Page 75 of You Were Always Mine
And then — him.
Or maybe it’s another reflection, another trick. His outline flickers in the cracked glass, a shadow stretching taller than it should.
I backpedal, slam into another mirror, watch myself flinch in a hundred directions.
“Lost already?” His voice doesn’t echo — it crawls. It’s in the glass, in my skin, in my skull. “Pathetic little rabbit.”
I press my palm to my mouth. My pulse is a war drum.
“Tell me,” he whispers, the sound rippling through thereflections, “when you touch yourself at night, do you imagine you’re alone? Or do you picture me watching?”
The mirrors shimmer. A hundred Scarletts break down at once, her cheeks wet, her chest rising, falling, her thighs pressed together as if she can trap the heat there.
I whirl — nothing. Just me. Always just me.
And yet I feel it — breath close at my neck, the prickle of fingers that aren’t there.
I want out. I want him. I want to scream.
But there’s nowhere to run.
The mirrors close in, a hundred of me pressed up against the glass, wide-eyed and trembling. I stagger sideways, palms sliding against the cold surface, my breath painting foggy halos on the glass.
“Scarlett…” His voice winds low, silk and smoke, curling through the dark. “I can see every inch of you. Every crack. Every filthy little thought.”
I spin, chest heaving. Just me. Always me.
“Don’t bother hiding,” he murmurs. “Your body’s already telling me the truth.”
I choke on a gasp, squeezing my thighs together as if I can strangle the heat that keeps pulsing there. But my reflection betrays me — all of them do. A thousand Scarlets pressed her legs tight, shaking, trying to deny.
“Look at you.” His laugh is cruel, soft, maddening. “Running scared, but dripping. Do you even know how loud you sound when you’re this wet? I could track you blindfolded.”
Tears sting my eyes. I hate him. I crave him. I slam my fists against the glass, one reflection cracking, spider-webbing into a shattered version of me.
“Break all the mirrors you want, little rabbit.” His voice purrs from the broken glass. “There’s still only one truth.”
The air shifts. A fingertip brushes my hair back. Or maybe I imagined it.
I slap the mirror. Nothing. No one. Just me. Always me.
Until his whisper cuts the dark again, velvet and vicious:
“Say it, Scar. Say You want me to catch you.”
My lips stay sealed. My chest heaves like I’ve run for miles, but not a sound leaves me. I won’t give him the words.
The mirrors tremble with the weight of my silence — a hundred Scarlets pressing their mouths shut, wide-eyed, shaking, refusing.
“Defiant,” he drawls, voice low and dangerous. “Even now.”
The funhouse hums with it. My silence. His taunting. The sharp crack of my heartbeat against the glass.
“Do you know what happens when prey refuses to beg?” His voice slithers from the ceiling, the floor, the fractured reflections. “The predator takes more.”
A chill crawls down my spine. I press my back against the mirror, trembling so hard I feel the glass rattle.
Somewhere close — a footstep. Heavy. Unhurried.
