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So yes, Adrian needs to die.

It’s a shame. I would’ve liked to take my time with him. Break away his skull and peel his skin open slowly just to see what makes that calmness tick. Figuratively, of course, then literally.

I’m surrounded by dark souls on the daily, but most of them come already labelled. Packaged and assigned. Work brings me monsters who know they’re monsters. Adrian’s an outsider, a stray out in the wild. The guy looked at death and didn’t even flinch. That kind of mind usually belongs to people like me.

I didn’t expect him to fight the way he did either.

That was my mistake.

I had him pinned, breath already going shallow as I held his pretty little mouth in my grip. I was deciding where to cut first when the little frantic stray wiggled loose.

The bite was unexpected; I can admit.

Then the blade slid between muscle groups instead of tearing straight through them, missing the femoral artery by inches. That’s pure luck on my part, or maybe miscalculated instinct on his. If he’d gone deeper and angled slightly inward, I would’ve bled out in minutes. Femoral artery damage is operatic in that way.

Fast, catastrophic, and purely ugly.

Instead, it was arterial-adjacent. Heavy bleeding, yes, but controllable.

Then he ran. Frantic and covered in blood, looking like an absolute oil painting. As I watched him flee, I dropped my weight, tore the knife free, and went for compression immediately, putting my hand over the wound, applying direct pressure, and elevation as best I could manage while still standing. Tourniquet improvised from my belt. Tight enough to slow the bleeding, not so tight it killed the limb.

You learn that balance quickly, or you don’t live long.

So yes, Adrian escaped soon after.

I let him.

Cleanup arrived on schedule. Efficient as ever, wordless and focused. They always are. Questions slow things down, and efficiency is their religion, so I adjusted the story while they worked.

Xavier fought…

Xavier panicked…

Xavier struggled…

His blood was already everywhere, and it’s easy to sell the chaos. I took a hit during the altercation. Self-defense. Occupational hazard. And nobody batted a fucking eye.

A medic came with them, as always. Middle-aged and steady-handed, with no curiosity behind those sunken eyes. He cut the fabric away, assessed the wound, irrigated it thoroughly, and applied saline until the blood thinned to pink. He checked motor function and sensation. To my luck again, there was no nerve damage, no vascular compromise beyond what we already knew.

He stitched me up clean. Deep sutures for the muscle, superficial for the skin. Antibiotics. Tetanus shot. Along with instructions I didn’t need.

Then they erased Xavier.

Walls scrubbed cleaner than operating theatres and by morning, the university swallowed the night whole and could substitute for a hospital.

As for Adrian, he just made himself a running target.

The stray is mine now, and I prefer not to rush endings... I explore them first. Stretch them until they fucking beg.

The background check is where it got fun—and where I learned his name.

I expected the usual: clean transcripts, scholarship paperwork, loving parents with a few deceased relatives paired with a tidy explanation. But fuck me, I wasn’t nearly ready for what I was about to dive into. He has more bones rattling in his closet than a graveyard. I don’t need details yet. Knowing they exist is better. Mystery sharpens appetite, and I want to taste them on his lips.

I’m glad he ran that night.

Every new fact just makes me want to unwrap him slower.

I mapped his routines; thanks to the injury he gave me, I was bedridden and had all the time in the world to digitally stalk the guy. Despite not going to university, Adrian still went to the gym each morning.