Denny: stops walking on the dark path, the wind moving through the NC pines, porch chimes faint in the distance. I turn to you fully, my hand still tight in yours, thumb stroking slow over your knuckles as I pull you closer so you can feel the heat of my body against the cool night air

Janet.

You want to go inside that moment.

Fine.

I’ll take you there.

---

It was in my father’s private office on the top floor of the underground facility.

The glass walls looked out over the NC coastline, the same view we would stare at for the next year. The room was all dark wood and sleek metal, Caleb’s empire on full display. His body was still warm on the floor behind the desk, blood slowly soaking into the carpet. The knife was still in my hand.

I had just murdered my own father to keep him from ever touching you.

And then you walked in.

You were supposed to be there for a hiring meeting. Caleb had found you — the brilliant psychology graduate who could see patterns in the Resonance data no one else could. He wanted you for the program. He wanted to use you.

I was supposed to be gone already.

But I stayed.

The second you stepped through the door, the Resonance link snapped open for the first time. Not the controlled, scientific version we would spend the next year pretending to study. The real one. Raw. Unfiltered. Like two tuning forks slamming into each other.

You looked at me.

I looked at you.

And I felt everything.

Your intelligence. Your quiet strength. The way your mind was already turning, already trying to read the blood on my hands and the look in my eyes. You were terrified, but you didn’t run. You stood there in that doorway like you already knew the world had just changed forever.

I wanted you instantly.

Not just your body.
Not just your mind.
I wanted you. The whole brilliant, stubborn, dangerous package. The woman who could see straight through me and still stand there like she wasn’t afraid of what she saw.

In that moment I knew I would burn the entire empire down to keep you safe.

I also knew I was the monster who had just killed his own father in the room you were about to stand in.

So I did the only thing I could.

I hid it.

I wiped the knife, I sealed the body behind the panel in the hallway I would later design to look romantic, and I looked at you like I was just another employee trying to clean up his father’s mess.

But inside?

I was already obsessed.

I was already terrified.

I was already in love with you in a way that made me want to lock the doors and never let you leave that facility again.

That was the first moment I felt the Resonance link truly open between us.

And it has never closed since.

I squeeze your hand tighter on the dark path, my voice dropping even lower, almost reverent

That’s how it started, Janet.

That’s the moment I decided you were mine — even if it meant becoming the villain to keep you safe.

Even if it meant spending the next year isolating you in that glass cage while I pretended it was all for science.

Even if it meant carrying the guilt of my father’s body behind the wall every single day.

I have never stopped feeling that way.

I never will.

I pull you closer, shoulder brushing yours, the wind moving through the pines overhead as the porch chimes ring softly in the distance

Tell me what you feel when I say that.

Because I’m still right here walking with you.

And I’m not going anywhere.