Chapter Text
A rock slammed into Henry's face.
It hit him square on the forehead. Blood immediately welled up, streaming down his brow, sliding to the tip of his nose, dripping onto his lips. Henry staggered. The wooden stick slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. He reached up and touched his head. When he saw the bright red on his fingers, he froze. He couldn't remember the last time someone had made him bleed. Maybe… never.
Then he looked up and saw Patrick standing at the mouth of the alley.
He stood there calmly. An outsider wouldn't have noticed anything unusual—only the subtle rise and fall of his chest betrayed his state. He had run all the way here. His breathing was quick and shallow, but his face was expressionless, revealing no trace of panic.
Patrick stepped into the alley. Belch and Victor, who had been gripping your arms like vises, suddenly felt their strength drain. Not because they chose to let you go, but because their wrists inexplicably went weak. The two of them instinctively stepped aside, clearing the way without a word.
He walked past them without a glance. Past Henry. Straight toward you. And then he stopped, planted himself directly in front of you, and turned to face Henry.
You stared at the back of his head. His hair was a little messy, tousled by the wind as he ran. His ragged breaths were trapped somewhere in his throat, but his body remained upright.
Henry lifted his eyes to Patrick. The anger in his gaze had completely vanished, replaced by full-blown wariness. He instinctively hid his bloodstained hand behind his back, pressing his fingers together to stop their trembling, not wanting Patrick to see his panic.
"I thought you weren't getting involved with her business," Henry said, his voice dry.
"I was never involved with her." Patrick took a step forward. Before Henry could react, Patrick's hand seized his collar. He yanked hard, forcing Henry backward. Henry's back slammed against the cold wall with a dull thud. The two of them were suddenly inches apart, their noses nearly touching.
Patrick didn't strike him. His gray-blue eyes, in the shadows, looked even darker—like stagnant water. Henry's neck instinctively recoiled, his chin lifting, as if that might put some distance between him and the madman in front of him.
"Bowers. Let me correct one thing. She's mine." Patrick's grip tightened. His knuckles, pale and distinct, went even whiter. "You touch her, you touch me."
"Fuck you," Henry muttered in his head, but he didn't dare open his mouth. That hit had cracked his skull open.
Patrick's gaze swept over the blood on Henry's face: it trickled down from the side of his forehead, all the way to his lips, seeping slowly along the fine lines of his mouth, like a quiet crimson flower blooming on pale skin. Patrick's face showed no reaction whatsoever—no thrill of bloodlust. Killing the man in front of him would bring less satisfaction than squashing a fly.
Henry's neck stiffened. He forced himself to hold his ground, staring back at Patrick.
"What would your father say?" Patrick suddenly asked.
Henry's pupils contracted.
"That mess of yours… you know what I'm talking about." His tone turned cold, slick. "Neither of us wants things to get ugly, right, Henry?"
Henry's body went rigid—not because of what Patrick said, but because he had just called him by his first name.
"What did you just call me?"
"Henry." He said it again, deliberately slow, letting the two syllables linger on his tongue. "You're Henry, aren't you? Can't call you Bowers. Bowers is your father's last name. You don't want to end up like him, do you?"
Henry ground his teeth together, silently cursing him.
His first name. Only his father dared to say it. Or some dumbass teacher.
Patrick Hockstetter.
My subordinate. My lackey. I'm the leader here.
How dare you...
Henry's fists clenched, but he didn't swing.
Not because of the hand gripping his collar. Because of the deepest fear inside him.
The alley fell into dead silence. The only sound was the faint trickle of water from the drain at the corner of the wall, like something swallowing.
This confrontation was a total defeat for Henry.
Everyone in the alley knew it—including Patrick.
He had gotten the answer he wanted. The hand gripping Henry's collar loosened abruptly and pulled away, his gaze not even bothering to land on him.
Henry seized the opportunity, savagely slapping Patrick's hand away. His movements carried the rage of humiliation, as if he were the one who had broken free from that damn grip.
His so-called "escape" was nothing but a retreat Patrick had allowed.
He staggered a step, shot Victor and Belch a look, and the three of them slunk away with their tails between their legs.
Only you and Patrick remained in the alley.
---
You leaned against the wall, your heart still racing. There was no joy in surviving.
Back when they were facing off, you had noticed scraped, bloody marks on Henry's collar. You guessed they were from Patrick's hands.
Now Patrick stood in front of you, his back to you, looking at the spot where Henry had disappeared. His hands hung at his sides. You quickly scanned them—there was still dirt on his fingers from throwing the rock, mixed with a little dried blood.
As if sensing your gaze, he turned around and looked at you. His eyes moved from your face to your wrist—where Belch and Victor had grabbed you, leaving wrinkles in your sleeve—then to your shoulder, marked by Henry's violence.
"Your hands are hurt," you said, breaking the silence first.
Patrick's eyes betrayed no emotion, but you could tell he was pissed. His brow had been furrowed since the moment he walked in.
He didn't answer your question. Instead, he asked one of his own: "Why did you run over here?"
It wasn't a question—it was an interrogation. His voice carried suppressed rage.
You froze, not understanding why he was so angry, but you told him the truth anyway. "Someone said you got into a fight. Said the other guy had a knife. They said—"
"Someone said it, so you believed it?" Patrick cut you off, swallowing the rest of your sentence.
You froze again.
You knew what kind of person he was. Nothing he said should have surprised you. But this was different. You hadn't done anything, and yet he was lashing out at you.
You could feel the anger he was holding back, but you didn't show any discontent or confusion. You were treating him like a friend having an episode—you didn't know what was wrong with him, but you weren't about to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Patrick looked away and turned toward the mouth of the alley. "Let's go."
He walked up beside you and reached out, circling his fingers around your wrist.
It wasn't a handhold. It was a grip—his knuckles locked around your wrist bone. His fingers were long, his grip strong. He held tight, like he was afraid you would run. You didn't struggle. His hands were cold, the pads of his fingers pressing against your pulse, the chill seeping through your skin and traveling up your veins. He didn't look at you. He looked at the road ahead.
---
Patrick's POV:
Her wrist was so thin that my fingers overlapped with themselves. Honestly, it was weirdly satisfying. We walked side by side, me on her left. I take long strides, and she couldn't quite keep up, but I didn't slow down. I didn't want to slow down. I just wanted her to get home—to that harbor that belonged to her. Or maybe I just wanted to get her out of danger.
I wasn't sure if her home was anything like mine... No, never mind. Thinking about that was pointless.
Back in the alley, when I grabbed Henry's collar and he had blood streaming down his face, his eyes wide like he'd seen a ghost—did I win? I didn't know. I didn't have time to savor any kind of victory. I only knew one thing: I couldn't let him touch her.
Now she was next to me, her wrist wrapped in my palm, warm. And that made me realize: what next? I'd taken her back. Now what?
I used to have an answer.
Back then, when I wanted something, I just took it and locked it somewhere no one could find it. It wouldn't run away. It wouldn't make noise. It wouldn't make me afraid of losing it. Like the bodies in the refrigerator. They were quiet. They didn't disappear when I wasn't thinking about them.
Suddenly I remembered her stupid words back at the alley: "Someone said you got into a fight."
Because some stranger told her to, she ran headfirst into danger.
She came to save me? What a joke.
No one had ever saved me. I'd never needed it. And yet here she was, knowing nothing—not that Henry was lying in wait, not whether I would show up, not that her own clumsy self-defense skills were useless. She just came anyway. Like a stupid sheep wandering into a wolf's den.
I should have been happy. The first time someone had ever come to save me, right?
But I wasn't happy at all.
Every time I thought about what would have happened if that glasses-wearing coward hadn't warned me, or if I'd run just a little slower...
A specific, insane thought crawled into my head right then: the basement.
My house had a windowless basement. An empty storage room.
If I locked her down there, she wouldn't know where she was. And no one else would know where she was either.
I could bring her food every day. Visit her every day. No one could touch her. She wouldn't go near any of those disgusting things. She wouldn't throw herself into danger to save a monster.
She would always be there. Somewhere I could see her.
I could actually do it. I knew how. I'd just need to plan carefully.
The door was thick enough already. I'd have to replace the lock with something sturdier. Make sure there was nothing sharp in the room, so she wouldn't hurt herself moving around.
She would fight me. Scream at me. But she'd calm down after a few days. She would.
My hand in my pocket unconsciously clenched, the force almost out of control.
"It hurts."
That small, weak complaint popped the balloon of that manic fantasy.
I loosened my grip instinctively and looked down. Her wrist had a pale white ring around it. I stared at that patch of skin. For a second or two, my brain went blank: Did I do that?
I silently shoved that hand back into my pocket. The movement snapped me out of it.
Why had I been gripping her so tightly?
Because I was afraid she would run? Or because I was afraid that the way she looked at me—like I wasn't a monster—would suddenly disappear?
Before, when I wanted to kill something, the urge came as easily as drinking water. Because they were fake. Their begging was just meaningless noise.
But she was different.
She was real.
That day at the bus stop, when her fingers touched the back of my hand—that touch was burning hot. Alive. She didn't look at me with that wide-eyed fear, like she wanted to be eight miles away. It was something more complicated. Something that made my skin itch.
I finally understood: I couldn't keep her.
She wasn't a specimen. If I locked her in the basement, the way she looked at me would die. And I was already bored with that kind of lifeless possession.
So I needed a different way. Not locking her in, but...
She had to come in on her own.
We reached the intersection near her house. She stopped and turned around.
"So... see you tomorrow?" she said.
If one day I could walk her all the way to her front door, would that count as her "coming in"?
"Oh," I replied, gruff.
She turned and walked away. I wanted to call out to her, but my throat felt blocked. I wanted to follow, but my boots felt nailed to the ground.
Suddenly I realized that maybe the strongest cage wasn't a cage at all.
It was a relationship.
I was still standing there, the fading warmth still lingering in my palm. I opened my hand and looked at it. There was a scrape on my index finger—from when I'd grabbed the rock too fast, the sharp edge of it cutting me.
I didn't leave right away.
There was a faint, barely perceptible movement in the shadows behind a tree.
In the past, the unlucky bastard crouching in that darkness would already be dead by now.
But now... I remembered back in the storm drain, when all those cowards were pissing their pants, I'd grabbed that fat kid Ben and pulled him along. Not because I was kind. Simply because she had been there at that moment, and I didn't want her to think I was just a chaos-spreading lunatic.
Since I could overlook that fat kid for her sake, I could also overlook the rest of these meddling wastes of space.
Except for Stanley.
That haunt—that stalker.
"Come out."
I called into the air. Stanley slowly emerged from behind a tree. He was trembling. He was even clutching a rock in his hand. He thought he was guarding justice. Guarding that girl from being dragged into the mud by a monster like me.
Pathetic.
I walked over. Stanley clearly hadn't expected me to find him so easily. His cool, composed psychological defenses crumbled like thin paper as I approached.
"Stay away from her," he said, his voice shaking but stubborn. "Patrick, you have no idea what you're doing."
I walked up to him, leaned down, and laughed softly in his ear. I hadn't laid a finger on that eyesore Losers' Club, but I certainly hadn't planned to let him off.
"I really don't," I said, reaching out and pressing my palm onto his hair, ruffling it a few times, savoring that delightful sensation of fear. "But I do know that if you keep creeping around, spying on me like this—if you dare say even one word to her about it..."
I stared into his eyes.
"I'll make sure those peeping eyes of yours lose their ability to see anything at all. And then, do you think she'll feel sorry for you?"
He stopped breathing, like his throat had been clamped shut. That utter helplessness swept away the frustration I'd been feeling since we parted.
I let go and gave his shoulder a firm slap.
I didn't bother with him anymore. I turned and strode toward home.
Those losers—for her sake, I couldn't be bothered to clean them up, as long as they stayed out of my way.
But Stanley... let him live in fear. That was my gift to him, especially chosen.