Chapter 6

When they dragged Serena in, she swore up and down she didn't know anything.

Then Damon threw a whip at the manager.

"Whatever you did to Anya, do it to her. If you leave a single mark different, you're not walking out of here."

Then Serena understood fear. She shook all over. She begged.

"Damon, please. Don't do this. I'm scared."

Damon's eyes were red. His breathing was heavy.

"You're scared? Did you ever ask whether Anya was scared?"

The first stroke of the whip landed on Serena and she screamed and twisted away.

"Ah — it hurts —"

Damon's fists clenched. All he could see was my body, covered in scars. How many times had I been whipped like this?

He shut his eyes and refused to finish the thought.

Serena's screaming tore at him. He pulled out his phone, recorded it, and sent it to me.

I watched the video and frowned. I typed back one line.

【Don't hurt anyone else. It's over.】

There was no point anymore.

Damon called a second later.

"Anya, where are you? I miss you. I know what I did. Can you forgive me?"

There was a long silence. I looked at the view outside my window, and I spoke slowly.

"Damon, I loved you, too. Nothing good came of it."

On the other end he was crying.

"I was wrong, Anya. All of it is on me!"

I wiped my nose.

"Damon. Don't call again."

I hung up. Damon ripped the whip out of the manager's hand and started hitting Serena himself, stroke after stroke.

"Because of you! Because of you!"

Serena, who had just been begging, suddenly laughed. She spit blood and stared at Damon.

"Ha. You blame me? Damon, if you really loved Anya, how could you believe she was sleeping with someone else? If you really loved her, how could you send her to the Wolf's Den?"

She wheezed.

"Damon, I was only an accomplice."

"Aah — !"

Damon's scream made everyone in the room step back.

From that day, Damon didn't bother me again.

The Wolf's Den where I'd worked was shut down for "fire code violations." My pictures were wiped from every corner of the network.

People said the head of Sterling Pack had lost his mind — he ran around clutching two wooden figurines, muttering things no one could understand.

Damon's parents — well, the elders of the Pack — came back from overseas, and they panicked when they saw him. But the Pack was already in chaos, and Sterling fell into a cash crisis almost overnight.

Sterling Pack was on the edge of collapse.

Three years later, Damon watched a broadcast with my picture on the screen.

"Anya and her team win the Realm's Grand Design Award."

He held his phone and laughed and cried at once, calling my name over and over.

Damon kept staring at his phone every day, waiting for a call from me. Then one day his mother saw him staring at a chat window and thought he'd snapped. She hit delete.

Damon grabbed her by the arm like a madman.

"The messages! My messages! I'll never hear her voice again!"

Then he found out the account was logged in on his desktop.

He fumbled his way in, opened the thread with me, and found the messages from that night.

Something uneasy was rising in him. Why had Serena deleted those voice notes?

He tapped them open with a shaking hand.

"Damon, come save me, please —"

The sound of a drunk man cursing cut through behind my voice.

"Damon, I was wrong. Please. I don't want this. I — I still want to take your Mark —"

"Please! Save me!"

My sobbing mixed with the crash of a door being broken in.

Damon lost it. He dropped to the floor and pressed his head to the ground, saying sorry over and over.

The last message had been sent by Serena using his account.

【Anya, do you like the man I arranged for you? Slut. You're nothing but a common whore. Did you know? Every time you went up with a client I was watching from the second floor. Ha.】

Damon burned through every dollar he had to get hold of the security footage from that night.

When he saw Ezra pull me out, he finally let out a breath.

That night, he walked out with a silver dagger.

The next morning, Colton told me Damon was dead.

He had found Serena and opened her throat. Then he went back to the cabin we had once shared, and in the bathroom he cut his own wrists.

The two figurines we had carved together lay next to him.

I didn't say anything.

The night before, I had taken a call from Damon. His voice was gentle, like when we were together.

"Anya, I failed you. If there's another life, would you give me another chance?"

"No."

Damon. Never again.