Page 19 of Bonepetal
I pick it up, turn it in my hand, thumb dragging over the glass like I’m touching her skin, and I smirk.
She never really let me go. She never will.
I set it back down—careful, deliberate. Not an object anymore. A fucking promise.
The window gives like it did before, metal groaning softly. I climb through, boots hitting the fire escape with a dull scrape, and pull it shut behind me.
Back into the night.
Back into the dark where I belong.
I scale up to the tree line, my crow waiting, feathers glossy, eyes too fucking knowing. It croaks once, sharp, and I crouch on the branch, skull still tight on my face, watching her through the glass.
My cum drying on her stomach. My hoodie clinging to her skin. Her tear still salt on my tongue.
When morning comes, she’ll wake. She’ll find the sheets damp, her body sticky. She’ll stumble to the shower, confused, thinking she can scrub it off. Scrub me off.
But she can’t.
Because I’m back. And I’m not leaving until she pays for breaking the vow. She might not have loved the boy I killed, butshe let him touch her. Let him kiss the places that were mine first. Mine only.
Never again.
I’ll make sure no one lays a hand on her body but me. Not a soul. Not in this life. Not in the next.
My bonepetal is mine.Always.
CHAPTER 5
SALEM
Iwake up sticky.
Not lip-gloss sticky. Not fell-asleep-in-a-face-mask sticky.
This-is-wrong-fabric-dragging-where-it-shouldn’t-be sticky. A tacky sheen across my stomach where Finn’s hoodie clings like it figured out possessiveness overnight. When I sit up, something soft snags in my hair.
A feather. Black and bent.
“Absolutely not,” I tell the ceiling, because the universe loves feedback.
The window I locked last night is cracked. The curtain lifts and falls like a slow lung. Cedar and cool morning air thread the room faint as a memory, faint enough I could pretend I’m imagining it, if the feather hadn’t just assaulted me.
I peel the hoodie away, grimacing at the damp patch smeared across the fabric. It’s… gross. Weird. Unexplainable. My brain jumps to the only excuse it always has.
Sleepwalking.
Again.
Like when I was a kid and stress made me wander, half-dreaming, making messes I couldn’t remember. I thought I’d grown out of it, but lately? Between the nightmares and thepressure, it wouldn’t surprise me if my subconscious decided to start redecorating my nights again.
I shove the thought down, gagging a little as I bunch the hoodie into the laundry basket. Out of sight, out of mind.
Shower. Now.
I twist the faucet to scalding and scrub until the stickiness turns into cloudy ribbons slipping down the drain. The scent of my body wash stays stubborn in the air—floral and musk. When the mirror finally demists, a damp, smudged mess stares back at me from the mirror, mascara halfway down my face like it’s plotting revenge.
My phone buzzing on the counter yanks my focus.
