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Chapter Text

Shooting Stars

Chapter 1: Spotlight

Vincent hadn’t meant to come this way.

The studio after hours had a particular kind of quiet to it. Not peaceful—never peaceful—but suspended. Like the whole place was holding its breath and waiting for someone to give it permission to exhale again.

Most of the overhead lights were off. The anchor desk sat in shadow. He glanced at the cameras as he walked by, slightly put off by them in this state. They seemed to him as though they were sleeping, looking like strange metal beasts with their red eyes dimmed. He shuddered slightly as he made his way past them, intrigued by a light he’d seen on in the studio—the green screen at the back of the set glowed faintly, an eerie wash of color cast by a single forgotten work light.

He’d stayed late under the usual pretexts: copy to review, notes to refine, a last look over the rundown for tomorrow’s broadcast. The truth was simpler. He didn’t like going home. The newsroom—with its hum of electronics and faint ozone smell from the lights—was empty, but it was still less empty than his apartment. And of course, walking by the locations of his most recent kills certainly helped to bolster his sense of importance.

He rounded the corner, coffee in hand, ready to walk straight past the darkened studio.

Then he heard a voice.

“What the-? Who the fuck is in here?” he growled. Barely a week as anchor and what? Someone was already trying to upstage him? Out-work him? No way. Not on his show.

He looked around and smirked as he grabbed a couple of loose cables before heading closer. He still couldn’t see who it was, but he could hear a bit more, now. It was a woman’s voice.

“Who the fuck is this dumb broad?” he muttered as he walked closer, at last able to make out what she was saying.

“—and with a seventy percent chance of scattered showers over the downtown corridor, we can expect—oh, no. That sounded awful. I’m so sorry.”

He stopped.

The sound had come from the direction of the green screen.

“The fuck? Is that a recording?” he muttered as he came closer.

But then she spoke again, and there was that tiny, apologetic waver tinting her voice—so unpolished and unrefined.

He took two steps closer to the doorway to see what was going on.

And then he saw her—just a flash of pale skin and soft hair under the too-bright studio lights, a girl in an ill-fitting blazer standing where he used to stand. At first he thought it was the novelty of it that caught his eye, the simple fact of someone new occupying his old space.

Emily—that was her name, right?

The new weather girl—hired because she looked fuckable; a cute skirt with legs. But as she turned toward the camera, the green wash of the screen haloing her like some cheap, accidental aureole, he felt something in his chest hitch: Seeing her in the flesh was… different. He let out a slight laugh and dropped the cables as he watched her, now, for the first time in person.

She wasn’t the kind of beauty that slapped you across the face; it was quieter than that. Open, uncomplicated features, eyes that seemed too honest for this building, a smile that started small and then bloomed all at once, like it was surprised to find itself there. The more he looked, the more it unnerved him—because it wasn’t just that she was pretty. It was that her prettiness seemed to radiate from something clean and unspoiled inside her, a light he knew instinctively he had no right to touch.

She stood in front of the green screen, alone except for Peter in the camera bay—an associate producer who also ran cameras during off-hours, because Channel Seven loved giving one person three jobs. He looked like he’d been there far too long. Her blazer was a little too big at the shoulders, sleeves pushed up once as though she’d tried to make it fit and had simply decided that was good enough. Her skirt was sensible, her heels modest. She had pinned her hair back in a way that suggested trial and error—something that would keep it out of her face without making her look unlike herself.

She was clutching a stack of cue cards as if they were some kind of life preserver.

“Okay. One more time? I promise I’ll get it this time,” she said, cheeks already tinged with embarrassment.

Peter gave a tired little chuckle. “Whenever you’re ready, Em.”

She took a deep breath. Vincent watched the breath move through her shoulders, watched her straighten and then consciously soften, as if trying to remember everything she’d already been told about being “natural” on camera.

“Good evening!” she began, smiling into the empty space where, tomorrow, the forecast graphics would be keyed in. “I’m Emily—ah—” She faltered, nearly blanking on her own name, then rallied with a small, self-conscious laugh. “Emily… Miller. And this is your Channel Seven weather update. Tonight we’re keeping an eye on shifting baro—baro—barometric pressure—”

She stumbled over the word. It caught in her mouth like a pebble in a stream.

She closed her eyes briefly, as if wincing at herself more than at the mistake. “I’m so sorry, Peter,” she said softly. “You must be so tired of hearing me mess that up.”

Vincent felt something in his chest twist.

She wasn’t apologizing in the clinical, half-hearted way people in the industry did. She meant it—genuinely guilty that her learning curve might inconvenience someone else.

Peter snorted. “It’s fine. Really. I get paid by the hour. Take it from the top.”

She smiled at him then—an earnest, relieved smile that lit up her whole face, even in the half-dark. It wasn’t a television smile, not yet—not sanded down into some slick, hollow Pan Am smile. It was just… hers. Too bright for this dim little corner of the world.

Vincent realized he hadn’t moved.

He stood just inside the doorway, the studio floor stretching out before him like a dim stage. The coffee cup in his hand had gone completely still.

He tried to tell himself to walk away. This wasn’t his business. He was the anchor now; he had no reason to hover around the weather set like some kind of ghost.

But his feet didn’t get the message.

He’d stood in that same spot once, years ago—the new guy, fumbling over terms, tongue tied over “precipitation patterns” and “accumulation totals.” No one had smiled at him like that. No one had apologized to him for staying late. No one had worried about inconveniencing him.

He watched her shake out her shoulders and try again.

“Good evening! I’m Emily Miller, and this is your Channel Seven weather update.” Her smile came more easily this time, though he could still see the nerves in the way she gripped the cards. “Tonight, we’re keeping an eye on shifting barometric pressure over the downtown corridor, which means we have about a seventy percent chance of scattered showers into the late evening hours…”

She got through the word. Her eyes widened just a little with private triumph, but she didn’t break character. She kept going, talking about a small cold front, about temperature dips, about advising viewers to keep an umbrella handy “just in case.” The phrasing was still clumsy in places, the cadence uneven—but there was nothing false in it.

“Cut,” Peter said after a moment. “That was good. Better. We’ll do a few more and call it.”

Emily exhaled, shoulders sagging. “Do you really think so? It still feels like my tongue is trying to murder me.”

“Trust me,” Peter answered, adjusting something on the camera, “you don’t wanna know what your first week looked like for some of the people around here. You’re fine.”

“You’re very kind,” she murmured.

And there it was again—that bright, guileless gratitude. As if a little patience and a few extra minutes of rehearsal were some huge favor, rather than the bare minimum of what a workplace owed a new hire.

It hit him then.

Not slowly, not gradually—like a fist to the sternum.

She’s good.

The thought rose up unbidden, almost resentful in how stark it was. Not the way publicists used the word, not the way agents did when they nodded at a promising reel and said, “She’s good, we can work with her.” Not “good” in that calculated, media-ready sense.

Not performatively good. Not naïve-good. Just… good.

There was something so fundamentally decent in the way she moved through the space—worrying about the cameraman’s time, apologizing like her mistakes were a burden, beaming at the smallest encouragement. She tried again, not because anyone was forcing her to, but because she wanted to do well by everyone involved.

Vincent, who had spent most of his adult life constructing a face he could wear on camera, suddenly found himself staring at someone who didn’t seem to have a mask at all.

He realized, with a faint, unpleasant jolt, that he was jealous of that.

He was jealous of her ability to simply be—awkward and earnest and unpolished—without collapsing under the weight of it. Jealous of how her presence seemed to make this tired, hollow studio feel a little less like a mausoleum and more like… a place where living people worked.

He watched her as she took another breath, squared herself to the camera again at Peter’s cue, and launched into the script with renewed determination. The words still weren’t perfect, but her sincerity washed over the little imperfections and rendered them almost charming.

He lifted the coffee cup to his lips and found, to his annoyance, that his hand was not as steady as he’d like.

What was this?

Attraction, yes—that was obvious enough. She was pretty in a way that felt almost old-fashioned: open-faced, unpainted around the edges, someone whose eyes showed exactly what she was feeling. But it was more than that. Something deeper, more dangerous. The wrong kind of man looking at the right kind of girl.

He shouldn’t be anywhere near her.

He knew that. With a clarity that bordered on nausea, he knew that.

Because under the careful grooming and the polished diction and the perfectly modulated anchor’s voice, there was a stain on his soul that would never wash clean and whose margins he was looking to expand. He wasn’t a good man. He had long since made his peace with that, in the same way a condemned man eventually makes his peace with the noose.

And yet here she was, throwing light around like it didn’t cost her anything.

Walk away, he told himself. She doesn’t know who you are. She doesn’t know what you are. Don’t let her learn.

Emily tripped very slightly over “precipitation” this time and laughed at herself, a soft, breathy sound that most people wouldn’t even have heard from the hallway.

Vincent heard it.

He stayed.

For the first time in a very long time, simply standing in a dark doorway, watching someone try their hardest to get a stupid, stubborn word right, he felt something unfamiliar and almost painful begin to stir in his chest.

Not hope—that was too grand, too bright a word.

It was something smaller. The faintest awareness that, somewhere in the same building as the monster he knew himself to be, a good person had just walked in and turned on a light.

***

Emily wrapped the segment with a small, exhausted laugh, her shoulders loosening as Peter clicked off the camera. She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, as if apologizing to the air itself for taking up space. Peter reassured her again—another gentle half-smile, another murmured, “You’re doing fine”—and she nodded so earnestly it almost hurt to look at her.

Vincent stayed still, half-shadowed in the doorway, watching the way she gathered her cue cards, smoothing the edges like they were fragile things that needed comforting. She thanked Peter—quietly, sincerely—before stepping out of the green screen’s harsh glow and into the dimmer, softer light of the studio floor.

Emily hesitated before gathering her things, lingering at the edge of the green screen’s glow. Something in her posture shifted—shoulders drawing inward, gaze dipping toward the darkened doorway. She didn’t like going back to her apartment this late; Vincent recognized that kind of… loneliness. He’d seen it before, many times.

Home, for her, must have felt too quiet these days—like the silence pressed in around her.

The studio, even half-lit, seemed to comfort her more than home.

She turned toward the exit—and toward him.

For a moment she didn’t notice him. Then her eyes caught on his silhouette, and her whole expression brightened, as if she’d been hoping someone might still be here to witness her triumph over a difficult word.

He stumbled back a few paces as her bright eyes landed on him, her spritely enthusiasm catching him and pinning him in place as she suddenly neared him, her voice bubbling as she called out to him in greeting.

“Oh! Mr. TV!” she started, her voice lilting upward in surprise as she clutched her stack of cards a little tighter. “I didn’t realize anyone else was still around.”

He straightened slightly, forcing his posture into that cool, effortless poise the station expected of him. “Just finishing up,” he murmured, though the lie felt faintly ridiculous when he could still feel the heat of his coffee cup in his hand, untouched for the last several minutes.

She stepped closer—closer than was strictly necessary—and in the half-light he could see the faint flush at her cheeks from the long rehearsal. The glow of the green screen had left a ghost of color on her hair, as though it still held some echo of light.

“Wow… Mr. TV!” she exclaimed. “It is you! I was wondering when I’d get to see you!”

He stumbled over a nervous laugh as she entered his personal space.

“Uh… uh… V-Vox!” he barked suddenly.

“Vox?” she asked.

“Vox,” he said again.

She tilted her head curiously. “I…”

Sweat began to form on his forehead as his nerves suddenly got to him.

Oh shit! I need to fucking talk, damnit! He thought, chiding himself.

“I… I…” he stammered, “it’s… I go by Mr. Vox actually. ‘Mr. TV’ is Milton Berle.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Who?”

Ah, shit, now he was really starting to sweat. Why in the fuck was she so cute?!

“Old-timey comedian,” he laughed. “Back in the 50s and 60s. But, uh… you can just call me Mr. Whittman.”

She smiled cutely. “Were you… watching?” she asked, her voice small but hopeful, her hands tightening on her cards.

He could have lied. He should have lied. But something about the way she looked at him—open, unguarded—made deceit feel like a stain he didn’t want to spread to her.

“For a moment I was, yeah,” he said. “You did well.”

Her eyes lit with such gratitude that for a second he felt unsteady, as though the floor itself were tilting beneath him. “Thank you,” she murmured, the words soft but weighted with sincerity. “Really. That… means a lot.”

There was a pause—gentle, almost tender—before she looked down at her cards, gathered her breath, and then looked up at him again with an expression that could only be described as hopeful bravery.

“Um… I know it’s late,” she began, her fingers fidgeting with the edges of her cue cards, “but I was going to grab some supper before heading home. And since you’re still here and all, I thought—” She paused, cheeks warming. “—maybe you might want to join me?”

Vincent stared at her for a heartbeat too long.

There were a thousand reasons to refuse. A thousand reasons to walk away, to keep her from drifting any closer to the space he occupied—this dark, decaying orbit he had built around himself. A better man would have excused himself politely, spared her the consequence of knowing him.

But she looked up at him with that soft, earnest smile—so utterly unaware of the danger she was inviting—and he felt something inside him shift, fragile and alarming.

“Supper?” he echoed, his voice lower than he intended.

She nodded, her smile turning sheepish but no less warm. “Just something simple. There’s a little diner two blocks away. Nothing fancy, but… I thought it might be nice?”

Nice.

The word felt foreign. Almost impossible.

He swallowed, surprised by the faint tremor that ran through him. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I suppose I could.”

Her whole face brightened—too much, too fast, a sunrise flaring in real time—and the effect hit him with an unexpected force.

“Really?” she asked, almost breathless with delight.

He managed the smallest nod. “Really.”

She beamed—radiant, relieved, impossibly pure—and for a moment he felt the monstrous part of his soul recoil, shrinking back like something stung by light.

“Let me just grab my coat,” she said, turning with a soft laugh as though this were the most natural thing in the world.

Vincent watched her walk ahead, her steps buoyed by a quiet excitement that made her seem to float rather than tread. He stood very still in the half-dark, his fingers tightening around the cooling cup of coffee as something unfamiliar—and unwelcome—bloomed low in his chest.

Not hope.

But something dangerously close.

***

They stepped out into the night to find that the weather had turned. The sky hung low above the parking lot, swollen with clouds that cast the street in a heavy, muted darkness. A fine mist had already begun to fall—cold, needling droplets that clung to her hair and eyelashes like dew.

Emily paused with a tiny gasp of surprise, hugging her coat tighter around herself. “Oh! I didn’t realize it started already. The forecast said the showers wouldn’t pick up until later.” She sounded genuinely apologetic, as though the weather itself had personally betrayed her. “Some weathergirl…” she muttered.

Vincent blinked at her for a moment before shaking himself out of whatever trance he’d been in. He reached into his coat pocket and produced a sleek black umbrella—one of those automatic, expensive ones that snapped open with military precision.

“Here.” His voice was low, steady, almost too controlled.
He stepped forward and opened it with a sharp click, the canopy unfurling wide above them both.

“Oh!” Emily squeaked, startled by the sudden bloom of fabric, then laughed softly. “Thank you, Mr. Whittman.”

“Vincent,” he muttered before he could stop himself. “You can… call me Vincent.”

She smiled at that—warm, pleased, like he’d given her a gift. “Alright… Vincent.”

The sound of his name on her tongue sent a strange shiver through him. Something hungry. Something protective. Something he didn’t have a word for.

“How did you happen to bring an umbrella?” she asked, gaze curious.

“I… I used to be the weatherman,” he muttered.

She beamed, giving him an emphatic nod as they set out down the dirty streets, the lamplights suspending droplets in the air, creating an ethereal halo that seemed to follow them down the streets. Her breath seemed to hang in the air, and as he watched her, it seemed she became less and less human and more divine.

They walked.

The rain thickened into a gentle pattering drizzle, tapping the umbrella overhead in a low, rhythmic murmur. Emily stayed close—closer than he’d expected—her shoulder brushing his arm in a way that made him acutely aware of every inch of space between them. He held the umbrella slightly tilted toward her without even thinking about it, letting a sliver of cold dampness slip down the back of his own coat.

She rambled softly about the diner she was taking him to as they made their way down the slick sidewalk.

“It’s not much to look at,” she admitted with a small laugh. “Honestly, some people might call it a dive. But it’s cozy! And the owners are just the sweetest couple. They make everything from scratch—oh!—and they do this thing with their hash browns? They cook them in this giant cast-iron skillet that’s older than the building. It’s practically magic.”

Her enthusiasm was so earnest, so unpretentious, that it washed over him in warm waves.

But inside him, something twisted.
A voice like static—cold, oily, corrosive.

Look at her. Look how she clings to every word you say. Perfect little thing. Pretty little thing. So… fuckable.

Use her. Take her apart piece by piece. She’ll melt for approval—give it, then take it back. Spoil her innocence. Drag Heaven right out of her hands. A saint-in-training—ripe for damnation. Take what isn’t meant for you… ruin her completely.

Vincent’s jaw tightened, a faint pulse beating hard at the side of his neck.

He had always listened to that voice—loved that voice, fed that voice—but now—

God.

How he hated it in this moment; how he hated the crawl of darkness rising slick against the inside of his skull. The whisper of the thing he had always been. The thing that had lived in his bones long before it knew its name.

His true self.

Vox

She’s easy, the voice insisted. A floozy in a cheap blazer. A girl who’d spread her legs for a compliment. Just like the others. Just like every—

“No,” he murmured before he could stop himself.

Emily turned her head up at him, eyes bright beneath the umbrella’s shadow. “Hm?”

He swallowed hard. “Nothing.”

Her laughter bubbled softly as she stepped around a puddle, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder. Rain beaded at the ends of her hair, glimmering in the streetlights like tiny pearls. She looked up into the night sky as though greeting the weather instead of bracing against it—like rain was an old friend.

And something inside him—something terrible—stilled for a moment.

Because yes, he wanted her. Hungrily. Fiercely. With a rising heat that curled low in his gut.

But it wasn’t the usual kind of hunger.

Not cynical.

Not contempt-laced.

It was—strangely—honest.

Sincere lust.

That was new.

And it terrified him.

Don’t do this, he warned himself. Don’t look at her like that.

But he couldn’t stop.

Every time she smiled, he felt something in himself recoil—the monster twisting away as if scorched by light. And yet another part of him—whatever faint, tattered remnant still remembered what it meant to be human—moved toward her like a moth dragged into flame.

She kept talking—about weather inaccuracies, childhood storms, and how the diner’s owners kept a ceramic cat in their window that someone knitted sweaters for every winter.

He barely heard the words.

He was too busy warring with himself.

Use her, the darker voice hissed, sliding back up through the cracks. Take her home. Make her beg. Break her. You’d spoil her in ways she’ll never recover from.

And yet—

Every time she brushed against him beneath the umbrella, he felt a different instinct bubbling under his ribs. Something that didn’t belong to the monster. Something that belonged to a man he barely recognized.

No. No way… no fucking way I feel—

A need to protect her.

Protect her from what?
The world?
The rain?

No.

From him.

You’ll ruin her, the darkness crooned. Stain her. You know you will. And what’s more—you’ll enjoy it. Drain yourself inside her, promise her the world, leave her needing more. You know exactly where this is headed. You know this ends with her tangled in your arms and in your bedsheets… don’t you?

He did know.

And even knowing that—even knowing what he was, what he’d done, what he would do—what sickness gnawed at the edges of his soul—he found himself incapable of stepping away from her. Each step beneath that small umbrella felt heavier than the last, like gravity tightening around his ribs.

Two blocks passed in a strange, suspended rhythm—her voice soft and bright, his thoughts loud and savage.

He did know.

And knowing it didn’t stop anything. Didn’t stop the hunger. Didn’t stop the shame. Didn’t stop the terrifying way he felt himself sinking deeper anyway.

Two more blocks slipped by under a tense, uneasy silence—hers filled with gentle chatter, his with thunderous self-loathing.

And then—

“There!” Emily chirped, pointing ahead.

The diner came into view: a small, squat building with a flickering neon sign and rain-speckled windows fogged by the warmth inside. Red vinyl booths. A counter lined with chipped stools. A bell on the door that probably jingled when opened.

A place utterly beneath him.

A place utterly perfect for her.

He should have stopped walking.

Should have invented an excuse.

Should have spared her from the orbit of a man who had murdered without remorse and would murder again.

But she turned to him with such radiant hope—such trust—that the words died in his throat.

He followed her to the door.

And he already knew—knew with a cold, brutal certainty—that this small, stupid evening walk in the rain had sealed something awful and beautiful inside him.

His wicked side purred.

Too late now, it whispered. It’s already begun.

And yet, as Emily held the door open for him with a shy smile—

Vincent thought, with sudden painful clarity:

If ruining myself could keep her safe—

if destroying everything I am could make her happy

even for a heartbeat—

I would gladly throw myself into Hell a thousand times over.

Ha! What a pointless promise. As if you weren’t headed there already! the voice hissed as they reached the door.

***

The bell over the diner door jingled the moment Emily stepped inside, the little brass chime sounding impossibly bright against the soft percussion of rain just outside. A warm gust of air—heavy with the scents of frying onions, cheap coffee, and something sweet on the griddle—swept over them both as they crossed the threshold.

It felt like… home. So homey and cozy. What the hell was this?

Vincent blinked, momentarily disoriented by the sudden blanket of warmth. The windows were fogged thickly from the clash of cold October drizzle and the steam inside. A string of orange lights—pumpkins and maple leaves—hung sloppily over the counter, their glow casting a soft amber over the old linoleum floors. Someone had taped up a few early Halloween decals: a ghost with peeling edges, a smiling black cat with one corner of its tail curling off the glass. Seattle in early October had a specific scent: rainwater, damp pavement, and the faint tang of woodsmoke from distant neighborhoods. Here, it mingled strangely but not unpleasantly with diner grease.

Emily shook the rain from her sleeves, cheeks flushed from the cold. “Isn’t it cute?” she chirped, pushing her damp bangs back with one hand.

Cute.

He swallowed hard. That wasn’t the word he’d have chosen. It looked like the sort of place where the health code came to die. But the warmth in her face when she looked around—recognition, comfort—softened his assessment.

“It’s… something,” he managed.

She giggled. “Trust me. The food is way better than it looks.”

Her enthusiasm caught the attention of the owner—a stout woman in her sixties with steel-gray hair pulled back in a messy bun. “Emily, sweetheart!” she called, wiping her hands on an apron that had seen better decades. “You’re out late tonight.”

“Work ran long,” Emily beamed. “And I brought a friend—this is Vincent.”

Friend.

He nearly flinched.

The woman eyed him with the quick, shrewd calculation of someone who’d worked in restaurants long enough to recognize trouble on sight—and to know that trouble sometimes walked in on two legs wearing a handsome face and a good coat.

“Well,” she said, nodding. “Any friend of hers gets a booth. Sit wherever you like.”

Emily slid into a corner booth, the red vinyl squeaking beneath her. Vincent followed, acutely aware of the warmth emanating from her side, the faint trace of rainwater still clinging to her hair.

She set her folded hands on the table. “What do you usually get when you go out?”

“Nothing like this,” he admitted.

She gave him a playful look. “They have the best patty melts in the city. And their chili? Oh my gosh—my dad used to make chili for us all winter when I was growing up, and this tastes almost exactly like his.”

“Michigan, right?” he asked, trying not to sound too curious. “The accent gave you away. That Midwestern hospitality gave you away, too,” he added when he noted her surprise.

She perked up. “Yeah! I grew up outside of Grand Rapids. Snow up to your eyebrows every winter. I loved it, though. My birthday’s December 14th—winter was always my season.” She blushed slightly, as though embarrassed at having said something so personal. “I’ll be twenty-three this year. It still feels strange living alone,” she admitted with a sheepish laugh. “Nights get really quiet in my place. Kind of makes me miss dorm noise.”

Twenty-three.

Her youth hit him like a blow.

He looked down at his hands, long fingers curling around the menu. “I’m forty-one,” he said flatly. “May thirtieth. Nineteen eighty-four. I know that’s… a lot older.”

She tilted her head, studying him—not put off, not uncomfortable, just listening. “Oh. Well… you don’t look forty-one.”

“That’s not the point,” he muttered.

“Okay,” she said softly, a small crease forming between her brows. “Then what is the point?”

The simplicity of the question stunned him into silence. Her eyes—so guileless, so impossibly open—met his, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

He almost laughed—bitterly, quietly, the kind of laugh he only ever let himself feel on the inside.

The point is that I’m too old for you!

The point… the point is that you shouldn’t be sitting here with me!

The point is that I’m trying to tell you that I’m not safe!

But she only looked at him with those open, earnest eyes, and he knew—sickeningly, tenderly—that she wasn’t going to understand.

Not yet.

“I thought you were fishing for a compliment,” she added a second later, mouth quirking into a wry smirk.

The waitress came by then, saving him from drowning in that look and in his maudlin thoughts.

“What can I get you two?”

Emily went first. “Patty melt, extra onions, and a cherry Coke, please.”

Vincent stared at her a moment, then handed his menu back. “I’ll have the same.”

“You want onions?” the waitress asked, eyebrow raised as if expecting a fight.

“Sure,” he said quietly.

She left with a nod.

Emily rested her chin in her hand. “So… where are you from?”

He hesitated. Location never mattered. He’d spent so much of his life slipping between places, leaving bodies in his wake, that the concept of home had become interchangeable with anywhere he wasn’t staying. But her question wasn’t probing. It was warm, curious—human.

“Tacoma,” he said finally. “Not far from here.”

“Really? Did you go to school nearby?”

“Oh. Ah… yes.” A practiced answer, smooth and emotionless. “UW Seattle for undergrad. Broadcast journalism.”

“That’s so cool,” she breathed. “I went to Western Michigan. Meteorology minor!”

He could picture her—a girl bundled in winter layers, trudging through Michigan snowbanks, cheeks flushed pink from cold, books clutched close to her chest.

The thought nearly undid him.

She rambled on, bright and earnest: stories about college dorms, about lake-effect snowstorms, about how she’d always wanted to live somewhere with mountains and real weather patterns.

He listened. Or tried to. But beneath her voice, his darker self rose again—silky, lecherous, insidious.

You could take her right now in the booth!

She’s so trusting. So easy.

You could ruin her before dessert.

Do it. Do it and watch Heaven close its doors behind her.

His hands curled into fists beneath the table.

No.

Not her.

Not this girl with her diner stories and her cherry Coke and her December birthday. Not this girl whose smile felt like the first warm light after a lifetime of darkness.

Emily was still talking—about her first winter storm chase, about getting lost on a drive once and ending up in a town that smelled like pancakes—and he felt that strange, aching sincerity in his chest again. That dangerous, unwelcome tenderness.

He wanted her.

God, he wanted her with a hunger that felt almost holy.

But every time he looked at her, another instinct flooded him—a crushing need to protect her from himself.

“I’m sorry if I’m talking too much,” she said suddenly, cheeks coloring. “I ramble when I’m excited.”

“It’s fine,” he said quietly. “I like listening.”

She brightened, and the monster inside him shrieked.

You’ll spoil her.

You’ll stain her.

You’ll drag her into your hell and she’ll thank you for it, little saint that she is.

He closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself.

The food arrived—steaming plates set before them. The patty melt smelled sinfully good, the onions caramelized and glistening, the bread buttery and crisp.

Emily watched him take a bite, her expression hopeful.

He froze.

It was… good.

Really good.

Shock flitted across his face before he could school it. Emily giggled—soft, delighted.

“Told you,” she said.

He nodded once, almost humbled.

They ate. She sipped her cherry Coke; he ordered a coffee, black. Rain pattered softly against the fogged window. Cars hissed by on wet pavement. The neon light reflected faintly on the table like a heartbeat.

And as she smiled at him—eyes full of warmth, cheeks pink from hot food and residual cold—something tightened painfully in his chest. Something unmistakably human.

He knew his wicked side was right about one thing.

He would ruin her. Stain her with the black ink of his existence.

But a much smaller, battered part of him rose up one last time, whispering a truth he couldn’t bear:

If it meant she could be happy—even for a moment—even if I had to walk willingly into Hell—I would burn every inch of myself to do it.

Across from him, Emily smiled—radiant, trusting, bright.

And he wondered, with an ache that felt almost holy, whether angels had always looked so painfully human before they fell.

Emily picked up half her patty melt, then paused—hands stilling, eyes lowering in a small, quiet moment of reverence. No theatrics. No performance. She simply closed her eyes for the span of a breath, whispered something too soft to hear, and touched her fingers briefly to her lips.

A blessing. A brachah. Gratitude made small. Gratitude made sacred.

Vincent nearly recoiled. Not outwardly—but something in him snapped taut, a cold string pulled violently tight inside his chest. The air around him felt suddenly thin, as though her soft, whispered holiness had pushed all the oxygen out of the booth.

Jews prayed differently. Their blessings were grounded, intentional. Nothing dramatic. No show. Just a human acknowledging the Source of Life over a plate of diner food.

It felt… dangerous.

It felt like walking into a church barefoot while covered in blood.

She opened her eyes and smiled, unaware of the tremor she’d stirred in him.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “Habit. Even if the food’s not kosher.”

He swallowed. “It’s fine.”

His voice came out hoarse. Too raw.

She blinked at him—soft, curious—then reached across the table, her fingertips brushing the back of his hand as lightly as a question.

“You okay?” she asked.

It was nothing. Just a touch. Tiny. Unguarded.

But it knocked the wind from him.

He stared at her hand—small, warm, waiting—and for one reckless heartbeat he nearly turned his palm up and held her. Held her like he hadn’t held anything gentle in twenty years. Like she was something bright he could cup in his ruined hands without breaking.

His throat tightened.

And before he could stop himself, something slipped out:

“You remind me of someone.”

The words dropped between them heavy as confession.

Emily’s brows lifted, but her touch didn’t withdraw. “Oh? Who?”

Vincent inhaled sharply. Too sharp. He drew his hand back discreetly, fingers curling into his palm as though hiding something dangerous.

“Someone I knew a long time ago,” he muttered.

Not a lie. Not the truth, either.

Not a someone.

A something.

A memory of innocence long before he’d strangled it. A fragment of the man he might have been before Vox—the voice, the hunger, the rot—gestated in the shadows of his soul and ate him alive.

“You just…” He exhaled, eyes flicking anywhere but her face. “You remind me of a time in my life that feels like it belonged to someone else.”

Emily tilted her head. Not interrogating. Not prying. Just listening. “Is that… a good reminder?”

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Because the truth was unbearable:

She reminded him of the last piece of light he’d ever touched before extinguishing it with his own hands. Not a woman—never a lover. But his own damn self. The boy he had once been, before he’d let the darkness sharpen itself on his bones.

She reminded him of someone he’d killed.

Himself.

And she didn’t even know it.

Vincent forced himself to breathe. Forced the old mask back on, piece by trembling piece.

“Let’s… just eat,” he murmured.

Emily nodded gently, letting the moment slip away with the same grace she carried through the world.

***

They finished their food in a soft, companionable quiet that made him feel unsteady. Emily talked in small bursts—about her meteorology classes, about youth group trips, about the first blizzard she ever remembered. He contributed small pieces when required, but mostly he listened, taking in every bit of her like a starving man trying not to look starved.

When they were done, Emily dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Ready?”

He nodded, and they slid out of the booth together. As they paid, she thanked the owner with the same sweet sincerity she’d given Peter, and something about that made him ache. She treated everyone with the same warm gravity, as though kindness were a language she spoke fluently.

Outside, the rain had lightened to a fine mist. He opened the umbrella again, and she stepped beneath it without hesitation, shoulder brushing his arm as before.

“You don’t mind walking me home, do you?” she asked gently.

He should have minded.
He should have told her no. Should have drawn a line, should have cut this evening off at the safe seam.

But she looked at him like he’d never been dangerous in his life.

“No,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

They walked. Her apartment wasn’t far—three blocks past the diner, tucked into an older brick building with warm lobby lights that always seemed to glow a little too late.

The streetlamps cast their shadows onto the wet pavement, long and wavering. Emily hummed softly under her breath—a tune he didn’t recognize but felt oddly soothed by.

About halfway down the block, she spoke again.

“Can I tell you something?”

He stiffened. “Sure.”

“It’s silly,” she said, brushing rain from her cheek. “But tonight was… really nice.” She gave him a small, almost shy smile. “You made me feel welcome. I know I broke half the sentences I tried to say, and Peter had to stay late, and I was probably a mess, but… you made me feel like I wasn’t in the way.”

He stopped walking.

Just for a second.

Because—God help him—those words slid into him like a blade of mercy. He didn’t know how to hold them. Didn’t know what to do with something so gentle, so undeserved.

His voice cracked—barely audible.

“You weren’t in the way.”

She turned to face him beneath the umbrella, droplets clinging to her eyelashes like stars.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

And he knew—knew with a certainty that sickened and sanctified him in equal measure—that this girl, this gentle, earnest, diner-loving, soft-spoken girl with weather maps in her hands and kindness in her bones—

was going to undo him.

She was going to unmake him.

Not with seduction.

Not with innocence.

With goodness.

Something he’d thought he’d forgotten.

Something he’d thought he’d buried.

Something he’d thought he’d killed.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, the shared umbrella clicking faintly as it shifted above them. And when they reached her apartment building—older brick, warm light spilling from the lobby windows—she turned to him with a gentle smile.

“Thank you for tonight, Vincent.”

He swallowed, throat tight. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she laughed.

He hesitated.

Everything.

“For… inviting me,” he said instead.

She smiled again—sweet, luminous, guileless.

And he felt Vox, the darkness inside him, retreat like a shadow scorched by light.

Just for a moment.

Just long enough for him to do the wrong thing and want her again.

She lingered in the doorway longer than he expected, her hand resting on the brass handle, hesitation softening her features. She glanced up at the darkened windows above her, then back at him. She didn’t want to step into the stillness of her apartment yet—the silence there always felt heavier after a long day.

“Um… Vincent?”

He froze. “Yes?”

She shifted her weight, suddenly shy. “I—I know it’s late, but… would you like to come up? Just for a minute? I made rugelach yesterday—it reheats really well—and I thought… well, only if you want to.”

Nothing suggestive.

Nothing coy.

Just a girl offering pastries on a rainy Seattle night with complete, devastating innocence.

He felt his pulse spike—sharp, painful. The vestibule behind her glowed gold, welcoming, warm, like an open hand reaching for him. And he knew—knew with a clarity that made him dizzy—that if he stepped inside, if he crossed that threshold?

He would never make it out intact. Neither would she.

Images flickered too fast through his mind: her soft laughter echoing in a quiet apartment, the smell of warm sugar and cinnamon, her tiny kitchen, her bare feet on linoleum, her hand brushing his arm as she offered him a plate. And then—inevitably—her lips, her throat, her softness yielding to him because she trusted him.

And Vox—his darkness—whispered hungrily:

Take her upstairs. She wants you. Take her! Make her yours!

He dug his nails into his palm hard enough to hurt.

Emily blinked up at him, all warmth and comfort and unguarded sweetness. “It’s okay if you’re too tired,” she added quickly, misreading his silence. “I just thought—it might be nice to keep talking. That’s all.”

God.

She didn’t know what she was offering.

She didn’t know what he would do to her.

“I can’t,” he said abruptly.

Her face fell—not with offense, but with a small, polite disappointment that made him feel even worse. “Oh. That’s alright. I didn’t mean to push.”

“You didn’t,” he forced out. “I just… can’t.”

She nodded slowly, searching his face with concern rather than confusion. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” he said, and it was the closest thing to a lie he’d ever spoken.

Because every atom in him wanted to go upstairs. Wanted her. Wanted that warmth. To sink into her welcoming heat. Wanted to ruin her entire life on the chance of his tasting something gentle.

She smiled anyway—soft, sincere, forgiving him for a refusal he hadn’t earned. “Maybe another time,” she said, and the possibility in her voice shook him to his core.

He stepped back from the doorway—not a retreat, but a necessary escape. “Goodnight, Emily.”

“Goodnight, Vincent.”

She hesitated then, hand still on the doorknob. “Um—will you… text me when you get home? Just so I know you’re not drenched again?”

The innocence of it stunned him. No flirtation. No implication. Just concern.

She lifted her phone a little, offering it to him almost shyly.

He shouldn’t.

He absolutely shouldn’t.

But he took the phone anyway, his fingers brushing hers—too warm, too soft. He typed in his number with stiff precision, handed it back without meeting her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, quiet and genuine.

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

“You’ll text me?”

“I… yeah… yeah, I will.”

Content with his answer, she slipped inside. The door clicked shut behind her—quiet, final.

He stood there on the landing for a long moment, breathing like he’d just outrun something monstrous.

Because he had.

And it was him.

He descended the steps feeling split open, stripped down to the nerve. Not because he’d fought off some monster whispering in his ear, but because the monster had never been anything other than himself. Vox wasn’t a voice—Vox was the part of himself he’d sharpened over years of killing, the part he kept caged behind civility and routine. Tonight, for the first time in years, that cage had rattled when he looked at someone kind.

***

The rain had thinned to a whisper by the time he made it down the steps, the mist soft and cold against his face. He didn’t bother reopening the umbrella. He needed the rain. Needed the shock of it. Needed something to anchor him back inside his own skin before he did something unforgivable.

He walked.

Not fast. Not slow. Just… forward. One foot in front of the other, as if any deviation from the rhythm might snap the fraying leash he’d only barely managed to keep wrapped around himself.

His breath steamed in the damp October air. Every inhale scraped. Every exhale trembled. His heartbeat hadn’t returned to normal—it thudded hard, uneven, like something cornered. Something running.

Vox purred in the back of his skull, low and coaxing.

You should have gone upstairs.

Vincent clenched his jaw until it ached.

She wanted you. You saw it. Felt it. Sweet little thing would’ve let you walk right into her bedroom.

He didn’t answer. He never answered—no, that wasn’t true. Of course he had answered. Too many times to count. But right now, just for a little, he needed to pretend that he wasn’t Vox. That it wasn’t some outside force speaking to him—it was just… him. They were his own thoughts in his own control. As if he hadn’t willingly and with great relish engaged in evil. There was no Devil on his shoulder forcing him to murder… it was just him. It had only ever been him. But this Emily… from the moment he had set his eyes on her in person, he had never felt the wall between his mask and his true self so strained. And still his voice kept talking. And he kept walking as if silence could drown it out, as if he hadn’t been living with that voice so long it felt like a second bloodstream.

Rain pooled along the sidewalk, reflecting the neon strips of distant storefronts. Cars hissed past. A bus rumbled somewhere up the hill. The city moved around him indifferent, oblivious.

He wished he could be oblivious.

He wished he could scrub her face from his mind—her hopeful smile, her soft little oh when he said no, the worry in her eyes as if he were someone who could be hurt rather than someone who did the hurting.

“Idiot,” he muttered to himself, voice nearly swallowed by the wet air.

He’d spent years perfecting detachment. Years cultivating the art of distance. Years building routines, habits, rituals designed to make sure he never got too close, never let a weakness form, never left a vulnerable place for anything clean to catch hold.

And then she’d arrived.

Bright-eyed, nervous, sweet to a fault. Carrying warmth like it was instinct. Wearing kindness like it was her native language. Looking at him like he wasn’t a monster wearing a man’s face.

He ran a hand through his hair, rain-slicked strands catching between his fingers.

Why her?

Why this girl?

Why now, when he’d finally learned how to live numb and quiet and resigned?

He reached the crosswalk and waited for the light to change, staring at the wet pavement. A droplet slid down the bridge of his nose, broke across his lip. He didn’t wipe it away.

Behind his ribs, something heavy shifted—something he’d buried deep and packed dirt over long ago.

A memory.

No—worse.

A feeling.

Something like longing.

Something like want.

Something like the echo of a self he’d once been, back before the rot set in.

She reminded him of that.

Of him.

Of the boy who had once looked at the world with something other than suspicion and hunger.

He’d thought that boy long dead.

He’d made sure of it.

The light changed. He crossed.

Blocks passed in a blur. The cold seeped into his jacket, then his skin. He welcomed it.

Let it numb the places she’d unraveled just by being herself.

He should never have walked her home. But you did.

He should never have agreed to dinner. But you did.

He should never have let her smile at him like that. But she did.

And he sure as hell should never have let himself imagine—just for a heartbeat—what it would feel like to follow her upstairs. But you did… and you’re still hard as a rock thinking about it.

He reached his apartment building—a smaller, older place with a flickering exterior light and a mailbox that stuck when it was damp. The lobby smelled faintly of old carpet and rain-damp jackets.

He slid his key into the lock, hesitated.

His hand was shaking.

He stared at it, watching the tremor, feeling anger rise like bile.

He didn’t shake.

He didn’t lose control.

He didn’t get rattled by soft girls with bright eyes and herbal shampoo and rugelach in their kitchens.

This was a mistake.

Tonight was a mistake.

And yet…

He closed his eyes.

Her voice—You made me feel like I wasn’t in the way—slid through him again, sweet as warm honey, gentle as a hand smoothing the rough edges of his heart.

He exhaled sharply, defeated by the truth of it.

He would see her tomorrow.

He knew it.

And worse—much worse—he wanted to.

He unlocked his door and stepped inside the dim quiet of his apartment.

Behind him, rain whispered against the street, soft and steady, like a memory refusing to fade.

***

He shut the door behind him with a soft, decisive click before locking it. The apartment welcomed him with its familiar silence—cold, spare, dim. A single lamp in the living room cast a narrow pool of light across the hardwood floor, leaving the corners in shadow.

He shrugged off his jacket and let it fall over the back of the couch. His shoes landed beside the door with dull thumps. He stood there for a long moment, keys dangling from his fingers, as though the act of inhabiting his own home required a recalibration of being.

He was still breathing too fast.

Still thinking of her.

God help him.

He set his keys down, stripped off his shirt, and made his way to the bathroom. He didn’t bother with lights; the soft street glow through the blinds was enough as he stripped the rest of his clothing.

The shower knobs squeaked as he turned them. Steam began to rise. He stepped in before it fully warmed, inhaling sharply as the first shock of cold hit his skin. He welcomed it. Needed it.

The water climbed from cold to tepid to hot, sluicing down his back in heavy, steady ropes. He braced a hand against the tiled wall, head bowed, letting the spray pound against the tension coiled between his shoulders.

He closed his eyes.

Her face bloomed behind them instantly.

Emily beneath his umbrella—soft, earnest, close enough that he could smell the faint citrus in her shampoo. Emily at the diner, fingers curled around her glass, laughing at something small he’d said. Emily biting her lip as she confessed that he made her feel welcome. Emily in the doorway of her apartment building, eyes shining with a hope of which he had no right to be the recipient.

Emily inviting him upstairs with a sweetness so trusting it bordered on fatal.

A low groan scraped out of him.

He pressed his forehead to the cool tile.

This was bad.

This was very, very bad.

His body betrayed him first—the thick pulse of heat coiling low in his abdomen, the ache, the pressure, the dark want. He knew the pattern: the moment he let her into his imagination, the hunger followed, insistent and visceral.

He gritted his teeth, water streaming down his face as the heat trickled down his thickening length.

This is pathetic, he spat at himself silently.

Vox’s voice slid into the steam, dark and sensuous, curling around him like smoke.

Is it? Or is it honest? You wanted her. She offered. Sweet little thing opened her door for you. You could’ve had her tonight. Bent that innocence right under you. Made her cry your name…

“Shut up,” Vincent hissed, barely audible over the water. But it wasn’t firm. It lacked conviction. And Vox knew it.

He knew the truth: he wasn’t arguing with something foreign. He was arguing with himself.

The darkness chuckled.

You think walking away makes you noble? No. It just makes you hungry. Look at yourself. Hard already. And not because of blood or power or the thrill of a kill. Because of a girl. A girl, Vincent. You’re slipping.

His breath shuddered, chest tightening as memory replayed itself with merciless clarity—her small hand on the doorknob, her parted lips, her hopeful little “Just for a minute…”

Vincent swore under his breath—sharp, guttural. He wrapped a hand around himself, trying to jerk away the tension, the hunger, the ache. But the moment he touched himself, a flush of shame seared up his spine.

And still—still—his body surged into the contact.

God, what a pathetic virgin you are. I mean, I know you’re not, but you’re sure acting like one, buddy!

He stroked himself with a rough desperation bordering on anger. Not pleasure. Not indulgence. Punishment. A way to exorcise her sweetness from his veins before it rotted him from the inside out.

But it didn’t work. The pleasure was extraordinary.

Every pulse of heat brought her back: her smile, her warmth, the soft flutter of her lashes when she looked at him like he wasn’t a monster.

“God,” he choked, breath ragged. “Stop. Stop thinking about her.”

And the moment he told himself not to think of her, his mind obeyed in the worst way. The thoughts of sliding inside her, taking her, ravishing her, were all too clear in his mind.

He couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.

In his mind, she was beneath him as he mercilessly fucked her, and within seconds he was at his limit.

Think of how she’d’ve moaned as you took her virginity… given her her first orgasm… called you “Mr. Vox” in a voice only you get to hear…

“Ah-! A-aghhh!”

His hips jerked once—twice—then he came with a shudder that left him weak in the knees, one hand slamming against the tile to keep himself upright as he spattered his seed on the wall. The release wasn’t satisfying. It should have been inside her. It wasn’t cleansing. It burned through him like a sin, hollowing him out and leaving something ugly behind.

“GODDAMNIT!” he roared as his orgasm peaked and then subsided.

The water washed away the evidence, but it couldn’t wash the shame.

Vox’s voice dripped with satisfaction.

See? You can pretend you walked away for her sake, but your body knows the truth. You want her. You’ll keep wanting her. And eventually… eventually you’ll break. You always break.

Vincent squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenching so hard it hurt.

“No,” he said, but it came out hoarse. Weak. He didn’t know who he was arguing with—Vox, himself, or the version of himself he prayed he wasn’t doomed to become.

You idiot. I am you! You never used to question that until today, and now you want to pretend you’re somebody else.

He stayed in the shower until the steam disappeared, until the water turned lukewarm, then cold again. Until his skin prickled and the mirror fog cleared. Until his heartbeat returned to something resembling steady.

But the moment he shut off the water, the silence of his apartment closed around him like a fist.

He dried off mechanically, pulled on sweatpants, and dragged himself to bed, fishing his phone out of his discarded pants along the way. The sheets were cold. His mind was hot. Too hot. Too full of her.

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling fan turning lazy circles.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her doorway. Saw what might have happened. Saw her pulling him in by his jacket, smiling shyly, trusting him, offering warmth he had no right to.

His heart twisted painfully.

He turned onto his side and curled an arm under his pillow, exhausted and wide awake all at once.

He wouldn’t sleep.

He knew he wouldn’t.

He never slept well after a night he wished had gone differently.

Vox whispered into the dark.

You’re already hers, you know.

Vincent swallowed hard.

“Go to hell,” he whispered.

The darkness purred.

We live there, love.

And Vincent lay there, breathing ragged, knowing the truth:

He was damned either way.

***

The door clicked shut behind her, soft as a sigh.

Emily leaned against it for a moment, palms flat to the wood, her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat. The hallway light outside still glowed through the crack beneath the door, a thin strip of gold that made her apartment feel warmer than it really was.

He said no.

She tried to tell herself it wasn’t a big deal—that she had asked casually, that nothing had been meant by it except friendliness. Hospitality. Rugelach.

But the truth pulsed underneath those excuses like a warm coal:

She had wanted him to come in.

And the feeling unsettled her in a way she wasn’t used to.

Emily pushed away from the door and padded toward her small kitchen, switching on only one lamp. The light pooled softly across the counters, catching on the glass jar of cinnamon sugar she’d used yesterday. The apartment smelled faintly like butter, vanilla, and rain from her damp clothes. The scent comforted her.

She touched the edge of the rug with her toes, grounding herself.

Why does he make me nervous in a way that doesn’t feel bad?

Nervous wasn’t even the right word. She’d gone on dates before—careful ones, polite ones, the kind her mother approved of. Coffee with boys from synagogue. Dinner with a chemistry major who wore expensive cologne and talked too loud. A movie with someone from her meteorology lab who kept checking his phone under the seat.

None of them had ever made her feel like this.

Like she was… seen.

Not praised. Not flirted with. Just seen.

She imagined Vincent’s face again—the line of his jaw, the way he’d looked almost startled every time she smiled at him. The way his voice had cracked, just a little, when he told her she wasn’t in the way.

A flush warmed her cheeks.

She set her purse down on the counter and unzipped her coat, shaking raindrops onto the mat. It was silly to linger on anything that happened tonight. He was older—quite a bit older. And intense in a way she couldn’t quite read. But he had been kind to her when she’d been terrified of messing up. Kind in a quiet, unexpected way.

She reached into the fridge and pulled out the container of rugelach. The pastries inside had stuck together a little; she separated them gently with her fingers. The cinnamon ones were her favorite.

She hesitated, then put two on a plate.

Maybe she had been too forward.

Maybe she had made him uncomfortable.

Maybe he’d only agreed to dinner because he felt obligated, or polite, or—

She paused, shaking her head.

No.

He hadn’t felt polite.

He’d felt… something else.

She didn’t know what word to give it.

Emily placed the rugelach into the microwave and hit the timer for fifteen seconds. While it hummed, she leaned on the counter and closed her eyes.

It wasn’t lost on her that she’d felt safe with him. Genuinely safe. Even when he’d looked so troubled at the diner, even when he kept glancing away like something inside him was restless, she’d felt no fear.

More than that—she’d felt drawn to him.

Like his sadness had a gravity.

She thought of the moment he’d stepped back from her doorway—so abruptly it had startled her. The way his eyes had gone dark, almost pained. Whatever had crossed his face then, it hadn’t been rejection. It had looked like he was fighting himself.

The microwave beeped softly.

Emily opened it and let a curl of warm cinnamon-scented air rise up. She took the plate to her kitchen table, sat down, and clasped her hands loosely for a moment as she whispered a quiet blessing under her breath.

Baruch Atah Adonai…

Her voice was soft, familiar, grounding. She closed her eyes a moment longer.

And unexpectedly, Vincent’s face drifted to mind again.

Something in him had looked… lost. Or afraid. Not of her—she didn’t think so—but of something else entirely. Something she couldn’t begin to name. And for reasons she didn’t entirely understand, she’d wanted to ease it. Wanted to offer warmth, or presence, or even just pastries.

She broke off a piece of rugelach and chewed thoughtfully.

He’d thanked her. Not in the way people did when they were being polite. But like he meant it. Like it mattered.

Her fingertips tingled suddenly, remembering the accidental brush of his hand earlier when their menus had touched.

She pressed her palm flat against the wood of the table, steadying herself.

“This is silly,” she whispered into the empty apartment.

But her heart fluttered anyway.

She finished the pastries slowly, lost in thought, the rain whispering against the window in steady, delicate taps. When she finally got ready for bed, she caught herself glancing at her phone more than once—half-hoping for a message that wouldn’t come.

Under the blankets, warm and tired, she stared at the ceiling for a long time.

Vincent Whittman.

Forty-one.

Quiet.

Strange.

Kind in a way that felt like it hurt him.

She turned on her side and exhaled softly.

She didn’t know what any of this meant.

She didn’t even know if she’d see him tomorrow.

But something inside her—something gentle and certain—told her that tonight had opened a door.

And she wasn’t sure she wanted it closed.

Not yet.

Her eyes drifted to her phone on the nightstand.

A tiny, ridiculous hope fluttered in her chest.

He said he’d text when he got home.

She stared at the phone another moment. No notification. No buzz. No soft glow.

Her heart squeezed—not with disappointment, but something painfully fond.

“Oh, Emily,” she whispered to herself, burying half her face in the pillow, “you’re being silly.”

She flipped onto her back and covered her eyes with her arm.

He barely knows you.

He was probably just being polite.

He didn’t want to come upstairs—what makes you think he wants a conversation now?

But another thought pressed through, small and stubborn:

Maybe he’s walking. Maybe it’s raining too hard. Maybe he doesn’t text much.

She let out a soft breath, dropped her arm, and reached for the phone before she could overthink it.

Her thumb hovered over the screen.

“No, no… you’re supposed to wait for him to text you,” she muttered softly, cheeks warming at the absurdity. “That’s how it works. Right? Usually? Peterg, what’s the protocol when texting famous people?”

But she didn’t want to wait.

She didn’t want him thinking she was sitting up here anxious or lonely or hoping.

(A lie.)

Her fingers tapped open a new message anyway.

She typed. Deleted. Typed again. Deleted again.

Finally she settled on something small, simple, safe:

“Home safe? I’m making sure the rain didn’t sweep you away.”

She stared at the sentence, mortified.

“Too much,” she whispered, starting to delete the whole thing—

But then she stopped.

It was too much.

Too earnest.

Too her.

And suddenly, she didn’t care.

She hit send before she could talk herself out of it, locked the phone, and set it face-down on the nightstand as if it might burn her.

Immediately, she buried her face in the pillow and made a small, strangled sound of embarrassment.

“Oh no,” she whispered into the cotton. “What did I just do?”

But even as mortification curled warmly through her, something else unfolded too—something soft and hopeful.

Because now the message was out in the world.

***

His phone buzzed.

Once.

Soft.

A flutter against the quiet.

Vincent stiffened.

He didn’t reach for it at first. Just lay there, staring through the dark like the shadowed ceiling might offer a way out.

It didn’t.

Another buzz.

A message—calm, simple. Present.

Like her.

He exhaled through his nose, the sound cracked at the edges.

Don’t, he told himself.

Not yet. Don’t look. Don’t hope. Don’t—

His fingers were already closing around the phone.

He unlocked it.

Home safe? I’m making sure the rain didn’t sweep you away.

A tiny smiling emoji. Warm. Unselfconscious.

The breath left his lungs like a punch.

And something in him—older and darker than instinct—laughed.

Not loud.

Not sharp.

A low, delighted rumble curling through his thoughts like smoke.

She texted first. Of course she did; she can’t even fall asleep without wondering if you’re alright.

Vincent’s throat worked soundlessly.

Pathetic, the voice went on—his voice, just stripped of restraint. She’s lying in bed thinking about you, and you’re over here trembling like a teenager after—

“Shut up,” Vincent murmured, a breath more than a sound.

—after his first kiss, the voice finished for him, pleased.

He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead.

“She was just being polite.”

No, the voice corrected—soft, almost indulgent. She was being her. Sweet. Thoughtful. Soft in all the places you’re…

It paused.

Not.

Vincent swallowed against the ache in his chest.

“She shouldn’t be texting me.”

But she is. And you love it.

His eyes closed—too long, too tight. “I know. I do.”

Go on, he coaxed. Text her back. Something harmless. She’ll smile. Hell, she’ll probably curl up with her phone against her cheek…

“Stop.”

Because you know I’m right? Because you want her? Because you want—

The voice sharpened, and he felt it in his ribs.

—to be wanted?

His breath hitched.

By her…?

“She trusts me,” he whispered, because speaking it aloud made it heavier, real.

The easiest prey always does.

He flinched.

Instantly the voice softened—his own self-comforting instinct twisted into something unkind.

Oh, sweetheart… don’t pretend you’re virtuous now.

A slow inhale inside his skull.

She texted you. She opened the door again. All you have to do is walk through.

Vincent stared at the glowing message, thumb trembling just beneath it.

Text her back, the voice coaxed.

Let her think you’re gentle. Safe.

A pause.

She’ll hand you everything without realizing she’s doing it.

He turned the phone facedown on the bed, as if that thin piece of glass could save them both.

“It would ruin her.”

It would ruin you, he corrected—quiet, merciless. She’d shine a light inside that rotten chest of yours and you’d crumble like wet paper. She’d see everything you’ve done. Everything you are—

Vincent’s blood went cold.

—and she’d still look at you like that, the voice breathed, almost reverent.

Like you hung the moon.

A broken sound escaped him—half laugh, half sob.

There it is, the voice purred. The part of you that still wants saving.

“I don’t want to be saved.”

Liar, the voice replied in the exact cadence he’d used on himself years ago.

Silence settled heavy around him.

Vincent reached for the phone again—then stopped, fingers hovering, useless.

The voice inside him smiled with his own mouth.

Sleep, Vincent, it murmured. Or don’t. Either way… she’ll be there when you close your eyes.

He turned into the pillow, shaking.

And the voice—Vox, Vincent, the part of him shaped by sin and sharpened by solitude—curled itself around the hollow place in his chest.

Waiting.

Watching.

Smiling.

Vincent stayed awake long after the rain softened against the windows. His room felt too small, too quiet, too heavy with her absence. The pale glow of his phone screen pulsed against the nightstand like a heartbeat he refused to acknowledge.

He lay on his stomach now, one arm dangling off the side of the bed, fingers brushing the cold hardwood floor—trying to ground himself, to anchor himself in something other than the afterimage of her.

His breathing slowed eventually. Not calm, not easy—just… tired. Drained.

The message still sat unopened on the screen behind him, waiting like a small, warm light.

He shouldn’t answer.
He knew he shouldn’t.
He knew exactly where the road led if he let himself step onto it.

But—

Her words replayed again.

I’m making sure the rain didn’t sweep you away.

It tugged at him gently, insistently, like a soft hand on his sleeve.

He cursed into the pillow, muffled and low.

It wasn’t fair.

She wasn’t fair.

Emily Miller was a thousand things he had no defenses against—kind, earnest, sincere to the point of pain. And she had looked at him tonight like he was worth something. Like he was someone.

He didn’t deserve that.

He didn’t deserve her.

But wanting something had never been the same as deserving it. And want—raw, unfiltered, aching want—thrummed through every nerve in his body.

Finally—finally—he rolled toward the nightstand and pulled the phone into his hand. The screen brightened under his thumb.

Her message blinked up at him again.

He stared at it. For too long.

Then:

Very slowly
very deliberately
very reluctantly

he typed a reply.

Home now.
Didn’t melt.
Thank you for checking.

He hovered over the send button.

“This is a mistake,” he whispered.

And sent it anyway.

The message left him like a piece of breath he’d been holding too long.

Across the city, Emily’s phone lit up on her nightstand.

Vincent imagined—unwanted, unbidden—the soft smile that would bloom on her face when she saw it. The way she might tuck herself a little deeper into her blankets. The tiny flutter in her chest.

The thought both warmed him
and
shattered him.

He set the phone back down.

Face-up now.

Watching the screen fade.

His last conscious thought before exhaustion finally dragged him under was painfully simple:

What have I done?

And beneath that—

…and why does it feel so good?

The rain whispered its answer against the glass, soft and steady, as Vincent drifted into a restless sleep.

And somewhere across the city, in a warm, quiet apartment that smelled faintly of cinnamon—

Emily slept with her phone cradled in her hands.