Page 126 of Sins of the Hidden

They didn't let go. If anything, their grip tightened, fingers crushing my windpipe until I couldn't even wheeze. My vision tunneled to a pinpoint of light.

For a moment, I thought I heard my name whispered from somewhere far away, a voice I recognized cutting through the fog. Hallucinations from a brain starving for oxygen, I told myself, even as hope flared painfully in my chest.

My legs went limp, body sliding down the angled back of the tub until water pooled around my ears. They followed me down, one knee braced against the tub's edge, never releasing their stranglehold. Water flooded my nose and mouth, but I couldn't turn my head to escape it, neck muscles refusing to obey.

One of their hands left my throat to grab my left wrist, squeezing until the wedding band cut deep, metal biting into swollen flesh.

"GIVE IT!" The scream pierced through my fading consciousness, words barely making sense through the static in my ears.

With my free hand, I found the hard edge of the faucet and swung my elbow back. The impact vibrated through my arm. They grunted, their weight shifting as they lost balance on the wet tile.

Something hard—their elbow—caught me in the temple. Pain exploded white-hot through my skull. My teeth sank into my tongue, mouth filling with copper.

Through the haze, I heard it—The front door hitting the wall. Heavy footsteps pounding down the hallway outside. A roar that made the walls shake.

My attacker's head snapped toward the sound, their grip on my wrist loosening for just a moment. They didn't waste time. Clutching their wounded shoulder, they scrambled over the tub'sedge and bolted for the bedroom. I heard the latch snap, glass sliding up, then the thud of feet hitting the ground outside the thin walls.

Gone.

I slumped sideways in the tub, consciousness flickering like a dying bulb. The water kept running over me, but I couldn't feel it anymore, body numb and disconnected from shock. My limbs splayed at awkward angles against the curved basin, heavy with the weight of injury.

Breath rasped like a broken machine. Thought frayed until only instinct remained.

My chest burned with each shallow gasp. My head throbbed in sync with the pressure building behind my eyes.

My ring finger pulsed with agony, each heartbeat driving the diamond-studded band deeper.

Paramoní.

A laugh choked up my throat. Of course I stayed.

That was the only thing I knew how to do right.

My knuckles split open, nerves silent beneath shredded skin. I just wanted something—regret, guilt, pain—some proof I hadn't rotted from the inside out.

I wanted to be her heart like she was mine—something she couldn't live without. She flinched away from my hands like they'd sear her flesh. I'd brand myself with her fear if it meant she'd never look away again.

The sound of this man's bones cracking under my fists echoed through the empty space. Another stranger who'd never understand why he'd become my outlet. Just another body strapped to my hook, absorbing the fury impossible to unleash on myself. Since forcing that ring onto her finger, she'd changed. Dead-eyed. The light that used to fill her gaze when she saw me—extinguished. And it was turning me fucking feral.

Not at her. Never at her. But at myself? At the world? At whatever had made me so fucking broken that possession became the same as love? No path to fix what lay destroyed. No way to earn back what had been stolen.

Each rejection fueled another hit into the near corpse, blood spattering across my cheek with each dull crack of bone.

Say it. Regret it. Mean it.

The air carried copper and suffering—raw, bitter, and bleeding at the edges. The nonexistent pain in my hands making everything worse. More enraging. This wasn't about release anymore butpunishing myself through him.

Marriage was supposed to make her mine forever.

Instead, it had made her a stranger.

And I had no fucking clue how to grovel back to her heart. How to make her see that this wasn't just possession.

I just... wanted her to love me.

The hairs on my neck prickled. The heavy silence around me shifted, disturbed by a presence. The door opening broke my thoughts. Who was here? No one was stupid enough to disturb me in my domain.

Dark stains dripped from my knuckles, splashing softly against the concrete floor—a steady rhythm to the intruder's casual footsteps.

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