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“I understand. I’ve learned, Malakar. I won’t be bad again, I swear. I want to be with you. I can’t stay down here by myself. It’s crippling.” I tried to sound desperate, tried to make him see how lonely I am down here.

“I know you’re lonely, bluebird.” He repeated my words back to me, voice full of longing and anger and that bottomless echo of sadness. “It’s just—I need to know you won’t bite me next time I trust you. You know how I am about that.”

I nodded. “You’re right. I get it. I can’t stay in the basement. Please, Malakar. Please don’t leave me down here. I need you. I need to feel good again.”

He stared at me in the dim glow coming through the top of the stairs. His silhouette was broad, hulking, his hands flexing at his sides. For one sick moment, I thought he might just shut the door and leave me to rot. I was shaking. Begging. Hating myself for how desperate my voice sounded.

Malakar crouched down, hands sliding over the chain. For a second it was so quiet I could hear his heart beating. He moved like he was trying not to break something. Or maybe trying not to break me. His fingers brushed my ankle. The skin there was bruised. I winced.

He unlocked the shackle.

I gasped. My whole body stiffened, waiting for the pain, waiting for punishment. But all he did was look at me, his face scrawled with exhaustion and madness.

I scrambled to my feet, legs shaky. He grabbed my arm, holding me steady, but it didn’t feel cruel. More like he was grounding himself on my bones.

He led me up the stairs so fast I almost tripped, but his hand stayed locked on my wrist. He dragged me down the hall, up to the bedroom. The one he used to keep me in when things were good, when there were little rewards, and sunlight, and the illusion of safety.

He shoved me inside and slammed the door, like he was scared the dark would crawl up from the basement and take me from him.

I stood in the middle of the room, heart pounding, dizzy. I was safe. I wasn’t locked in the basement, wasn’t alone anymore. I shivered. For once, it wasn’t just fear. It was something else curling in my belly.

My knees buckled and I sank down onto the edge of the mattress. My hands were shaking. “Thank you. God, thank you.”

Malakar breathed hard through his nose. He watched me cautiously, like if he blinked I might vanish. His knuckles were white, the scars on his hands flexing.

He said nothing for a long time, just stared at me. I couldn’t look away.

The urge to please him was back. It was that terrible curse of wanting to please the person that broke you, of needing those breadcrumbs of affection.

I wanted him to stay. I wanted to feel good. My body was burning with need and shame and a twisted kind of hope. Just a few days ago I was running out of this house, desperate to escape. Now that I’m back, it was hard to recall that. This dark was all I had, and I was making a home inside of it. With him.

I needed him, more than anything. Needed his hands. His darkness. Needed the feeling of being wanted. Of being somebody’s obsession, even if it made me sick.

The need chewed my skin from inside out, left me hollow and electrified. The need was a monster. So was I. I hated the emptiness when he wasn’t near. Hated the hunger crawling up from my bones.

Malakar stood in front of me, staring, and I kept seeing echoes of the teenage boy from the group home. Milo. It circled me. Wrapped around my limbs like a fog I couldn’t shake off.

Impossible. He was Milo. That was real. Milo was mine and I was his. I was his bluebird, his everything. Maybe that’s all I ever wanted to be. Maybe I never left the group home. Maybe we were always trapped there together, in that fucked little pocket of hell, just two broken children waiting for someone to love them wrong.

I kept seeing his face, the way it was before. The broken boy. My first kiss. Not a monster. Never a monster. Our lips barely touched but it burned in me for years. All that light in him. Gone now. All I could see was this hulking thing, this shadow that looked at me like I was prey, or maybe like I was the only voice he’d ever listen to.

I wanted to forget the rest. I wanted to remember only the good. How he watched me in the group home. How he put his arm around me and I felt safe, even if it was just for a minute. How I wore his hoodie, slept with the fabric crushed to my face, wishing I could breathe him in until the darkness went away.

But now the dark was all I had. The room, the cold, my own heart thumping in my ears.

His voice broke the silence. “Do you hate me?” It sounded like maybe he wanted me to say yes. Or maybe he’d die if I did.

I shook my head. “No. I just—I just want to feel good again. Like before. Like with you. When you were Milo.”

“You want me to come closer?”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I just nodded. “Yes.”

Everything in him unclenched. He stepped forward. Controlled. He reached out and I didn’t flinch, not this time. I wanted it. I wanted him to ruin me.

He shoved me down onto the bed so hard the headboard banged the wall. My dress rode up. His hands—I remembered those hands, big enough to crush, gentle enough to stroke. They weren’t gentle now. He ripped the dress, tearing the blue fabric down the middle until it was just scraps around my hips.

I should have been scared. Maybe I was. But need overran it. A rush of wet heat, a wild ache between my legs. I wanted him to take it. All of it. Use me.