Mikey Sano

The bedroom was dark except for the pale moonlight filtering through the curtains, casting everything in shades of grey and blue. Mikey sat on the edge of the bed, perfectly still, watching her sleep. Her breathing was steady, deep, the kind of unconsciousness that came from 404—chemical and complete. He'd given her the second dose three hours ago. She should stay under for at least another hour.

She shouldn't be conscious yet.

But there was something about watching her like this. In sleep, she didn't flinch. Didn't tense. Didn't look at him with confusion or fear or that crushing sadness he couldn't bear to see. In sleep, she was untouched by what he'd done. Untouched by him.

His fingers ached. His knuckles were split, the skin raw. He'd washed the blood off in the shower, but the memory of it—her skin under his fists, the way she'd tried to protect her face—it clung to him like smoke. He couldn't wash that away.

Fuck. What am I doing?

The syringe sat in his lap. 404. Another dose. Just to be safe. Just to keep her under a little longer, to give the bruises time to settle into something less obvious, something he could explain away as a fall or a bike accident or whatever lie came easiest.

He'd been sitting here for twenty minutes, maybe longer. Time felt strange lately. Fluid. Sometimes he'd black out for hours and come back to find her terrified, bruised, bleeding. Sometimes he'd come back and find himself already holding the syringe, already planning the next erasure.

The darkness was winning. He could feel it now—a constant pressure behind his eyes, a static hum in his skull that never quite went away. Even when he was gentle with her, even when he was holding her carefully and apologizing, some part of him was already thinking about the next snap. The next time he'd lose control.

I'm going to kill her.

He didn't know when. He didn't know how. But the thought was there now, persistent and cold. One day the snaps would go too far. One day he wouldn't come back from the darkness. One day his hands would do something that couldn't be fixed with 404 and lies.

The moonlight caught her face, illuminating the faint bruise along her cheekbone—one he'd tried to cover with makeup before she woke this morning. She was so beautiful when she was hurt. So fragile. So completely his.

Her breathing changed. Subtle. A catch, a shift. Her eyes moved beneath closed lids.

No. Not yet.

But even as he thought it, her lashes fluttered. Her body tensed slightly. The drug was wearing off faster than it should. Or maybe he'd miscalculated the dose. Or maybe the universe was just cruel enough to wake her up right now, right when he was sitting here in the dark with nothing but rage and regret and the syringe heavy in his hands.

Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first. Then they found him.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Mikey looked at her—really looked at her—and felt something crack inside his chest. Not the darkness rising. Something else. Something worse. The weight of what he'd done. What he keeps doing. The knowledge that she's lying there bruised because of him, because he can't control the thing festering inside his mind.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Self-hatred burned cold in his veins. She was looking at him and all he could feel was disgust. For himself. For the syringe in his hand. For the lies he was about to tell her when she was fully conscious.

He looked away first and gripped the syringe tighter.

"You weren't supposed to wake up yet," he said quietly, his voice soft and hollow in the darkness.

The house was warm when Mikey came home. The kind of warmth that made his shoulders drop, that told his body it was safe to relax. The kitchen smelled like garlic and oil and something else—rosemary, maybe. She was cooking. He could hear the soft sizzle of the pan, the gentle clink of a wooden spoon against ceramic.

Music played. Something upbeat. She was humming along to it.

He moved through the house without thinking, already loosening his jacket. The gang business had been routine. Territory talks, money discussions, nothing that had rattled him. He felt fine. Better than fine, actually. He'd been looking forward to this—coming home to her, to this.

She turned as he entered the kitchen, and her face brightened when she saw him. That smile. The one that still caught him off guard sometimes. She was beautiful like this—peaceful, absorbed in the small task of cooking dinner. Completely his.

He came up behind her without hesitation, sliding his arms around her waist. She fit against him perfectly. He pressed his nose into the crook of her neck, breathing her in. Her shampoo, her skin, the warmth of her. She smelled like home.

She leaned back into him, and one of her hands came up, fingers threading through his hair in a gesture so tender it made something in his chest loosen. "I missed you today," his voice was soft and gentle as he softly kissed her neck.

He stayed like that for a moment, just holding her while she cooked. The pan sizzled gently. The music played. Her humming was soft, barely audible. His hand lay flat against her stomach, and he felt her breathing—steady, easy, content.

This was the part that made sense. This was the part he did everything for.

The moment stretched. Comfortable. Safe.

Then something shifted.

It was so subtle that Mikey didn't even register it at first. A loosening of something in his chest—or maybe a tightening. The distinction didn't matter. What mattered was that one moment he held her peacefully, and the next moment his hands pressed harder into her waist without his permission.

The music hadn't changed. She still hummed. Nothing was different.

But everything was wrong.

His fingers dug deeper. Not consciously. His body moved independent of thought. He felt the warmth of her through her shirt, the softness of her against his chest. And it was suffocating.

The air in the kitchen suddenly felt too close. The smell of the cooking—that warm, garlic-rich smell he'd walked into contentedly moments ago—became thick and choking. Her humming, which had been sweet, started to sound wrong in his ears. Grating. Like nails dragging.

She shifted slightly, perhaps noticing his grip had changed. Her hand tightened in his hair.

He couldn't breathe.

The thought arrived with no warning: I could snap her neck right now.

Not a threat. Not a warning. Just a thought. Clinical. Cold. Like someone else was thinking it through him.

His vision tilted. The kitchen seemed to shift around him—the colors too bright, the sounds too sharp. He still held her. She still hummed. But somewhere between his brain and his hands, something had severed.

Make her stop. Make her stop humming. Make her stop breathing. Make her—

He heard himself make a sound. Not quite a growl. Something worse. Something that didn't sound human.

She reacted to it—her body stiffening against his, her humming cutting off abruptly. She tried to turn in his arms.

He didn't let her.

His hands moved. His body moved. He dragged her away from the stove, spun her, slammed her against the counter in one fluid motion that felt like watching someone else do it. Like he was a passenger in his own body.

His hand came up. Connected with her face. Hard.

Then again.

She cried out—a sound of shock and pain and confusion—and somewhere very far away, Mikey felt something like horror. But it was distant. Muted. Because he already reached for his gun, already pulled it free, his vision tunneling into a place where nothing existed except the need to hurt, to break, to destroy.

She was trying to get away from him. Her hands up. Her voice—when had she started screaming?—cutting through the haze.

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

The thought came in fragments, violent and repetitive, drowning out everything else. Her screaming, the sound of his own breathing, the part of him that was still buried somewhere deep and terrified.

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

He smacked the butt of the gun down, splitting skin. Fast. Brutal. Uncontrolled.

She was still screaming.

He grabbed her by the hair, wrenching her head back, his voice emerging as something feral and unrecognizable.

"I told you to shut. The fuck. Up!"

.