Chapter 14

Hazel

The water from the shower cascades over my body. My eyes take in the pink-tinged water swirling towards the drain. My mind is warring with my body as my hand lifts and my fingers brush over the very sore spots left behind by Pierce's fingers digging into my flesh. Something about the moment had been unrivaled by anything I've ever felt in my life. No, nothing sexual has ever felt like that. Like I was being dangled over a cliff without restraints. Only held to the land of the living by his touch. Their touch?

It's all very confusing. In a dark sort of way. He spoke of himself as if he was more than one person. Multiple personalities living under one flesh. And of course, I've heard of it before. Seen it depicted in films and televisions shows, read books where the character had to disassociate to handle the world surrounding them. It's now right in front of me and I don't know how to handle it.

I don't know if I should run from it. Or if I should step into his world. A world that is dangerous and shadowed. But even though I only dipped my toes into the ocean of Pierce, every nerve fiber inside my body wants to dive in blindly. To give over to him and whatever lurks within him.

After scrubbing my body and washing my hair, I take time to inspect my knife wounds in the mirror. Neither are deep, nor do they need covering. Part of me wants to wear them with pride. For him to see them and remember, just as I do, the moments that passed between us that left these cuts behind. A more realistic part of me, however, knows he's a dangerous man. Even his aura changed when I touched him in the kitchen earlier. He switched into someone else. Someone who I'd be wise to fear.

But as my eyes traipse over the cut that's scabbing over on my breast, my fingers tracing it, I bite my lip and remember the way he touched me. The way his teeth sank into my chin as my head tipped back and fought for air to scream with.

Once I'm dressed in some leggings, fuzzy socks, and an over-sized sweater, I slink back into the kitchen, where we didn't eat a morsel of food. My stomach growls at the reminder. I stop in the entryway, finding a mess.

Sausages are now cold, but I take one and pop it into my mouth, dropping the rest back inside the air fryer as I clean up. I make quick work of cleaning and eating a bagel and sausage, paired with a quick yogurt. There's no sign of Pierce, which isn't unusual. He always disappears. It's just disheartening after what had transpired.

When my eyes finally grow the strength to look back toward the floor-to-ceiling cabinets next to the fridge, they find bits of blood on the floor that need to be cleaned. Groaning, I find a rag in the kitchen drawers and a spray bottle of some off-brand cleaner that says it contains bleach, and set to work.

Once that's done, I'm almost sad. The memory of what happened will now only live on in my head. No longer is there a physical reminder. Other than my bruises, broken blood vessels around my eyes, and the cuts. My core clenches at the thought, and shame peppers me.

Who are you?

When I get back to my office, instead of writing, I set to researching personality disorders. There are many, and they're widely misunderstood. It seems a traumatic event can cause someone to disassociate from the personality they had at that moment because being who they are becomes too much for them to bear. It's a reminder of what happened.

The moment Cynthia was killed was a pivotal one in Pierce's life. One that's caused him to disassociate from his former self, locking him away somewhere inside himself. But he slips. There are times the old Pierce bobs to the surface and overtakes him.

It leads me to wonder if they can split, can they reunite?

Not that fixing my crazed stalker is why I'm here. I'm supposed to be working.

Remembering that fact, I close all the many tabs I'd had open on my browser, and open my darker work in progress. Because there's no way I'm in the mind space to write cute and cheery today.

After sinking into my manuscript and letting hours melt away, I come to and realize it's getting dark. I stretch, groaning at the soreness that's settled into my body while I've been writing. I smirk when I realize some of it has nothing to do with having been sitting in this chair for too long. It has everything to do with the dark stranger lurking somewhere upstairs.

When I pass the stairs, I yell out for Pierce. I haven't heard or seen hide nor hair of him since breakfast, and I know he has to be hungry. When he doesn't answer, I roll my eyes, making my way up to the third floor. The stairs are pulled down already, saving me the time of having to move the hall table over to climb up on.

"Pierce?" I call again, moving up the stairs with resignation in each step. I don't know which version of him is up here. Even though there's some fear in my gut, there's also excitement. I try to ignore it as I get to the top of the steps and look around.

Nothing.

He's gone.

The snow had begun to melt after the sun rose this morning, and he said he'd be leaving when that happened. But after our encounter in the kitchen…

I chide myself for thinking it meant anything to him. And for letting myself subconsciously think we were more than what we are. A stalker and his victim.

I groan and rush down the steps, folding them up and letting them slam closed. Anger has overtaken the hunger that had been in my belly, and I rush outside onto the front porch. The steps are now visible, and so is my car.

The winter wonderland that was here yesterday has changed. The landscape is back to normal, and I wonder how on earth I will ever get back to normal again after his touch. After the things he did to me.

After knowing what lurks inside my soul.

* * *

A crashing sound rouses me,and I sit straight up in the bed. I'd been so tired when I finally gave up waiting for Pierce to emerge, and I fell into the bed. I'd eaten a frozen dinner and then watched a random true crime documentary on my iPad as I attempted to shut my brain and all its crazy thoughts down.

Another crash sets me on high alert. It's not bangs and clangs like when Pierce would move through the walls. No. This is something untrained and accidental.

"Shh, you wake her and you'll get even more than what's coming to you."

It's Pierce's voice. Another one comes, but it's gargled and incomprehensible. Shoving my feet into slippers, I slip into a robe and head down the hall toward the living room, where the sounds are coming from.

"Oh, good, little ember, you're already awake." Pierce's dark eyes train on me, and it's strange. They're as deep as before, but something else is within them. A facet of the man I met before. The kind man.

"I wasn't awake until you crashed into the house," I tell him.

There's a man sitting on a kitchen chair in the middle of the living room. The ottoman has been moved, and the fire is roaring in the hearth.

Pierce growls as he eyes the man, who has a gag in his mouth and fear on his features.

It takes my recently roused brain a moment to realize it's David, my mother's boyfriend.

"What is he doing here, Pierce? How did you…" I trail off. I don't recall telling him David's name. Nor my mother's.

Pierce straightens from where he'd been tying David's feet to the chair, placing his hands on his hips, and a proud look on his face. "Well, I have my ways. Though, I will say, this one was dug-in, hiding like a fucking deer tick. He was a hard one to track. Felt like the old days."

I have no idea what he's talking about, and I barely can function past the thumping of my heart wild in my chest.

"You…" I swallow. "You kidnapped him?"

Pierce's eyes swing towards me. "Of course, I did. I told you before, Hazel. Whoever was responsible for your nightmares was going to pay for it. And here he is."

I step backward toward the end of the hall, and Pierce's eyes narrow at my movement.

"Is this not what you wanted? When I told you I was going to kill him before, you didn't say a word to the contrary."

He moves towards me, and I step back again, bumping into the wall far sooner than I thought I would.

"People say things like that all the time, Pierce. I didn't think you'd meant it. I didn't put much stock in it…"

When he moves around the back of a chair, I slide down the hall a few paces, breaking into a sprint, slippers flying off my feet as I try to make it to my room, where I know I'm safe because I had found no evidence he can get inside from the walls.

"Little ember! Running won't save him, nor you, for that matter."

Me?

My heart skips a beat as I trip over the hall runner right in front of my door. Scrambling to get inside, I get on all fours and rush toward the open door.

Quickly, I'm picked up by powerful arms coming around my middle. He moves me inside the room and drops me on the bed. "Now, I need you to calm down. I don't understand why you're acting like this."

I scoff as I fight in his arms. He flips me over and pins me to the bed with his massive body. His hair is askew, and his eyes are dancing with something feral.

"Now, I need you to be a good girl and stop fighting."

"Or?" I ask in a shaky breath.

He's taken aback. His eyes trail over my traitorous body. Because even though fear is pulsing throughout every portion of my body, my nipples are hard as stone and my panties are dripping. There's something about this man that makes me afraid for my life on one hand, and wanting to hand him life on the other.

He smirks and leans down, lips skimming the shell of my ear. "Or, pretty little whore, I'll do what this body is aching for."

I steel myself to his proximity, wiggling and putting on a show of fight. Even though my eyes had rolled back as his breath tingled against my skin. "And what is that, hmm? What is it you think I want from you, other than to be released?"

He pushes back up, his hands wrapped around my wrists tightly as he presses all his weight into them. "I'll fuck you in front of him. Let him watch how dark and depraved you are as you come with blood seeping from wounds I carve into this freckled skin. Let him revel in what he did to your fucking soul."

I shout and push against him, getting nowhere, but feeling better for fighting. "No! You won't touch me, you fucking psycho!"

He laughs, and it sounds like the most menacing thing I've ever heard before. Like a man without a shred of humanity inside him. "Oh, little ember, I do so love the fire in your gut. But I'm not the enemy. He is. And together, we will give him what he deserves."

"No. I won't hurt him. What he did was unforgivable, but I'm not a killer."

"Good thing I am," he says, pushing off me before putting his hand out for me to take. His words rattle around in my head as I look at his outstretched hand for what seems like an eternity. But he doesn't flinch. Doesn't grow tired of waiting for me.

He lets me decide what happens next, and power thunders through me at the gesture.

Before I can think twice about it, I slip my hand into his, letting him lift me off the bed and take me down the hall.

Toward an uncertain future.

Toward where Death's hand controls the narrative.