Page 87 of Compulsion

A soft cry of pure horror bursts from my lips when I see my paint-splattered camisole in my fist. The one I thought I’d lost in the laundry.

Desperation claws at my insides, and I surge to my feet. A sort of fevered madness overtakes me, and I start tearing the room apart, as though I’ll uncover some secret that will make sense of everything.

I wrench open the nightstand drawer, and my heart skips a beat. My fingers tremble as I reach out to touch the black wool.Part of me hopes it’s a hallucination, but the material is all too real in my hands.

I stare down at the macabre skull that’s painted onto the black ski mask.

My brain blanks. My body goes numb.

I can’t process this. I can’t accept it.

“You shouldn’t be here, little dove.”

I whirl, and Dane is standing behind me. He’s covered in mud and something crimson that makes my stomach turn.

The man I love has blood on his face.

He’s here. In this awful shrine to me.

Little dove.

He’s never called me that before.

That’s GentAnon’s nickname for me.

“No.” My tremulous whisper is barely audible.

It’shim.

He’s my dark god.

He’s my online confidante.

He’s the masked man who violated me.

They’re all the same man. They’re allhim.

32

DANE

Something sharp pierces my chest, robbing my breath. She’s not supposed to be here.

She was never supposed to see this.

She was never supposed to know.

I came back here to get cleaned up, so that I wouldn’t be covered in blood and grime when I returned home.

Now, she sees the ugly truth of what I am.

I’m her stalker.

Her attacker.

Her villain.

I was a fool to ever delude myself into thinking I could be something else to her, something more.

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