Page 4 of Psychotic Faith
Her blanket has migrated to the floor again. She always kicks it off around two a.m., then shivers through the rest of the night, too deep in sleep to retrieve it. The sight of her curled into herself, seeking warmth, makes something violent twist in my chest.
I lift the blanket, shake it out, and drape it over her carefully. She sighs in her sleep, a sound of pure contentment that makes my cock throb painfully. I imagine how different that sigh would sound with my hands around her throat, controlling her breath, making her understand that even her oxygen belongs to me now.
The Polaroid goes on her pillow, positioned so it will be the first thing she sees upon waking. My calling card. My introduction. The first of many small invasions I plan to leave for her.
I can't resist taking one of her cookies. Not for evidence—my chemistry background would let me analyze every ingredient down to the molecular structure if I wanted. But I want to taste something she made with her own hands, something she put care into creating.
Three a.m. arrives with the first drops of rain against her window. The sound creates a rhythm, a countdown to when Imust leave. But I stand frozen, memorizing this moment: Faith sleeping peacefully, blanket properly covering her, photograph waiting on her pillow, knife sharpened beneath.
Her lips part slightly in sleep, and I imagine pushing my thumb between them, feeling the wet heat of her mouth. My hand moves to my cock without thought, gripping hard through my pants. Not here. Not yet. But soon.
The rain intensifies, and I know I've stayed too long. Marco will want an update on the judge situation. The security guard will return from break soon. Even my carefully arranged blind spots have limits. But the thought of leaving, of returning to my apartment where I can only watch her through cameras, creates physical pain in my chest.
The need for her to know I exist has evolved from want to necessity. My body rejects the idea of remaining unknown to her much longer.
"Soon," I whisper to her sleeping form. "Soon you'll know someone watches. Soon you'll understand you were never alone. Soon you'll realize that every breath you take is because I allow it, every nightmare that passes is because I will it."
I force myself to move, to cross her apartment one final time. At the door, I pause, hand on the knob. The click of the lock engaging sounds like a gunshot in the silence.
The door closes behind me with a soft click. Three steps down the hallway, I stop. My hand is already back on the doorknob, turning, my body moving without permission back toward her apartment. The need to return, to wake her, to watch her discover the Polaroid while I'm still there, to see recognition dawn in those hazel eyes, nearly breaks my control.
My forehead presses against her door, and I can hear her shifting in bed through the thin wood. The blanket rustling. A soft sigh.
My cock hardens at the sound, pressing against my zipper until it hurts. My hand tightens on the doorknob, knuckles white with the effort of not turning it. One twist. That's all it would take. One twist and I'm back inside, kneeling beside her bed, letting her wake to find me there. Letting her scream. Letting her understand that the monster under her bed is real and he's been protecting her all along.
The doorknob turns a fraction under my grip. I could push it open, could be back at her bedside in seconds. My free hand finds the knife in my pocket, fingers tracing the handle. Not to hurt her. Never to hurt her. But to show her what I've done for her, the blood I've spilled in her name.
She shifts again, and I hear the whisper of skin against sheets. Is she too warm now? Is the blanket too heavy? The need to check, to adjust it, to ensure her perfect comfort, pulls at me like gravity.
"Please," she mumbles, and my control snaps.
My hand turns the knob fully, the door beginning to open.
Then I hear it. Footsteps on the stairs below. Heavy. Multiple sets. The security guard returning with someone else. My hand releases the door, letting it click shut properly this time. But I don't move. Can't move. My forehead stays pressed against the wood, listening to her breathe, my cock throbbing with each soft sound she makes.
One sound. If she makes one more sound, I'm going back in. And if I go back in now, I won't leave until she knows exactly who owns her. Until she understands that every nightmare I chase away comes with a price. Until she's looking up at me with those hazel eyes wide with fear and something else. Recognition of what's always been true.
She belongs to me.
The footsteps pass by on the floor below. The security guard laughing about something. Normal sounds from a normal worldthat doesn't know a beast stands one floor above, fighting not to claim what's his.
I push away from the door, force myself down the hallway. Each step feels like tearing off pieces of myself, leaving them scattered in her wake. Tomorrow she'll find the Polaroid. Tomorrow she'll know someone's watching. But tonight, right now, the need to make her understand burns through me like acid.
The cookie burns against my chest through my pocket, still carrying her warmth. Three chocolate chips on the left side, four on the right—I memorized the pattern before wrapping it carefully in plastic. Evidence of her kindness that she'll never know I kept.
My phone shows 3:18 a.m. Three and a half hours until sunrise. Nine hours until she reads to the children at story time, probably wearing that yellow dress with tiny flowers that makes her look like spring incarnate.
I've become a mathematician of her existence, calculating every moment, every breath, every possibility.
The math is simple: anyone who hurts her subtracts from the world's population.
3 - Faith
The Polaroid sits on my pillow like an accusation.
I freeze in the doorway, toothbrush still in my hand, toothpaste foam at the corner of my mouth. My eyes scan the room—nothing else disturbed, nothing stolen, just that single photograph placed precisely where my head had been.
Someone was in my apartment. In my bedroom. While I slept.
