Chapter Three: “The Monster’s Quiet Hands”
The days blurred.
No clocks. No phones. Just a house that whispered secrets through marble halls and chandeliers that sparkled like guilt.
He didn't lock me in anymore. But I didn't leave either.
Maybe because I was afraid of what I'd do if I walked out—and even more afraid of what I'd feel if I stayed.
Johnson never touched me. Never yelled. He existed in the same rooms like a ghost with too much presence. Always watching. Always silent—until he wasn't.
That morning, I found him in the library.
No guards. No gun. Just a man and a book he wasn't reading.
"You never used to come in here," I said, standing in the doorway.
He looked up slowly, eyes darker than usual.
"You never used to talk to me."
Fair enough.
I stepped inside.
The silence between us was thick, not awkward—but charged. Like something unsaid was screaming between the spaces in our breath.
I sat in the armchair across from him. I don't know why.
"What happened to you?" I asked.
His smile was thin, bitter.
"You mean, before or after I started bleeding power and forgot how to sleep without a gun under my pillow?"
He never joked. But this didn't feel like one.
"Before," I said softly.
He closed the book without marking the page.
"I was fifteen when my father was shot in front of me. I didn't cry. I just picked up his gun."
Silence.
"Do you think that makes you a monster?" I asked.
He tilted his head.
"I know it does."
I should've hated him. I should've run. But all I saw was a man who didn't want to be what he became. And for the first time, I stopped seeing a cage around me—and started seeing one around him.
"You're not afraid of me anymore," he murmured.
I looked him in the eyes for the first time in days.
"Should I be?"
He stood slowly, walked toward me—not a threat, but something else entirely. When he knelt beside my chair, his eyes weren't cold. They were full of grief.
"I don't know," he whispered.
"But if I ever hurt you... even by accident... I'd never forgive myself."
Then his hand reached up—not to grab, not to trap—but to gently tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
His fingers brushed my skin like he was afraid I'd shatter.
The monster didn't roar.
He just breathed.