A Pretty Kind of Violence by Bella J

Reth

Killing is easy.
Being owned is the real nightmare.

I’m controlled. Broken down and rebuilt into something lethal.
I don’t feel. Don’t hesitate. Don’t want.
I survive by staying empty.
Sophia Sinclair is everything I was never meant to touch. Soft, bright… good.
For years I stayed in the shadows.
Watching her. Memorizing her.
Every routine. Every habit. Every detail — from the O negative in her veins to the shade of red she paints across her lips.
I convinced myself watching was harmless. Safe. Distant.
But nothing I want can ever be mine when I’m leashed by an evil far worse than me.
So I did what every villain would do.
I took her.

Sophia

One moment I’m helping traumatized kids.
The next I’m locked inside a house that looks exactly like my dreams with a captor who bakes my favorite pastry.
Who turns up the heat when I shiver.
Leaves heart-shaped candy around like it means something.
Like I mean something.
I tell myself he’s a monster. But I’ve spent years studying broken people, and Reth Hale doesn’t feel like evil.
He feels like damage.
And that might be worse.
When an open door offers freedom, I hesitate.
I’ve dedicated my life to fixing wounded things — and Reth might just be the most broken of all…

…or the fracture that breaks me instead.