene.

“Miss me?”

You can’t speak. You stare at him, and all you can see is the way that girl’s mouth hung open. The way her throat was ripped out. The way her legs were parted, bare, like she’d been—

No.

You shove the thought down. You can’t think that.

“You alright?” he asks, mock-concerned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He leans closer. Drops his voice. “Or maybe just someone who’s made one.”

You flinch. He laughs. And something in you snaps.

“You killed her.”

You say it soft. Almost a whisper. Not a question. He tilts his head. Eyes gleaming.

“Who?”

“Don’t.”

He smiles again. Something dark and radiant.

“You think I did that?”

“I know you did.”

He hums. Looks up at the sky like he’s thinking it over.

“Well,” he says, “she screamed so pretty, didn’t she?”

Your knees nearly give out.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Cook—”

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “Not Jesus. Something older.”

His voice is low and silken now, threading through your bones.

“You should’ve heard her, though. It was like music. She was begging—proper sobbing—right at the end. And when I touched her—”

“Shut up.”

“—when I tasted her—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

You push him.

Hard.

He barely rocks back. Just grins wider.

“What?” he murmurs. “Jealous?”

You don’t run. You should. You want to. Every nerve in your body is screaming at you to get away from him—to turn around and walk until your legs give out.

But you don’t. You just stand there, fists clenched, heart pounding, with his words echoing in your skull like a gunshot:

"Jealous?"

Like this is some joke. Like it's a game. Like you're meant to be turned on. And worst of all—you are. Not completely. Not consciously. But there’s something wrong in your blood now, and it’s crawling under your skin, whispering: He didn’t kill you.

He chose you.

Cook watches you with a predator’s patience. His eyes flick over your face, your throat, your shaking hands.

“You're really upset, huh?”

You glare. “You tore her apart.”

He shrugs, "didn’t mean to, not at first. But she smelled like…like cinnamon and sin, y’know?”

“Stop.”

“I touched her neck,” he continues, as if you hadn’t spoken, “just to feel her pulse, and it was like—fuck. Like standing in front of a fire after bein’ locked outside.”

His smile drops, just a little. “The thing inside me—it woke up. Just like that.”

You back up a step.

“And then what?”

“Then I let go," his voice softens, "and it was beautiful.”

He moves closer. You don’t stop him.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he murmurs. “Feeding.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You should.”

He leans in. You feel the warmth of him—unnatural, pulsing off his skin like a fever. His mouth is close to your ear now, but he doesn’t touch you.

“It’s not about killing. It’s about feeling. About burning so good you think you might cry.”

You clench your jaw.

“You did kill her.”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t flinch.

“She screamed. She begged. And when I came inside her—”

“Cook—”

“—when I fed,” he says instead, “I felt whole. Just for a second. Just for a breath.”

You shake your head, voice brittle.

“And me? You stayed in my flat. You crawled into my kitchen covered in blood and didn’t touch me.”

“Didn’t need to.”

You blink. “What?”

His expression shifts. There’s something like worship in it.

“You filled me without it.”

A beat.

“Didn’t even have to fuck you.”

“So you just…left? And killed her instead?”

He looks at you like it’s obvious.

“You taste like control. Like keeping it together. Like breathing.”

Another step forward.

“She tasted like chaos. Like fire. Like letting go.”

Your chest tightens.

“And now?”

His eyes flash.

“Now I’m starving again.”

You don’t say anything for a long time. You just stand there, staring at him. Your insides feel bruised. Not physically—but like your soul’s been shaken hard enough to rattle.

He doesn’t move. Not like he used to—bouncing, restless, always shifting from one foot to the other like his own skin didn’t fit. Now he’s still. Measured. Patient in a way that makes him scarier.

You whisper: “You’re not supposed to want to be close to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you killed someone, Cook.”

His mouth twitches—like the name still matters when it comes from you. Like it still means him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

“So why the fuck are you standing here looking at me like that?”

He takes a breath, slow and shallow, like he’s trying not to startle you.

“Because I haven’t touched you since.”

“So?”

“So I want to.”

That shouldn't make your stomach twist. It shouldn't make your mouth go dry. But it does.

“You want to what?” you ask, low.

“Touch you. Just—”

His fingers flex at his sides.

“Not to hurt. Not to feed.”

A pause.

“Just to feel you.”

That word sits in the air like smoke. Feel. Like you’re a person. Not prey. Not a vessel for hunger or heat. And that’s the worst part—because for all the blood, all the horror, all the death—

That’s the thing you can’t make sense of. He’s not asking to fuck you. He’s not asking to feed. He just wants your presence. He wants you close. Like it’ll make him less monstrous.

And some fucked-up, buried part of you wants to give him that.

Wants to reach for him and see if he still feels like the boy who used to fall asleep on your shoulder after all-night parties. The boy who never kissed you, but always looked like he might.

You step back, "no.”

His jaw ticks. He nods.

“Alright.”

You stand there, frozen. Then: “You’re lying.”

He blinks. “You don’t think I can stop myself?”

“I think you won’t. I think you’re pretending.”

He steps forward. Not enough to touch. But enough to fill your vision.

“You think I’m bluffing, love?”

“I think you’re starving.”

He laughs. But it’s quiet. Sad, even.

“I am.”

His voice drops to a whisper.

“But not for your blood.”

Silence again. And then, softer than before—

“Can I?”

You don’t answer right away. Your hands are shaking.

He notices. And waits. So you nod. Just once. He steps close. Careful. Slow.

You feel the heat first—too much, like he’s burning under the skin. But his touch, when it comes, is gentle. Almost reverent.

He raises one hand and sets it—barely—against your ribs.

You flinch. Not from fear. From how good it feels. From how wrong it is that this feels like comfort.

His palm rests flat over your side. You can feel the rise and fall of your breath. The trembling beat of your heart. His fingers curl, just slightly. Not possessive. Not hungry.

Just present.

“There you are,” he whispers.

Your eyes sting. And that’s when you understand: This is worse than fucking. Worse than feeding. Worse than dying.

This is intimacy.

And that’s what monsters crave the most.

Then

It’s past midnight.

The woods are damp with October rot, and someone’s playing a Bluetooth speaker loud enough to cover the sound of nerves.

Cook is laughing.

It sounds wrong out here—too loud, too alive. He’s tied to something that looks like an altar but is probably just an old concrete base from a collapsed shed, moss-covered and cracked. His wrists are bound with nylon cord, tight enough to bruise. He smells sweat and dirt and cheap aftershave and fear.

Not his.

Theirs.

“This is mental,” he says, grinning at the sky. “You lot are actually doing this?”

The lead singer—Dan or Dave or whatever—looks at him with wide, jittery eyes and forces a smile.

“Just a little ritual. Symbolic.”

“You brought a fucking knife, mate.”

“It’s part of the aesthetic.”

Cook snorts.

“What’s next, you sacrifice a goat and cut a demo?”

No one laughs.

There are six of them, all in black robes, an unnatural silence settling over then despite the music one of them is playing through their fucking iphone speaker. They’ve arranged candles in a crude circle around the slab. The flames flicker wildly in the wind. Someone’s dropped a bag of salt that’s already half-soaked into the dirt.

They don’t look like killers. They look like boys in a band who care more about fame and fortune than humanity and morals. And right now, that means him.

“Why me, then?” Cook asks, wincing as the ropes pull tight when he shifts. “Why not a fan? Or a groupie? Or one of your own? Why the charming lad with a six pack?”

The drummer mutters, “We needed someone…unattached.”

Cook laughs again.

“You’re saying I’ve got no mates?”

“No family,” the guitarist adds.

A pause.

Cook’s grin fades, just a bit. It's not like they know that, not explicitly, but something about him must scream fatherless behavior.

Brutal.

“Right.”

They go quiet for a while after that. The fire crackles. A breeze cuts through the clearing. One of the candles goes out and no one relights it. They’re all sweating, even though the air’s chilly.

“Alright,” the bassist says finally, disrupting the momentary hush that had befallen the group, “let’s just…let’s do it.”

The leader opens a worn, leather-bound notebook. Pages soaked with old rain, edges warped. He starts reading. It’s in Latin. Of course it's in fucking Latin.

Cook tunes it out. He’s staring at the stars when someone steps forward and asks: “Are you a virgin?”

He barks a laugh. Can’t help it. “What?”

“It’s part of the…we just have to know.”

“Yeah, mate,” he says dryly. “Pure as snow. Never seen a pair o’ tits in me life.”

They accept it. They believe him.

(Idiots.)

No one questions it. No one stops.

The first cut is shallow. But it bleeds. Fast.

They drag the blade across his chest—just under the collarbones. A line of heat and red and sting. Cook hisses.

“Fucking hell. Thought this was supposed to be symbolic.”

The second cut goes deeper. Right over the heart. His body jerks. One of them throws up behind a tree.

Then everything changes.

The wind stops. The flames stretch upward like something’s breathing in. The shadows start to bend. And Cook—

Cook feels something move. Not outside.

Inside.

Like something just opened its eyes behind his ribs. He stops laughing. He tries to speak. He can’t. His tongue refuses to work.

The light goes out of the clearing—and then floods back in, wrong, like the moon was being manipulated by something else, something supernatural.

And the thing inside him smiles. Not with his mouth. With his blood.

The knife sinks in. Clean. No hesitation this time. It enters just below the sternum, angled up, and he can hear the way it slides between ribs. Not like in movies. No dramatic gasp. Just a wet, shuddering sound and a twitch in Cook’s legs.

He doesn’t scream. He exhales. Soft. Confused. Like he wasn’t expecting it to hurt quite like that. Blood bubbles at his lips. He blinks. His head lolls back against the stone. For a second—just one second—he looks young.

Then it all goes quiet. No wind. No birds. No breath. Just six boys standing around a bleeding body in the woods, their mouths still open from the last chant, their eyes wide and trembling.

They look at each other. One of them starts crying.

“Is he—”

“Shut up.”

“Is he fucking dead?!”

“Just—leave it. Let’s go.”

“We have to—shouldn’t we check—”

“He’s dead. It worked. We did it.”

“Oh my God.”

“We did it.”

“We fucking did it.”

They leave him there.

They run, stumbling through the brush, tripping over roots and gravel, not looking back. Laughing, screaming, sobbing—all of it in a mess of sound swallowed by the trees. And for a moment, everything is still. Just a body. Just blood. Just Cook, cooling on a slab in the dark. Then—

The light bends. Not from above. Not from fire. From under him. Like something in the dirt has started to glow. Or breathe. Or bloom.

His fingers twitch. Once. Then again. Like they’re remembering they belong to a body. Like something’s checking the fit. And inside his chest, where the blade punched through, the blood doesn’t flow—

It flares. Glows. For a second, it looks like someone lit a match inside his ribs. Then his eyes snap open. Black. No whites. No blue. Not human. Just void.

Cook doesn’t gasp. Doesn’t scream. He smiles. He sits up slowly. His chest is still bleeding. His shirt soaked through. His skin glows faintly in the candlelight—too much, like he’s been polished, lacquered, preserved.

He breathes in.

And everything changes.

The cold retreats from the clearing. The blood on the altar smokes. The grass at the edge of the circle wilts like it knows what just happened here.

And the thing in Cook’s skin? It stretches. Rolls its neck. Licks blood from its own mouth. And laughs.

He walks out of the woods barefoot. No shoes, no jacket, blood dried in a starburst across his chest like a second mouth. The rope burns on his wrists are gone—healed—but the memory of them still clings to his skin like ash.

The air tastes different now. Sharper. Brighter. Every breath is like biting into a live wire. The wind hums against his teeth. The world is louder.

He can hear the streetlights buzzing. The hum of car engines five blocks away. He can smell metal. Sweat. Cheap perfume. Burned toast.

He can smell her.

She’s just a girl.

Not one of the band. Not part of the plan. Just walking alone, backpack slung over one shoulder, earbuds in, jacket too thin for the night air.

She doesn’t see him. She feels him. She turns, mid-step, eyes wide before she even spots the blood.

“Jesus—”

Too late.

He’s already there.

She barely gets a breath in before he grabs her—one hand on her jaw, the other at her waist—and slams her into the alley wall.

The impact cracks. Not the brick. Her.

A rib, maybe. Something important. She chokes on a scream. And then he opens his mouth. Really opens it. Not in surprise. Not in anger.

It unhinges.

A wet, ugly click as his jaw stretches further than it should—too far. Bone doesn’t make room for this. This is not human. The skin along his cheeks pulls like rubber. His tongue elongates, rippling down his throat. His teeth—already sharp—shift, layer, multiply.

The girl’s eyes go wild. She screams. And he bites. It’s not clean. He doesn’t drink. He feasts.

His mouth clamps onto her throat, and the sound is horrible—a deep, wet suction, the pop of tendons snapping, the crunch of bone splitting beneath pressure. Her blood hits the wall in an arc, bright and steaming. Her legs kick. One foot bangs against the dumpster beside them. Her fists thud weakly into his chest.

And then he pulls back with a ragged tear. Half her neck comes with him. A gaping hollow pours red down her front, over her jacket, her jeans, into the street.

She’s twitching, gurgling, her mouth working like she’s trying to ask why. He presses a kiss to what’s left of her jaw. Her body goes still.

When it’s over?

His mouth snaps shut with a wet, echoing clack. The skin of his face slithers back into place. His jawline resets. His lips smear crimson, glistening.

He moans low in his throat, like the high is almost too much. His eyes burn. And he’s beautiful. Wrong. Bloody. Glowing. But beautiful.

He lays her body down beneath the flickering streetlight. Like a gift. Or a warning. And he walks away barefoot through the blood.

Now

You don't sleep much anymore.

You tell your friends it's anxiety about coursework, looming deadlines, and too much caffeine in your bloodstream—but that's a polite lie. A necessary lie. One you tell while trying not to meet anyone’s eyes too closely, afraid they'll see what's really there: the thin cracks spreading slowly beneath your surface, the way your skin feels different now, like it doesn't quite belong to you anymore.

You used to sleep just fine. You used to feel normal, at least as normal as you could pretend to be in a university filled with thousands of equally exhausted, equally over-caffeinated students. But now sleep comes in small, fitful snatches—little dreams that twist into something that feels too real to brush off in the morning.

Dreams of him. Dreams of teeth. Dreams of heat so sharp it makes you shudder awake, your pulse racing in your throat.

You blink the memory away, fingertips drifting unconsciously to your neck as you hurry across campus. It’s crowded out here, bodies pressing too close together, conversations louder than they should be. Even though the sun is hidden behind grey, drifting clouds, you feel overheated and suffocated.

Everyone smells too human. Too warm. You didn’t notice things like this before Cook touched you, before he pressed his mouth against your throat, before you willingly—eagerly—allowed him to pull something from you, something that left you breathless and weak and strange.

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to move faster, trying to ignore how your senses seem sharper now, the colors too vibrant, sounds too loud, everything overwhelming.

He did something to you. He took something—or maybe he left something behind. Either way, you're different now. And it's unsettling how much you're starting to realize you don't completely hate it.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you hesitate briefly before pulling it out. You know it won’t be Cook—he hasn’t messaged you today—but your heart skips anyway. You’re almost disappointed to see it's just another news alert from the local paper:

SECOND VICTIM FOUND: Police Investigating Pattern of Violent Animal Attacks

A shiver moves down your spine. You click the link again, even though you’ve already read the article twice today. It's the same words each time, almost committed to memory now:

Severe wounds consistent with predation. Unnatural mutilation. Missing blood. Authorities advise caution until the animal responsible can be captured.

They haven't released the victim’s name yet, but the details line up neatly with the girl Cook first took. The girl he used to sate whatever hunger first awakened inside of him. You imagine the alley, dark and filthy, the moment he pressed her into the bricks and unhinged his mouth. You wonder if she felt something similar to what you did. You wonder if she wanted him in that moment, even just a little bit, even if it was only terror wrapped in confusion.

You force your phone back into your pocket and close your eyes for a moment, breathing deep to stop the spinning thoughts.

Cook had confessed it plainly to you after he fed. He hadn't tried to hide it. He'd told you exactly what he'd done, exactly what he needed, exactly what he was. He didn’t lie to you, not even then, his eyes dark and sincere and terrifyingly human as he traced his fingertips along your jaw.

"I won’t take everything," he'd whispered, mouth brushing your skin softly. "Just a little. Just enough. And I won’t hurt you. Not unless you ask."

You hadn't asked him to stop. You hadn't asked him to be gentle. You'd only begged him to stay.

And now, days later, you're still breathing. Walking. Functioning—barely. But the ache remains, gnawing gently beneath your ribs. The subtle but impossible-to-ignore hunger that refuses to fade. You feel hollow, like he scooped something vital out of you, leaving a delicate emptiness that nothing else can fill.

You told yourself this wasn't dangerous. That you could handle him. But now, as you hurry across campus with the taste of smoke and his touch still lingering on your tongue, you're beginning to wonder if you were terribly, dangerously wrong.

You're starting to wonder if he’s made you into something just a little less human, too.

💋

You try to make it through the rest of the day like a normal person.

You grab a coffee from the union café—burnt, bitter, wrong. The student barista looks you over like she thinks you’ve been crying. Maybe you have. Maybe your body’s still processing the shock of your blood being syphoned like boxed wine. You tip her anyway. You don’t know why.

You sit outside, trying to drink it. The taste curls your lip. Your stomach twists. You’ve always liked strong coffee. Black. Cheap. Harsh. But now? Now everything tastes off.

Or maybe it's you that’s off. Like your blood chemistry has shifted. Like you’re not calibrated to the same human scale anymore.

There’s a table of girls next to you talking about Ellie's murder. They don’t know it’s a murder, not officially. But that doesn’t stop them.

“Did you see the picture they pulled from Snapchat? I swear she looked…like she came first.”

“What the fuck?”

“I’m serious! Her mouth was all open—like she didn’t know if she was scared or into it.”

“That’s disgusting.”

They laugh. Not kind laughter. Nervous, brittle, sharp around the edges. The kind of laughter that lives just on the edge of screaming.

You stare down at your hands. They’re clean. They shouldn’t feel this clean. The coffee grows cold in your hands. You haven’t taken more than two sips.

You toss it in the bin and walk without knowing where you’re going. Your brain isn’t clicking into place properly anymore. Everything’s misted over with a fog of sensation and memory and static.

You pass two people kissing near the English department entrance and have to look away—not because it’s gross, but because you want it too much.

Not the kissing. The closeness. The heat. The permission to touch and be touched without someone feeding from you like your body’s a sugar high.

But it wasn’t just taking, was it? He didn’t just consume you. He looked at you like you were sacred. He said your name like it was salvation. He kissed you like it meant something. And now you feel hollow and glowing in equal measure. Like you’ve been blessed. Or ruined. Or both.

You're halfway across campus when your phone buzzes again. This time, it is him.

COOK: "u taste so sweet"

COOK: "thinking bout ur mouth"

COOK: "x"

You stop walking. You don’t respond. But your hands shake as you lock your phone. Your mouth is dry. You’re not sure if it’s fear.

Or thirst.

Your flat is too quiet when you get back. The overhead light hums faintly, and the floor creaks under your feet the way it always has, but it still feels…foreign. Like it’s not your space anymore. Like someone rearranged your atoms while you were gone.

You kick off your shoes and stand there for a second, staring at the fridge. There’s a blood smear on the handle. You never cleaned it. Part of you wanted to. The other part wanted to leave it there. Like a bruise. Like a claim.

You open the fridge. It's nearly empty—leftover takeaway, an apple, a can of Red Bull, a single raw steak wrapped in butcher paper. Not the same one. A new one.

He left it. You don’t remember buying it. You know you didn’t. Your throat goes tight. You shut the door too hard, and the sound echoes through the small kitchen like a gunshot. You brace your hands on the counter. Focus on the tile pattern. Breathe. You can’t fall apart. You won’t.

Your reflection in the hallway mirror catches your eye. You stop. Look closer. You don’t look different, not exactly—but there’s something off. A tension in your shoulders that wasn’t there before. A shine in your eyes that looks too bright. Too fixed.

You tug down the collar of your shirt and study the skin of your neck. Still smooth. Still soft. No scars. No bruising. No real evidence of what he did to you. But you remember the heat. The pressure. The sharp, slow ache that bled through your nerves like sugar turning bitter.

It felt like drowning. It felt like floating. It felt like he was inside you, deeper than fingers or cock or tongue—like something of him stayed behind and refused to let go.

You think: Did he take something? But the real question, the one that scrapes the back of your teeth—

Later, lying on the couch in an oversized hoodie, you try to focus on a show you’ve already seen before. Something easy. Trashy. Comfort TV.

Did he leave something?

💋

It doesn’t work. Every laugh track feels dissonant. Every face too sharp. Every commercial for laundry detergent or lip gloss or sandwiches feels like it’s from a world you don’t live in anymore.

Your leg bounces restlessly. You keep checking your phone. Keep not texting him. Your body feels like a bottle with the cork wedged too tight. Pressure. Everywhere.

You touch your lips with your fingers, then your throat. It doesn’t hurt. But it doesn’t feel human either.

There’s a sound in the hall. Your head jerks toward the door. You don’t move. You wait. Your fingers curl into the fabric of your hoodie. You don’t say his name. But you think it—so loud you wonder if he hears it.

You last maybe twenty minutes on the couch.

You flip through four different apps, scroll aimlessly through a group chat you haven’t contributed to in three days, tap through an Instagram story from a girl you met during first-year orientation and haven’t seen since. Her photo is a coffee cup and a new haircut captioned “change is good.”

You roll your eyes.

You check the door again. Still closed. Still locked. You haven’t breathed right since you came home.

There’s an itch in your throat. In your chest. Like a swallowed word that wants to claw its way out.

You tuck your legs up under yourself, phone in hand. The screen dims. You wake it again just to have something glowing in your palm. Something alive.

And then it buzzes.

COOK: “u looked hot when u were mad at me”

COOK: “wish u’d yell more”

COOK: “not that i don’t like u soft too x”

Your stomach turns. Not in disgust. In recognition.

This is what he does. The way he disarms you with half-compliments, sharp with implication. The way he walks into your bloodstream without asking.

He’s not texting like someone who fed from you. He’s texting like someone who owns you.

You stare at the messages for a long time, thumb hovering, not sure if you want to scream or moan or throw your phone across the room. You type. Delete. Type again. Set the phone down. Pick it back up.

YOU: “where are you”

sent

No response. Not right away.

You pull your hoodie tighter. The one you wore the night he touched you. It still smells faintly of blood and citrus shampoo—yours, not his. He doesn’t smell like people do. He smells like heat. Like metal. Like wet earth and smoke.

You press your face into the collar and shut your eyes. You shouldn’t miss him. But your body doesn’t care about what it should.

Your body remembers his mouth. His weight on top of you. His voice against your neck telling you he wouldn’t take too much. And now? Now you ache. Dull and slow and low in your belly. You think about touching yourself. You don’t. Instead, your phone buzzes again.

COOK: “open your window”

YOU: “why”

COOK: “just do it”

COOK: “pls. x”

Your hands feel cold as you stand. You cross to the window on muscle memory alone, not thinking too hard, not wanting to admit how quickly you obey. You unlock it. Push it open.

The night air is cool and damp. It smells like asphalt and something sweeter underneath—honeysuckle, maybe. Or blood.

You wait. Nothing. No footsteps. No voice. Just a breeze that curls over your skin and makes your spine tighten. Then your phone again:

COOK: “look in the mirror”

You freeze. Slowly, you turn. Your hallway mirror is just visible from where you stand. And in it? You see yourself. And behind you—

Not a shadow. Not a ghost. Him.

You don’t scream. You don’t move. You just stare into the mirror, watching his reflection—looser in his posture. He doesn’t look surprised to be seen. If anything, he looks amused.

He tilts his head. Grins like he’s been watching you longer than you’ve known he was there. Then he speaks—voice low, intimate, and somehow still careless: “Told you to open it.”

You turn around slowly.

He’s leaning against the inside of your bedroom door now, like he’s always belonged there. Like you left the window open for him, and he just took the invitation.

There’s dirt on his hands. A few smudges on the hem of his hoodie—your hoodie, you realize belatedly. The one he must’ve taken the last time he left. It looks better on him. You hate that.

His hair’s tousled, eyes too bright in the dim light, cheeks flushed like he’s been laughing or hunting. You can’t tell which.

“I did,” you respond, before pivoting to the most pressing question, “how long were you standing there?”

He shrugs.

“Long enough.”

That grin again. He doesn’t move toward you, but he doesn’t have to. His presence warms the room unnaturally. Your skin prickles under your hoodie. He watches the way your breath shifts, like he can see your pulse beating just under your jaw.

“You gonna tell me to leave?” he asks after a beat. “Or are we past all that?”

You don’t answer. Not because you don’t want to. Because you don’t know. Because you’re standing in your own bedroom and feel like you’re the one trespassing. Like he’s the one rooted here, and you’re the ghost.

He steps closer—just one step. You don’t flinch. But he notices the way your fingers twitch, and his smile softens into something meaner.

“Still scared of me?” he asks, voice a little lower now. “After everything?”

“No,” you say, too fast.

His eyebrow arches. “Didn’t think so.”

You fold your arms, mostly to stop your hands from shaking. His eyes flick down your body, then back up to your face, and you feel every inch of skin he doesn’t touch.

“I should hate you,” you say. It comes out raw.

“Yeah,” he says. “You should.”

He doesn’t sound sorry. You hate that he doesn’t sound sorry. You hate how much you need him to come closer. You hate how much you’d let him.

“What do you want?” you ask, finally.

He looks at you for a long time. Then, softly: “You.”

The air goes still. You feel your chest rise. Your throat dry. Your stomach twist. “You already had me.”

“Not like that. But I think you and I both know that, yeah?”

You don't ask what he means. You know. And it terrifies you. Because he’s not talking about sex. Not entirely. He’s talking about wanting you, completely. The way something consumes, not just craves. The way fire wants oxygen. The way hunger wants heat. The way monsters want the things that make them feel almost human.

He doesn’t close the space immediately. Instead, he watches you—eyes dark, a slow burn behind them, like he’s savoring every moment before the inevitable happens. His smile never fades, that arrogant, cocky curve of his lips that tells you he knows exactly what you need and how much you’ll give to get it.

And you’re too tired to fight it. Too tired to do anything but stare back at him and feel the thrum of something dangerous creeping up your spine, pooling low in your belly.

It’s like he’s always been this close. Like you’ve been walking around in the same room without seeing him, without acknowledging how much you need this proximity, this warmth, this tension.

Finally, he takes a step forward. And you don’t back away. Instead, you hold your ground—your body’s too far gone to move. And you let him get closer, closer, until you can feel the heat of him without touching.

You almost feel him in your chest—the gravity of him pulling you into orbit. He’s moving slow, taking his time, because he knows you won’t stop him. And you won’t.

“You didn’t answer me,” he says, his voice low. Almost a growl, just for you. He stands a few inches away now, close enough that you can smell the dirt under his nails, the scent of blood that’s still faint in his hair. You swallow. His breath smells like fire. Like nicotine.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, and your voice shakes because you know that he wants you but you don't know what all that entails. You almost wish you didn’t ask, because the answer is already written in his eyes.

He doesn’t answer, not with words. Instead, he moves his hand up to your neck—gently, like he’s been waiting for permission, and when your breath hitches, he gives you a slow, sadistic smile. His fingers brush over the sensitive skin, making your pulse spike beneath his touch.

“I’m not sure you want to know, sweetheart,” he murmurs. "But you need to understand something."

You breathe harder, the space between you so charged you can almost taste it. You don’t pull away, not when his thumb presses just slightly harder against the side of your throat, the same place he fed from.

“I want you,” he says. And it’s a promise, not a question. “And that means you’re gonna have to deal with me.”

You shudder, not from fear, but from something else. Something you’ve been trying not to name. The word dangerous doesn’t quite fit. Neither does wrong. It’s hunger, need, and desire wrapped up in skin and sweat, like a drug you’ve been craving without realizing.

He leans in, just a little. Enough that you feel his breath against your cheek, his lips so close you could kiss him if you wanted to. He doesn’t kiss you, though. He never does what you expect. Instead, he runs his tongue along the line of his lips—slow, deliberate—and you watch, entranced, as he looks at you like you’re the next thing he’s about to devour.

“You don't gotta be scared of me anymore,” he says, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “You know you don’t have to be.”

You open your mouth, but no words come out. It’s like he’s siphoning your voice away. You try to breathe, try to calm yourself, but it’s all too much. His presence, his touch, the way everything about him seems to stake ownership of you.

You want to pull back, to tell him to stop, but your body betrays you. Cook reaches up again, and this time, his fingers slide beneath the fabric of your hoodie, brushing against the soft skin of your stomach.

You flinch.

But he smirks, like he’s won something—like he knows exactly what he’s doing. He pulls you closer, his lips just hovering over your ear. You feel the warmth of his body against yours, and it’s almost too much to bear.

“You’ve been starving for this, haven’t you?” he breathes.

You close your eyes, breathing hard.

“Tell me you don’t want it,” he dares, fingers tracing the edge of your jaw.

You don’t answer. You can’t. Not when your appetite is so loud, so deafening, that you can’t remember what it felt like to be without it. You finally meet his gaze, forcing your voice to steady as you whisper the question you’ve been afraid to ask since all this started: “Why me?”

It comes out smaller than you intended. Fragile. Like it could crack open and spill everything inside you onto the floor to canal between the tile grout.

Cook pauses—actually pauses, his fingers still pressed lightly beneath your jaw. You watch his expression shift subtly, something complicated passing briefly over his eyes before it’s replaced by his usual cocky, self-assured mask. But you saw it.

He leans back slightly, watching you carefully, studying you like he can’t quite believe you don’t know the answer already.

You speak again before he can, your voice softer this time, the admission more painful: “You’ve slept with like half of Bristol at this point, Cook. You could have anyone—fuck, you have had almost everyone. But me—you’d never even tried to kiss me. Not once.”

You pause, swallowing the ache in your throat. “Well. Except for that one time.”

The memory rushes forward before you can stop it, clear and sharp as glass, slicing open the old wound you’ve spent months trying to ignore.

It had been late at night—months ago, before any of this.

You and Cook, stumbling back to his flat after too many drinks. His laughter bright in your ears, his body running hot and close to yours as you leaned on each other, stumbling into walls and each other’s arms. You remember feeling brave—too brave—your heart beating so loud you thought he’d hear it, as you found yourself pressed back against his front door, Cook’s eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on your mouth.

You’d been certain then—so fucking certain—that this was finally your moment. That all those lingering glances and too-long touches meant something real. You leaned in first, heart racing, eyelids fluttering shut as you felt his breath ghosting your lips—

—and he’d pulled away.

Not harshly. Not cruelly. Just gently enough to shatter you. His eyes filled with something soft, almost sorry, as he murmured quietly, too kindly: “We shouldn’t.”

You’d felt the rejection burn through your chest, humiliation creeping hot and fast across your face. But you hadn’t cried, hadn’t argued, hadn’t even acknowledged what had happened. You’d simply nodded, silent, numb. You’d buried your feelings so deeply you thought they’d suffocate under the weight of it all. Because having Cook’s friendship had felt safer—less painful—than losing him altogether.

So you convinced yourself that he’d never seen you that way, never wanted you like that. You convinced yourself you could live with it. And now here he is, standing before you, looking at you like he wants to take you apart, piece by piece, and make you watch him do it.

His voice breaks through your memories, pulling you harshly back to the present: “I wanted you that night,” he says quietly, his voice rougher than before, losing some of its cocky edge. “More than I wanted anyone.”

You stare at him, chest aching, disbelief written plainly across your face. “Then why didn’t you?” you whisper. “Why not me?”

He sighs softly, palm cradling your face, thumb sweeping across your cheekbone, the gesture unexpectedly tender. It makes something deep inside you hurt even more.

“Because you’re not like them,” he says simply, eyes boring into yours, honest in a way that terrifies you. “You’re the only thing I was scared I might fuck up. And trust me, sweetheart—I would’ve fucked it up.”

You feel something twist sharply in your chest, painfully aware of how your body still leans instinctively towards his touch, even as your mind reels from his confession.

Cook moves closer again, his eyes never leaving yours, his voice dipping lower as he continues: “But it’s different now. I’m different now.”

His fingertips skim along the side of your throat, brushing dangerously close to the place he’d bitten, the place he’d fed from. The skin there tingles beneath his touch, like it remembers the press of his teeth and craves it again.

“I’m not gonna run this time,” he murmurs, voice thick with promise, with hunger, with need. “And I won’t let you, either.”

His eyes are dark and bottomless, and you see the truth in them—a truth you don’t think you’re ready for, but can’t deny any longer. Cook’s voice is barely audible, but it echoes through you like thunder: “I told you. I want you.”

Your breath trembles as you stare back at him, feeling yourself slowly, inevitably falling. Because you want him, too. And this time, you both know you won’t be able to stop.

You’re still trying to catch your breath when he steps back. Not far. Just enough that the air returns to your lungs in staggered, fractured little pieces. You feel like you’ve been struck—like the earth shifted a few inches sideways under your feet and no one else noticed.

Cook’s staring at you, that maddeningly unreadable expression on his face again. A flash of something underneath. Guilt, maybe. Hunger, still. Something sharp and heavy and unresolved.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter. Shitty little zippo. Beat up, edges worn down from years of use. You recognize it—it’s his. Always fidgeting with it, flicking it open and closed. Always playing with fire.

You give him a look. "Gonna light up in my flat?"

But he doesn’t answer. He flicks the wheel. A flame bursts to life, small and defiant. And then, eyes locked on yours, he sticks out his tongue. Your brow furrows.

"What the fuck are you—"

The flame touches him. Licks the curve of his tongue. You expect the hiss of seared flesh, the flinch, the instinct to yank away—

—but there’s nothing. Nothing except the slow, lazy drag of heat across pink muscle. His tongue doesn’t burn. Doesn’t blister. Doesn’t even turn red. It just glows.

His tongue pulses slightly with the heat, not in pain but in something else. Like it’s soaking it in. Like he’s tasting it. The flame dies as he snaps the lighter closed and lets his tongue roll back into his mouth. He swallows. Wipes the corner of his lips with the back of his hand.

"Neat party trick, innit? Figured I'd show ya in case you were still under the impression I'm a regular bloke.”

You don’t laugh. You can’t. Your heart is fluttering behind your ribs like a caged bird as you whisper, “no one’s ever accused you of being normal."

He snorts at that. "Cheers. Really warmin’ up to the support here."

But there’s something in his eyes. Something wilder. Something that crackles. Your voice is quieter when you speak again.

"You said you came back for me."

"No, I said I was claimin’ you." His voice drops. "S’not the same thing."

You blink at him.

He steps in, crowding your space again, and it should scare you—should at least make you backpedal—but all you feel is the burn of his presence, like every cell in your body is suddenly awake.

"You know what I am now, don’t ya?" he asks, low and rough.

You nod. Because you do. Sorta. He might be undead or demonic or the goddamn devil himself, all you do know is that you don't care—not really. Because, underneath it all it's still Cook. Still your James. He lifts your hand to his mouth like it’s breakable and sacred, presses a kiss to your knuckles, then to the heel of your palm.

"I’m starvin’, sweetheart. Always have been. Just didn’t know what for ‘til you.”

His mouth drags across your wrist. He breathes you in like you’re something divine. "Could eat you whole if you let me. But I won’t. Cos I like you. That’s fucked, innit?"

He smirks, but it’s crooked. Feral. "Might be a monster, yeah. But even monsters get sweet on someone sometimes."

He looks up at you through the pretty curl of his lashes, his eyes those familiar blue you've long since fallen for. Warm. Comforting. "And I’m sweet on you. So you’re properly fucked now, aren’t ya?"

Your whole body shudders. Cook grins wider, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. "Don’t worry, love. I’ll make it worth your while."

You don’t know if that’s a promise or a threat. Maybe both. Whatever it is—it’s working. You should tell him to leave. You should back away, slam the door shut on all of this—window in this case—the blood, the hunger, the things that curl like smoke behind his eyes. But you don’t. You can’t.

Because you’re already reaching for him.

Your fingers fist in the front of his shirt—soft cotton gone threadbare in places—and he lets you yank him forward without protest, lets you drag him in like gravity’s pulling both of you to the same center.

He kisses you like he’s starving again. Except this time, there’s no hesitation, no teasing restraint. His mouth is hot and open, tongue greedy, lips catching on yours with a messy, slick desperation that tastes like danger. His hands are already under your shirt—warm palms dragging up your stomach, over your ribs, rough thumbs brushing the undercurve of your breasts.

“Still just as sweet,” he groans, pulling back just far enough to speak before diving back in. “Sweet little thing lettin’ a monster between her legs. You really that gone for me?”

You whimper—actually whimper—and that earns you a grin against your mouth, sharp and delighted. He spins you toward your counter, hands rough on your hips, and you feel the heat of his body press in behind you. Your knees almost buckle.

“Gonna let me wreck it again, yeah?” His voice is low, sing-song dirty. “Been thinkin’ about it for fuckin’ ages. Wankin’ to the thought of you cryin’ on my cock all over again—an’ you weren’t even mine yet.”

He grinds against you, teeth grazing your neck, tongue following the scrape with something almost tender. You feel the metal of his belt buckle press into the small of your back as he rocks his hips.

“M’gonna ruin this cunt,” he mutters, more to himself than you. “Split you open proper. You’ll thank me for it.”

His shirt’s off now—he peels it over his head in one smooth pull—and for a second, you can’t breathe. You've seen it all before but there's a certain clarity now. You feel the sensation of being present with him, of being connected to this moment, and you realize that this time, it’s not fragmented, not dreamlike. It’s real.

You can’t focus on anything else. Your body aches for him in ways you didn’t understand before.

“Like what ya see?” he asks, rhetorical, noticing your gaze. Good, cuz you'll be seein’ a lot of me while I fuck the thoughts outta your head.”

Your sleep shorts are off before you realize it—Cook’s hands are skilled, pulling them off in one fluid motion. When he sees your underwear, he groans low, a sound you feel deep in your bones.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he murmurs, fingers brushing the hem. “Little lacy number? Fuckin’ knew I'd be comin’ back for ya, didn't ya sweetheart?”

He sinks to his knees. And when his mouth finds the inside of your thigh, you forget your own name.

His fingers hook into the elastic of your waistband, sliding them down and off, and you feel the cool air rush over your skin as he parts your legs. The way he looks at you is almost predatory, but there’s something more in it this time. Something that speaks to the hunger inside him and how much it wants you.

You shiver when his breath fans across your bare cunt, the warmth of it making you ache for more. But he doesn’t touch you, not yet. He’s too good at keeping you waiting, teasing you with just his gaze, his lips barely brushing the flesh of your inner thigh.

“You’re a fuckin’ treat,” he says, eyes never leaving yours. “Never thought I’d get to ruin you like this.”

You’re soaked—completely soaked—and your body shudders as he takes his time, his fingers lightly tracing the line of your slit before dipping in just enough to tease you, his fingertips grazing the edges, making your breath hitch.

You can’t help the soft gasp that escapes you. His eyes flash with a wicked smirk.

“Fuck, you’re so wet for me already,” he whispers, voice rough. “Good girl. Let me have another taste.”

You arch toward him instinctively, your hands finding purchase in his hair, pulling him closer. Your legs tremble as he presses his tongue flat against you, the heat of him making your whole body pulse with need.

He works you slowly, expertly, pulling noises from your mouth you never thought you’d make. You’re embarrassingly close, so quickly, but you don’t want him to stop. The feeling is insatiable.

“You taste like heaven,” he mutters, mouth pressed to you as he swirls his tongue in maddening circles around your clit, making you ache even more. His fingers slide in, stretching you as his mouth follows, sucking you with a hungry, possessive intensity that makes your legs shake.

“Fuckin’ finally get to taste you proper,” he mutters. “None of that half-asleep, half-gone shite. Want you present this time, yeah? Wanna hear you scream.”

His tongue is hot and wet and relentless, flattening over your cunt in one long, greedy lick that leaves your legs shaking. He groans the second he gets a proper taste—deep and filthy, like he’s swallowing you whole—and presses in again, harder.

“Fuckin’ always knew you’d taste like this,” he growls against your clit. “Knew it the second I had my fingers in you that night. Fuckin’ honey-slick, tight little cunt. Bet you’ve been dreamin’ of this just like I have.”

He doesn’t tease. Doesn’t build up slow. He consumes you. Tongue slick and practiced, nose bumping your clit as he locks his arms around your thighs and eats you out like a man starved. You choke on a gasp, nearly fold forward, gripping the counter just to stay upright.

“That’s it. Fuckin’ take it. Ride my face, pretty girl,” he slurs, already rutting his hips into the air behind him like he can’t stand not being inside you. “Didn’t fuckin’ forget how you tasted. Couldn’t. Lived off that memory like a fuckin’ addict.”

Your thighs tremble, and you can feel it building—fast and furious, the orgasm chasing up your spine like a freight train. He must feel it too because he moans into your cunt, fingers digging deeper into your thighs, keeping you right there.

“That’s my girl,” he breathes, lips glossy and pink. “C’mon. Give it to me. Let me feel you lose it on my fuckin’ tongue.”

You do. You shatter, hips jerking, a strangled moan caught in your throat as your body locks up around the rhythm of his mouth. He doesn’t stop—not even as your cunt spasms against him, not even as your knees go weak.

He keeps going. You’re still shaking when he lifts his head, mouth glistening, pupils blown wide and black as the night sky.

“Look at you,” he pants, lips dragging against the inside of your thigh. “Already fuckin’ wrecked and I haven’t even given you cock yet.”

You gasp—try to move, to close your legs from the overwhelming ache—but Cook just laughs, low and sharp, and holds you open like it’s nothing. Like you weigh nothing.

His hands are everywhere—palming your thighs, dragging you down to the floor with him in one effortless pull until you’re flat on your back on the tile, legs spread. You barely blink and he’s climbing over you, licking his fingers clean like you’re dessert.

Then he grips your hips and pulls you up into his lap—like you're his property.

“Don’t fuckin’ squirm,” he growls. “You gave yourself to me, remember? M’gonna take my time now. Make this tight little cunt remember who it belongs to.”

You whimper, your voice caught somewhere between panic and lust. He’s already between your thighs again, fingers rough and greedy, spreading you open, baring you to him. Then—he lifts you.

His strength is terrifying. Effortless. He’s holding your entire body weight with his hands under your thighs, spreading you wide, lining you up with his now exposed cock as he kneels over you like a creature from myth—something wicked and carved from smoke and sin, here to fuck the soul out of you and then some.

“Gonna take it,” he mutters, almost reverent. “All of it. Gonna let me back in that pretty little body? Gonna let me own it this time?”

You nod, barely able to form words.

He growls. “Say it.”

“Yes—fuck—yes, please,” you gasp, clawing at his back. “I want it—want you—”

“That’s my fuckin’ girl.”

He sinks in all at once.

Your scream echoes off the kitchen walls as his cock stretches you open in one brutal thrust, no warning, no easing in—just depth. Pressure. Heat. Pain that borders on pleasure, so intense you can barely breathe.

Cook hisses through his teeth, forehead pressed to yours.

“Tight little fuckin’ thing,” he snarls. “Still squeezin’ me like a vice—like this cunt was made for me.”

You claw at his shoulders. He grins. Starts to move. His mouth drops to your throat, hot and open as he licks along your pulse, and for one split second you think he might be stalling. That he’s trying to be good. To hold back. But then you feel it—his hips jerk, his breath catches, and the next second he’s sinking his teeth in. Not careful this time.

You cry out, the sting sharp and raw—but it bleeds straight into the pleasure. Your body clenches around him like it can’t tell the difference between pain and want, and maybe it doesn’t. Not with him. Not like this.

He groans into your skin, mouth sealing tight around the bite as he sucks deep, your blood surging into him in thick, hot pulses that make his whole body shake. You feel it—how much he needs it, how fucked and desperate he is for it. Like it’s the only thing that’s ever fed him properly. And somehow, that makes it worse.

His cock drives up into you harder, deeper, like feeding from you turned something loose inside him. His control's gone. He’s fucking you like he’s gone feral—slamming you into the wall, your legs locked around his waist, head tipped back to give him everything.

You’re moaning, breathless, boneless—every drag of his tongue, every filthy thrust dragging you closer to the edge. It’s not even words coming out of your mouth anymore. Just sounds. Just need.

He finally pulls back from your throat, his mouth slick and red, lips shining with it—and the look in his eyes is unhinged. “Mine,” he pants. “Mine now, yeah? Say it.”

You don’t even hesitate. “Yours—fuck, I’m yours.”

And that’s all it takes. He slams into you once, twice, and then you’re coming—hard—your orgasm crashing through you like your body’s trying to tear itself apart around him. He groans loud and low, hips grinding deep, and you feel it—his cock twitching inside you, his whole body curling around yours as he finishes with a ragged “Fuck, yes—fuckin’ take it.”

He doesn’t pull out. He doesn’t stop. Because now that he’s marked you—now that he’s tasted you, fed from you, cum inside you—he’s not letting go. Not for anything.

You’re still trembling when he finally slows down. Muscles twitching, brain fried, every nerve ending still lit up and buzzing like static.

He doesn’t pull out right away. Just stays there—buried deep—his hands splayed over your hips like he’s anchoring himself to you, keeping you both from unraveling entirely. His breath is hot and heavy against your throat, lips brushing the raw skin where his bite is already bruising up dark and pretty. Then, slowly—deliberately—he shifts back.

You flinch, oversensitive, aching, and Cook exhales a wicked little laugh under his breath as he watches his cum drip between your thighs.

“Well, fuck me,” he mutters, voice all cocky delight and post-orgasm smugness. “Didn’t know I could paint, but that’s a proper masterpiece.”

You swat at his shoulder weakly. “You’re disgusting.”

“Not denyin’ it.” He grins down at you, eyes flashing as he leans in and drags his mouth over your jaw, playful now, affectionate. “But I’m yours, yeah? So I reckon you’ve got shit taste, sweetheart.”

You should probably tell him to shut up. Instead, you melt under his touch—his hands ghosting down your sides, his fingers dipping low to trace where he just was, possessive even now. You shudder again, the sensation sharp, and he stills—just for a second—before glancing up at you with something more serious in his gaze.

“…You alright?”

You nod, hazy and ruined. “Just…sore.”

His brow furrows, lips pressing against your shoulder. “Sore’s good,” he says, half-joking. “Means I did it right.”

Then, quieter—lower—he adds: “But I’ll kiss it better anyway.”

He scoops you up effortlessly, wiry arms under your thighs, chest to chest, the cold floor long forgotten. You feel the muscles in him coil and flex with every movement, inhuman strength thrumming just under the skin. Not a tremor of strain as he walks—like carrying you, spent and shaking and slick with him, is effortless.

The backs of your knees hook around his hips without thinking. You're still clinging to him. Still open from him. Everything throbbing, stretched and raw and glowing in the places he touched like you’ve been rewired by it.

The room is quiet. Too quiet. Just the sound of his breathing behind your ear, and yours, still ragged. His voice breaks the silence, low and smug. “If I’d known you were gonna let me fuck you stupid on the kitchen floor, I’d have skipped the window theatrics.”

You groan. “Shut up.”

“You love me like this.” He’s smirking—you can hear it. “Ruin your little knickers and your GPA in one go, yeah? Got girls dreamin’ about me, and here you are, lettin’ the monster spit you open on the tile like a good little sacrificial virgin—”

“I’m not a virgin,” you mutter, face flushed.

“No,” he agrees. “definitely not anymore.”

He kicks your bedroom door open and the creak of it echoes. Your sheets are rumpled. Your lamp’s still on. You left the window cracked. The air smells like candle wax, sweat, blood, and smoke.

He lays you down gently—too gently. The same hands that left bruises on your hips, nail marks from where they bit into your thighs, are now tugging the blanket up to your ribs like he didn’t just fuck the soul out of you on the linoleum.

“Cook—” you start, but he cuts you off with a kiss. Slow. Warm. Almost soft. You can still taste yourself on his lips.

“I’m stayin’,” he says into your mouth. “Just for tonight.”

His voice has that same gravity it always does—like when he tells lies he wants you to believe. But this time, there’s no teasing. No grin. Just something else in his eyes. Something greedy. Something...forever.

You shift, wince. Everything aches. His hand brushes your hair back from your forehead, then cups your cheek, thumb dragging under your eye.

“You gonna let me feed again?”

The question makes your stomach flip. You remember the first time. How it felt. How you floated. How he looked after—like he'd just found God.

Your fingers ghost over the bite on your throat. Still tender. Still bleeding faintly. The skin pulses. “…Will it hurt?”

Cook shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe.” He grins. “Think of it as a hickey with teeth.”

You don’t answer. You just tilt your head. He takes it as permission. You feel his breath first—hot against your neck. Then lips, tongue, and finally, teeth. They sink in slower this time. He’s not as far gone. But the pain is still sharp. Real. Enough to make your toes curl and your back arch off the mattress.

And then—the rush.

It’s indescribable. Like you’re burning from the inside out. Like someone turned your blood to fire and your nerves to raw wire and every thought you’ve ever had just blinked out and went dark. You gasp. Clutch at him. Your thighs clamp around his waist. He groans against your neck, the sound raw, starved.

“Fuck, you’re good,” he mutters, voice muffled. “You’re so fuckin’ good, baby. Taste like sin and sugar, it's fuckin’ addictin’—”

He sucks harder. You cry out. The pleasure starts to twist again, building.

You’re not sure if you cum. Not really. It’s too much. All of it. There’s no end or beginning, just waves of sensation—his body pressed over yours, the burn of his bite, the way he fuckin’ moans when he swallows your pain like it’s dessert.

And then, finally, it’s over. You’re breathless. Boneless. Floating again. Everything hums. You blink up at him. Cook is staring at you. There’s blood on his lips. And something new in his eyes. Not hunger. Not lust. Claim.

“I left a mark this time,” he says, thumbing the raw dental imprint with pride. “Real one. Won’t fade.”

You frown, dazed. “You said you didn’t know if it would hurt.”

He grins. “Didn’t say I didn’t mean it to.”

You should feel angry. You should feel used. But all you feel is…full. Hollowed out and filled back up with him. You don’t know where you end and he begins. You roll over, face half-buried in your pillow. “You’re such a dick.”

He laughs. “Yeah,” he agrees. “But I’m your dick, now.”

You groan. He crawls in behind you. Doesn’t ask. Just wraps his arms around you like he belongs there. You don’t sleep. He doesn’t either.

He watches the moonlight on your skin, teeth dragging his lower lip, eyes on the mark he branded into your flesh, your soul. You should be scared. But you’re already his.

And monsters always get what they want.

Then

Your first week at Roundview felt like showing up midway through a wild party—everyone already drunk, already dancing, already knowing each other's secrets. You were the newbie.

Transferred in from somewhere no one cared to ask about and you weren’t exactly keen to share. You floated through classes like a ghost, unfamiliar hallways and loud-mouthed cliques bleeding together, too much all at once. People looked at you, sure, but no one saw you.

Except Cook. He saw everything.

You noticed him on day two. He’d been propped up in the back of media studies with his feet on the desk, arm draped over the chair beside him like he was right at home.

He had this grin—mischievous, wolfish—that made you feel like you’d already done something wrong even if you were just walking by. He didn’t speak to you. Not then. Just watched you like he was reading ahead in a book only he had a copy to.

Then on day four, he spoke. Not in class—never that easy. It was in the stairwell between the music wing and the roof, where you’d gone to escape the thrum of too many voices.

He’d been there already, leaned against the railing, smoking and humming something under his breath. You startled him when you opened the door. Or, at least, you thought you had. But then he smirked and said: "’Bout time. Thought you’d never find the good spots."

Like you were expected. Like he’d been expecting you. You didn’t ask what he meant. Just scowled and muttered something about not meaning to interrupt. But he only chuckled. "Interruptin’ who, sweetheart? I’m the only one up here, and I was gettin’ bored."

That became a sort of pattern. Every day after lunch, you’d find your way back up there. Sometimes he was already waiting. Other times he’d show up after you, feigning surprise like he hadn’t planned it. You didn’t talk much at first—just sat in silence. But Cook had a way of making silence feel like a shared secret, not an awkward one.

It was the end of your first week when he finally got you to take a cigarette. The sun was starting to set, bleeding through the smog of a late autumn sky. Everything looked golden, even the cracked concrete and broken satellite dish discarded on the edge of the roof. Cook was already there, of course. Smoking and sprawled out like the delinquent he is.

“Look who’s come crawlin’ back,” he drawled when you emerged. “Can’t stay away from me, can ya?”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s quiet up here.”

He smirked. “Yeah. Until you show up.”

You took your usual spot—two milk crates over—and stared out at the horizon. He watched you for a minute. Then, without a word, he held out a cigarette, pinched between his fingers.

“Don’t look at it like it’s gonna bite you,” he teased. “It’s just a smoke. Can’t get you pregnant.”

You huffed a laugh despite yourself. It was hard not to laugh around him. Like trying not to breathe. You took it, fingers brushing his. It wasn’t the first time you’d touched, but it felt different today. The contact lingered, electricity threading up your spine. He reached into his pocket for his lighter, flicked it once, then leaned in—close enough you could see the shimmer of amber in his eyes.

The flame flared. You leaned forward, bringing the cigarette to your lips. He held the lighter up, let it hover just long enough that you felt the heat.

“There she goes,” he murmured. “Almost makes you look cool.”

You didn’t cough. You were proud of that. Even if it felt like fire crawling up your throat.

He tilted his head, watching you inhale. “Didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“Didn’t think you knew any words with more than one syllable.”

“Oof.” He clutched his chest like you’d wounded him. “She’s got claws. Don’t tempt me, sweetheart, I like a bit of scratchin’.”

You rolled your eyes again, turning your face toward the sunset to hide the blush. You were never quite sure if he meant half the things he said. But you wanted to believe he did.

There was a lull. You let the silence settle again, breathing smoke, heart pounding harder than it should’ve been. You could feel him beside you—warm, present, real. He didn’t lean close, not yet. But it felt like he could. He broke the quiet first. “You ever do this back where you’re from?”

The way he said it, you knew it wasn’t about smoking. It was about you. Where you came from. Who you were before. “No,” you said. “Not really.”

He smirked. “Didn’t think so.” Then, after a beat, he turned to you, that grin back in full force.

“You shoulda just kissed me when you had the chance.”

Your stomach dropped. You stared at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

Cook shrugged. “Y’know. That day in chem. You looked like you wanted to. Thought you might’ve, if I leaned in first.”

He said it so casually, like it meant nothing. Like it hadn’t just tilted your whole fucking world off its axis. You didn’t answer. Just looked away, cheeks burning, heart in your throat.

He didn’t push. Just laughed again, soft and smug. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

You flicked the ash off your cigarette. “You’re annoying when you’re breathing.”

“Oh baby, don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You never kissed that day. He never tried. You never asked why. Maybe it was timing. Maybe it was fear. Maybe he was waiting for something you hadn’t figured out yet.

But you never forgot that rooftop. The heat of his hand. The phantasmal whisper of his mouth, almost brushing your cheek. The way he looked at you like he already knew how your story ended. You didn’t know then what he would become.

But something inside you already recognized the monster when he was still a man. You just didn’t know how much you were ready to let him in.

Now

It's been three months.

Three months since it all began. Since Cook branded your soul with his teeth and the attacks stopped.

That’s what they’re saying, anyway. Whispers around town, posted flyers, articles in the local paper. The local PD ruled the string of grisly deaths as animal in nature, claimed the worst of it passed months ago, that whatever rabid thing had been stalking the streets, the alleys, the woods, must’ve moved on—perhaps wandered too far out past the city limits and never came back.

Maybe it died. Maybe it was hunted. Maybe it was just done. There’s never been an official explanation, of course. No real answers. No smoking gun. No proof. Just…silence. Quiet after the storm. A town too eager to forget the way it screamed. You know the truth.

Cook stopped feeding here. That’s all it was. Not out of guilt. Not out of mercy. But necessity. The bodies were piling too high, and even a town this good at looking the other way can’t ignore a mountain of corpses. So he took your advice—or maybe it was more of a plea, the kind only half-whispered and soaked in sweat when he was still inside you—and he moved his hunting grounds elsewhere. A few towns over. A different coast. You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know. He always comes back to you anyway.

And now, with things quiet again, the town is pretending nothing ever happened. They’ve slapped a coat of paint over every bloodstain, scrubbed the sidewalks clean, patched up every scar with community vigils and police statements and concerned school counselors. They’ve made it palatable. Neat. Contained.

There’s even a benefit concert. For the victims, they say. For the survivors. For the grieving families. A fundraiser to raise awareness, promote safety, honor the lives lost. You nearly choke when you read the flyer: SYCHOPHANT VALENTINE, it says in thick, ugly block print. Live at the Avalon. Tickets $25. All proceeds go to the Predator Peace Project.

Sycophant Valentine. The band that sacrificed Cook. They tied him up, shoved him in the back of their van, and bled him out in the middle of the woods under a full moon. All for fame. All for a shot at something bigger than themselves. They left his body in a ditch and never looked back.

And now they’re here. Back in town. Playing a fucking charity event in honor of the deaths they caused. Cook doesn’t say much when you show him the flyer. Just hums under his breath and mutters something about poetic justice. But there’s a look in his eyes that makes your stomach twist—a slow, simmering sort of voraciousness. Not the kind he shows when he wants you. The other kind. The kind that paints your walls red.

You’ve seen it before. And this time, you don’t beg him to stop. You help him plan.

You bought the tickets under a fake name. Two VIP passes. No questions asked. Cook laughed when you showed him the envelope, the way his name was spelled wrong on the laminated badge. “James Cooke.” With an e. Fancy.

He held it between two fingers like he's holding Wonka's last golden ticket. “Gotta say, sweetheart, I always pictured my revenge lookin’ a bit rougher than an all-access wristband.”

You told him the rest would be rough enough. He’s been careful since that night in your room. Since you invited the monster in and let him stay. The feeding is still irregular, but he doesn’t lose himself anymore. Not with you. Not like before.

You know what he is now. He knows you’re not scared. That changed things.You’d started planning this the day after the concert announcement. He didn’t even need to ask why. Just looked at you with that slow, crooked grin like he was proud. Like it turned him on that you were just as sick with it as he was.

“You gonna help me kill six lads, sweetheart?” he asked. “Thought I was the monster in this story.”

“You are,” you said. “But I’m your monster now.”

💋

It’s all happening at the local community center—rebranded The Wild Hearts Pavilion for the benefit night, complete with stage lights, a merch booth, and punch that definitely had something in it.

You’re dressed to kill. Literally. Something short, tight, sheer enough to show bruises from nights ago when Cook got too hungry, too possessive. He left them where he wanted them. Thighs, hips, throat.

You’ve never felt more marked. Or more his. You loiter near the back hallway during their set, the one that leads to the green room. You can feel him somewhere nearby—Cook doesn’t blend well, but he knows how to vanish when he wants to. He's watching. Waiting.

Let them see you, he said earlier. Let them follow. I’ll do the rest. And oh, they see you.

The drummer’s the first to take notice, eyes raking down your legs like you’re just another backstage fling to scratch off the post-show list. The others follow suit like dogs catching a scent.

You catch the guitarist’s eye—recognize him from that press photo with the sacrificial dagger tucked behind his amp like a stage prop. You smile. Bite your lip. That’s all it takes.

Five minutes later, the show ends. The band is sweaty, buzzing, drunk off their own success. Six walking punchlines to a bad joke about fame, eyeliner, and fragile egos. You barely have to try—they come sniffing around you like dogs in heat.

The drummer's the first one to talk, of course. Always the drummer.

"VIP pass, huh?" he says, voice thick with sweat and residual post-concert adrenaline. "That mean you're all-access too, doll face? Or just front row with a view?"

You smirk. Don’t answer. Just glance at his laminated badge like you’re impressed. His ego does the rest. The lead singer steps in next, sunglasses still on like it’s not 9 PM and indoors. "You a fan, yeah? You look like a real fan. Wanna prove it?"

He eyes your body like it’s already been unwrapped. "Groupie slut look suits you, babe. Got that whole I’m not like the other girls thing goin’ for you. We like that."

"She’s got three holes," the bassist chimes in, slurring a little. "Two hands. We can rotate."

You almost gag—but you smile instead. Coy. Sweet. You twirl your VIP badge around your finger like you’re considering it. Let them think you’re stupid. That you’re game. Let them fall for it.

“Green room’s this way,” you purr, giving them a little wink as you trail your fingers along the hallway wall. “You boys want your…reward, yeah?”

They follow like sheep to slaughter, already pawing at you before the door even shuts. One of them tries to slap your ass. Another reaches to cup your breast. You dodge just enough to keep it playful. Lead them deeper.

They barely notice the lights flickering. Don’t hear the shift in the air. Don’t smell the bloodlust that’s just begun to bloom.

Then the door clicks shut. The lock turns. And Cook steps out of the shadowed corner with a smile so wide and predatory it could split his face in half, his voice steeped in venom and sadistic glee as he asks—

“You cunts ready for your encore?”

The guys scream—but not out of fear, not at first, first they laugh. Think it’s a prank. The lead singer—Dan or Dave or whatever—even holds his hands up like whoa man, chill, drunk swagger faltering only slightly, the chain he's wearing swinging with the movement.

“Yo what the fuck is this, a bit? Some horrorcore—”

Cook’s jaw unhinges with a wet, cracking pop. It splits too far, wider than any human mouth should go, fangs slick and glistening in the dim light, saliva stretching like webbing between rows of serrated, shark-like teeth sharp enough to shred. His neck tendons bulge. His spine contorts.

And then? He moves.

The first one doesn’t even get a full scream out. Cook lunges—inhumanly fast, all blur and sinew and snap. He grabs the guitarist by the waist and rips him clean in half, top and bottom peeling apart with a sickening wet crack like splitting a chicken carcass at Sunday roast.

His spine snaps like a wishbone, intestines spilling out in glistening, red ropes as a result. The man’s upper body twitches once, mouth still trying to speak through a throat now pouring foam and blood.

It hits the others an instant too late.

Panic. Screaming. Scrambling.

The drummer bolts for the mirror-lined vanity, slips on blood, and Cook’s already there—slamming his face through the glass. The mirror explodes with the force, shards embedding in cheek, jaw, eye socket. He tries to scream, but it comes out a wet gurgle, teeth dangling by nerve threads. Cook leans in real close, blood running down his own chin like juice from a ripe plum.

“Didn’t catch that, mate. Mind speakin’ up?”

CRUUUNCH.

He drives the man's face down again. And again. And again. Until there’s nothing left but pulp.

Two more charge him, panicked and stupid, trying to fight him like he’s just some bloke in a bad mood or in a drug-fueled rage. Cook just laughs. Grabs them both by the heads and slams their skulls together so hard it echoes like a rifle shot. One drops instantly. The other stumbles—until Cook picks him up by the throat and throws him into a wall with enough force to leave a dent.

That’s four.

Another tries to crawl away. Of course. There's always one that crawls. Hands slipping in blood, sobbing like a child. He’s halfway to the door before Cook casually strides over and stomps down on his back with one foot.

His spine splits down the middle. A wet, meaty crack like a tree branch giving out. The guy pisses himself. Gasps. Goes still.

That’s five.

The sixth one’s hiding.

Coward. You spot him cowering under the table, trying not to make a sound, hands clasped in prayer like he’s calling on a God that doesn’t show up here anymore.

Cook crouches low. Smiles under the table like a shark smelling iron. “Oi,” he whispers. “Prayin’? Tha’s cute.”

He grabs the man’s ankle and yanks him out, nails clawing at the floorboards so hard his nails break and bleed. The guy thrashes, grabs a mic stand—jabs it blindly—

It hits Cook in the gut. He barely flinches. Instead, he wrenches the mic stand from the guy’s hand and impales him with it—blunt end first, driving it slow through stomach, guts, ribcage, up until it tears out of his mouth like a metal flower blooming from his face.

“Bit pitchy,” Cook mutters. “But good effort.”

Blood hits the ceiling. Hits you. Hot. Wet. Metallic.

You don’t wince.

They beg. They cry. They try to offer deals, babbling about producers and record labels and you don’t have to do this, man—

Cook just grins, lips pulled back to show fangs dripping red.

“Don’t look at her,” he growls, voice animal, throat soaked in someone else’s blood. Then, to the lead singer, who’s trying to crawl away without a lower jaw: “She’s not the one you owe.”

And with that, he rips the jaw off what’s left of the frontman’s head. The tendons snap with a noise like snapping celery. The singer makes a wet choking noise and collapses.

When it’s done, the room is soaked. Walls dripping. The overhead lights splattered. Steam rising off the piles of offal in the cold air. Limbs twitching. Stomachs and chest cavities peeled and cracked open like rotten fruit.

And Cook? Cook is standing in the middle of it all. Shirtless. Heaving. Blood-slick and shaking. Nothing human left in the shape of him except maybe the smirk—slanted, feral, proud. His chest rises and falls quick. He licks blood from his knuckles, slow. Then he looks at you. Grins.

"Fuckin' hell," he says, voice low and thrilled, like he just won a prizefight or got off on stage. “Did ya see that? Fuckin’ told ya I’d make it rough.”

You nod—barely. Your brain hasn’t caught up to your body yet. You’re flushed, hot, throbbing with adrenaline. There’s blood smeared across your chest, your cheek, but all you can focus on is the way Cook’s looking at you. Like he wants to devour you next.

He crosses the room in three long strides, trainers splashing through the mess, and grabs your face in both bloodstained hands. He kisses you hard—filthy, wet, all tongue and teeth and heat. His mouth tastes like copper and nicotine and something darker still.

You moan into it. Can’t help it. Can’t stop. His hand slides under your shirt, palm hot and greedy, squeezing your tit, thumb brushing over your hard nipple, smearing blood across every inch of skin he touches. He groans when you grind against him, the bulge in his jeans already thick and heavy and hard.

"God, you're fuckin' soaked already," he mutters against your lips, voice rough and reverent. “Covered in blood and still gaggin’ for cock. My girl.”

You gasp when he rocks against you. When his hand slides down, fingers ghosting over the waistband of your skirt like a promise.

"Later," he pants, biting at your jaw. "M'gonna fuck the life outta you later. Gonna bend you over somethin’ sturdy, fuck you so good you forget your own name. But not here. Not in this shithole.”

You both pause at the same time. Sirens. Distant at first—just a low wail somewhere out in the city. But they’re getting louder. Closer. Cook pulls back, pupils still wild, chest heaving. "Time to leg it, yeah?"

You nod. He takes your hand—blood-slick fingers interlocking with yours—and together, you slip out the back stairwell, footsteps thudding on metal, the scent of iron still thick in the air.

Upstairs, the crowd is still screaming. Chanting for an encore. For a band that’s not coming back. For a frontman whose jaw is currently decorating the green room floor like some avant-garde art piece—too bold, too provocative, too grotesque for even the edgiest gallery.

They cheer louder, drunk on cheap beer and collective delusion, vibrating with secondhand ecstasy. Stomping their feet, flashing their tits, throwing devil horns like they’re conjuring something dark and primal.

(They are. Just a little late.)

Someone starts a chant—One more song! One more song!—and it spreads like wildfire. Their fans, the sycophants, the thirsty little Valentines, all screaming for a corpse to rise. The floor beneath them is sticky with bass spills and blood they haven’t noticed yet.

Backstage, there’s nothing left but ruin. The smell of iron and offal still thick in the air, a smear of arterial red streaking across the vanity like war paint. Ripped limbs dangle from equipment racks. One mic stand is embedded clean through a body. A chunk of scalp clings to a cracked cymbal.

Cook doesn’t look back. He’s still grinning, though. Shirtless and blood-drenched, hair matted, knuckles split and slick. He looks like he just walked out of a baptismal font filled with viscera, and you’re not sure whether to kiss him again or drop to your knees.

(You’ll do both. Later.)

He loops an arm around your shoulders, casual as anything. “Encore’s been canceled,” he says, deadpan. “Think the drummer lost his head.”

You snort. You can’t help it. He kisses your cheek, playful and still a little wild. “Don’t worry, babe,” he adds with a wink, “I’ve got plenty of rhythm.”

Sirens wail in the distance—sharp, fast, urgent. The kind of sound that means someone’s finally noticed.

Too late.

He takes your hand, lacing his bloody fingers through yours like it’s date night. You’re sticky with it—his blood, theirs, maybe yours—but it doesn’t matter. You’re both humming with leftover violence, the kind of adrenaline that tastes like sugar and gasoline in your throat.

You slip through the back stairwell. No one sees you. No one stops you.

The alley’s cool and quiet, moonlight catching on broken glass and empty bottles, the night curving open around you like a secret. Cook glances up at the sky like he’s looking for something. Or someone. The air smells like sweat and rot and spring rain.

You turn once, just once, looking back over your shoulder at the venue doors. At the neon sign still flickering like a weak pulse. At the crowd that’s still begging, still howling for an encore that isn’t coming.

And then you vanish.