Chapter Nine — Beneath the Ashes
Evelyn's Apartment — Midnight
The rain had not let up for hours.
It lashed against Evelyn's windows like a scorned ghost, each drop a memory pounding at the walls of her carefully crumbling sanity. Thunder snarled overhead, and every crack of lightning illuminated the letter lying on her dresser.
Unopened, but not unread.
She had stared at the envelope for over an hour before her trembling hands finally dared to peel it open. The ink had smudged slightly from the damp air, but the words still pierced cleanly:
"Do you remember what you buried on Ashbridge Hill?
I do."
Her breath caught in her throat. The world tilted slightly. No, it couldn't be that. That part of her life had been buried deeper than the tin box they once buried together—beneath soil, beneath guilt, beneath layers of carefully woven lies.
And Dorian had unearthed it.
Her fingers tightened around the letter, creasing it. Not that memory. Not those secrets.
The ones that could ruin everything. The ones that had.
She crossed the room in slow steps, trailing a finger along the windowsill fogged with condensation. Her reflection in the glass looked pale, haunted—less like a woman and more like a specter watching her own undoing.
And outside, the night waited. Cold. Wet. Relentless.
---
Earlier That Day — The Confrontation
The tension in the kitchen was thick enough to drown in.
Adrian stood by the stove, back rigid, arms folded across his chest like a barrier he no longer cared to pretend wasn't there. Evelyn sipped from her tea, though the cup had long since gone cold. She couldn't taste it. Couldn't feel anything but the weight of his silence.
"You've been seeing him again." Adrian's voice came low, almost careful. But not kind.
She didn't look up. "I didn't plan for this."
"Didn't plan?" he snapped, the calm mask cracking. "Evelyn, he's dangerous. You know that. And yet—" His eyes flicked toward her scarf. "You let him near you?"
Evelyn set the cup down. The clink of porcelain echoed in the heavy quiet.
"I feel things around him," she said, her voice distant. "Terrible things. But they're real."
Adrian stepped forward. "So is pain."
She turned to him then, eyes burning. "At least he doesn't make me feel nothing."
Adrian flinched as if struck. His voice dropped, all heat drained away. "Do you love him?"
Silence.
Then: "I think… I always did."
And just like that, something between them snapped. Quietly. Tragically. Beyond repair.
Adrian's face closed like a book too painful to read.
"Then I hope he finishes what we started," he said.
He left without another word. The door slammed, and it sounded like finality.
---
Ashbridge Hill — Midnight
The road twisted through the forest like an old scar.
Fog clung to the treetops, swirling in strange shapes that whispered like ghosts. The headlights barely pierced the mist, illuminating only the narrow path ahead. Evelyn's fingers gripped the wheel tighter than necessary, knuckles white.
Ashbridge Hill rose ahead of her—silent, damp, waiting.
She parked beneath the twisted sycamore, its gnarled branches clawing at the sky like withered fingers. Rain poured around her as she stepped out, each drop cold as regret.
Her boots sank slightly into the mud as she approached the place where they once knelt side by side, burying their promises and lies. The earth had been disturbed—fresh, despite the storm.
The tin box sat unearthed, already opened.
On top, laid with cruel precision, was a single photograph.
Her. With Adrian. Laughing. The night.
Her legs buckled, and she dropped to her knees. The rain plastered her hair to her face. Her breath came ragged and shallow.
And then—his voice.
"You never thought I'd remember, did you?"
She turned slowly.
Dorian stood beneath the sycamore, soaked to the bone, the hood of his coat drawn back. No mask tonight. Only raw memory.
"I begged you to come that night," he said, his voice cold as the rain. "I trusted you. And you lied."
"Dorian—"
"You said you were sick. That you couldn't leave your apartment. That you'd see me the next day. But instead… there you were."
He stepped closer, each footfall deliberate, echoing on the wet ground.
"Wrapped around him. Laughing like you hadn't just sent me off to hell."
Her lips trembled. "I didn't know—"
"But you did." His eyes gleamed, not with hatred, but something worse. Hurt. "You knew where I was going. And you let it happen."
She staggered back, voice cracking. "I never wanted you hurt."
"But you watched it happen anyway," he hissed. "That's worse."
He pulled out the letter—her letter, from years ago. The one she wrote in the box, promising she'd never leave him.
"I read it again," he said, his voice almost gentle now. "It was sweet. Naive."
Then he struck a match.
The flame devoured the page as the rain hissed around them. The ash fluttered down like ruined snowflakes.
"I don't want your death, Evelyn," he whispered, stepping close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath. "I want your remorse. I want every heartbeat to ache the way mine did."
She shook with silent sobs.
"You kissed me," she whispered. "At the chapel… it felt real."
He smiled.
"That's the point," he said softly. "Love makes the best poison. Slow. Addictive. Irreversible."
She collapsed to the base of the tree, her hands digging into the earth as though she could bury the guilt all over again.
But Dorian?
He simply turned and walked away.
The fog swallowed him, but his voice lingered—soft, haunted, devastating:
"Soon, you'll beg me to ruin you.
And I'll do it with a kiss."