Epilogue

the very next Christmas

“ Y ou need to hold still,” Cain warns, holding a Christmas ornament in his hand, the curved edges of it glimmering in the lights he’s strung around my body.

I roll my eyes. “You’re taking too long.”

He smirks. “Didn’t I tell you I would be taking my time because of what happened yesterday?”

I sigh. “Yes, you did. I didn’t think you were setting out to torment me, though.”

He goes back to whistling some haunting Christmas carol—haunting because he’s the one whistling it as he hangs ornament after ornament on the lights he’s weaved through my strings and around my body .

“You’re the perfect little Christmas tree,” he says, standing back and wiping excess glitter onto his pants.

“Do you often fuck trees?” I ask him teasingly.

He deadpans at me, shaking his head. “You couldn’t behave if your life was on the line.”

“That’s not true. Behaving got me here in the first place.”

A smile beams on his face as he crosses the room in a few steps and leans over to kiss me.

“It did, didn’t it?”

I nod as his lips come down on mine, moving sweetly. I know it won’t be real sweet; it’s not who he is.

It’s not who we are.

We’ve been moved into Grimrose House for a few months now, and though I don’t wear my strings as often as I did at the beginning of our relationship, there are times Cain hooks me up and makes me dance for him.

I have to admit I enjoy being his perfect little puppet. Leaving the world at the door and becoming he and I at the end of the day is what gets me through sometimes. Sure, how we met was unorthodox, even short of landing us on a true crime documentary, but I love him and can’t see myself without him.

The way he worships and cares for me is something I didn’t know I was missing until he ran me off the road and towed me into the woods.

Fucking psychopath.

It’s our first Christmas together in Grimrose House, and the town of Dunhaven doesn’t need to hide anymore. Cain’s not reformed by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s found his perfect puppet in me, and I’ve found love in him.

Sometimes—and the times are few and far between—I think about my old life and what became of my apartment or my mother, but if I think about it too hard, I realize that I wasn’t living then.

Sure, I loved her like a child should love a mother, but there was always a disconnect with us.

The life I lead with Cain isn’t one of circumstance and requirement, like my previous life. I live this life because I want to—because I love to.

Cain pricks his blade against my throat, and I feel the trickle of blood as it travels out and follows the pull of gravity over the side. “You’re not paying attention, darling.”

“Sorry, love. I was thinking…” I sigh as I watch his eyes narrow and the darker part of him rise to the surface, coming to collect his Christmas gift.

“Thinking about what? Care to share with the class?”

I laugh, and the movement tugs me against the hooks looped through my piercings and suspending my body from the ceiling.

“About how you were right,” I tell him, words cutting off with a hiss as he pricks my breast, blood welling and sliding over the mound of flesh as he watches with glee.

“I’m right quite a lot. To which instance do you refer?” he asks, taunting me with the tip of his blade, twirling it over my nipple near the bar pierced there .

I shake my head in exasperation with him. “When you first took me, and I woke up on my strings, do you remember what you said to me when I asked what you did to me?”

He thinks, brows furrowing and eyes narrowing. “Enlighten me, darling.”

“You said you freed me.”

He smiles. “I did, didn’t I?”

I nod the best I can. “You did, love. You really did.”

He leans over and kisses me, his tongue tangling with mine as he gobbles up my breathy moans.

“It’s playtime, little puppet,” he says, his voice gruff with arousal.

“It is.”

“Merry Christmas, darling.”

“Merry Christmas, psychopath.”

The End.