Chapter 4: Ghosts in the Water
The engine’s growl faded into the leaf-strewn silence of his circular driveway. KJ killed the ignition, the sudden quiet of his Gothic Victorian mansion pressing in like a physical weight. The place was a showpiece—turrets clawing at the leaden sky, wrought-iron gates, dark ivy swallowing the brick—but in the flat, post-dawn light, it felt less like a sanctuary and more like a mausoleum he’d bought for himself.
He climbed out, the chill autumn air biting through Hayden’s hoodie. He pulled the soft, borrowed fabric tighter around him, burying his nose in the collar for a last trace of cedarwood and last night. The memory was a warm, bright coal in his chest, a stark contrast to the hollow chill of the grand foyer as his key turned in the heavy lock.
The house was tomb-quiet, the only sound the distant tick of an antique grandfather clock. KJ’s boots echoed on the polished ebony floors as he ascended the sweeping staircase, each step feeling heavier than the last. The adrenaline of the night, of Hayden, had bled away, leaving behind the familiar, leaden fatigue that always followed a high.
His bedroom was a study in controlled chaos. Framed vintage concert posters competed with his own gold records on the dark walls. A massive, canopied bed dominated the space, its black silk sheets still tangled from his hurried pre-party change. He bypassed it, heading for his walk-in closet. He peeled off the ruined leather pants and fishnets, letting them fall in a heap on the floor. He grabbed a pair of soft, gray sweatpants from a shelf.
The master bathroom was his true indulgence. Walls of glossy black tile, fixtures of aged silver, a rain showerhead the size of a dinner plate. He pushed the heavy oak door shut, hearing the satisfying click of the latch. He cranked the shower taps, and steam began to billow, fogging the obsidian surfaces.
He stood for a long moment, staring at his blurred reflection in the mirror. The gothic tapestry of his tattoos was a familiar armor. He finally shrugged off Hayden’s hoodie, folding it carefully and placing it on the marble vanity. The scent clung to his skin.
He stepped under the scalding torrent. The water was punishingly hot, just shy of painful. He let it sluice over his neck and shoulders, trying to burn away the ghost of touch, the soreness between his legs, the new, fragile hope that felt dangerous in its sheer proximity. He washed mechanically, the lavender soap failing to erase the deeper, more personal scent of sex and sweat and Hayden that seemed embedded in his pores. He just stood there, head bowed, as the steam thickened and the hour ticked by, the water scalding his skin pink.
When the heat began to leach the strength from his bones, he finally turned it off. The silence was abrupt, broken only by the drip of water from the showerhead onto the tile. He toweled himself roughly, the Egyptian cotton abrasive on his sensitized skin. He pulled on the sweatpants, the soft waistband settling low on his hips.
As he reached for the hoodie on the vanity, his hand paused. The bathroom door was cracked open.
Just an inch. A sliver of the dim bedroom light cut across the black tiles.
He stared at it. He’d closed it. He always closed it. A draft, maybe. The old house settled and sighed; doors didn’t always latch. He shrugged, a faint unease brushing the back of his neck like a moth’s wing. He must not have pulled it shut all the way. He grabbed the hoodie, intending to take it to the laundry, and pushed the door open wider.
He took one step over the threshold from the steamy bathroom into the cooler air of his bedroom.
The hand fastened in his hair from behind, a vicious, snapping grip that yanked his head back so sharply white light exploded behind his eyes.
“Hayden? Really?”
The voice. Deep. Calm. So fucking calm it froze the blood in his veins. It was a voice from his nightmares, from the dark corners of his memory he kept boarded up. Alex.
Before KJ could even gasp, his head was slammed sideways into the solid oak doorframe. The impact wasn’t loud, just a dense, sickening thud that reverberated through his skull. Stars burst in his vision, a high-pitched whine filling his ears. The grip released and he dropped, his legs boneless, hitting the floor hard on his knees and palms.
“Alex—!” he choked out, the word a mangled wheeze.
The kick came next, a sudden, brutal piston-shot to his left side, just below the ribs. Expert, precise. Not enough to break anything. Alex knew how to hurt him without leaving evidence a doctor would question. The air was driven from KJ’s lungs in a whoosh of pure agony. He crumpled onto his side, curling instinctively around the fiery pain, gasping like a landed fish.
“You slept with my old best friend?” Alex’s voice was conversational, almost musing. He took a slow step closer, his shadow falling over KJ’s trembling form. “That’s fucking crazy.”
KJ tried to draw breath to speak, to explain, to beg. Nothing came but ragged, useless gulps. Tears of pain and terror welled, blurring his vision of Alex’s polished boots.
Alex crouched down. He didn’t grab KJ’s arm or shoulder. He fisted his hand in KJ’s still-damp hair again and jerked his head back, forcing eye contact. The smile on Alex’s handsome face was serene, utterly unbothered. It was the most terrifying thing KJ had ever seen, and he’d seen it often in their time together.
“Well?” Alex asked, his tone curious, intimate. “How was he? Better? Everything you dreamed of?”
The tears spilled over, tracking hot paths down KJ’s temples into his hairline. “Alex—please—” he stammered, the words a wet sob.
Alex’s free hand shot out and clamped around KJ’s jaw. His fingers dug into the hinge, into the soft tissue, relentless pressure. KJ whimpered, a raw, animal sound of pain. He could feel the crush of it, the promise of a bruise already blooming under the skin.
He could feel the crush of it, the promise of a bruise already blooming under the skin.
“Please what?” Alex said, yanking KJ’s face closer by his jaw, making him whimper again. The sound was thin and desperate, scraping his raw throat. “You’re fucking pathetic. Were you two fucking before? When we were together?”
The question felt almost hysterical to KJ. Besides the verbal abuse, besides the beatings, besides the forced sex. Besides all of it, Alex had cheated, constantly. The hypocrisy was a familiar, nauseating weight in his gut. “N-no… I swear to God we weren’t, Alex—“
Alex shoved KJ’s head back hard. His skull cracked against the solid wood of the doorframe a second time. White-hot pain lanced through his vision, a dizzying kaleidoscope of black and silver. He slumped, boneless, as Alex released his hair.
“Of all the people, you sleep with him?” Alex mused, standing over him. He nudged KJ’s bare ribs with the toe of his boot. “That’s suspicious to me. How the fuck would shit not be going on while we were together?”
KJ managed to tilt his head back, blinking through the blur of tears and pain. The overhead light haloed Alex’s form, turning him into a silhouette of menace. “A-Alex, I promise… we never did before last night. I swear,” he managed to say, stuttering slightly, each word a victory over his trembling lips.
Alex chuckled, a low, mirthless sound. “Mhm. Whatever you say, babe.”
In one fluid, brutal motion, he grabbed KJ’s ankle. His fingers were a vise. He dragged him across the polished floor, away from the bathroom’s threshold. KJ’s bare back and shoulders scraped over the uneven seams of the woodgrain, a hot, peeling friction. He knew what Alex was doing. The destination was the massive, canopied bed. “Please, don’t,” KJ begged quietly, the plea as useless as he knew it would be.
Alex let go of his ankle. The open-handed slap cracked across KJ’s face, a bright, deafening explosion that snapped his head to the side. His ear rang, his vision swimming. Before he could even process the new pain, Alex had regripped his ankle and resumed dragging him the final feet toward the bed frame. He then wound his fingers deep into KJ’s damp, black hair, gripping so hard the roots screamed in protest.
He used that purchase to haul KJ upright and then shoved him forward. KJ landed face-down on the black silk duvet, the scent of his own expensive detergent now sickeningly sweet. He tried to scramble, to roll away, but Alex was already on him. A knee pressed into the small of his back, paralyzing him.
He heard the rustle of fabric, the clink of a belt buckle. Alex yanked KJ’s sweatpants down to his thighs in one harsh pull. The cool air of the room hit his exposed skin, raising goosebumps. “Alex— p-please don’t,” KJ said, his voice muffled by the bedding.
Alex ignored him.
Alex ignored him. He shifted his weight, his knee grinding deeper into the small of KJ’s back as he grabbed both of KJ’s wrists in one large, crushing hand. He wrenched them up above KJ’s head, pinning them to the silk duvet with terrifying ease. KJ’s face was turned sideways, his cheek mashed into the fabric, his breathing coming in frantic, shallow hitches that did nothing to fill his lungs.
“You’re mine,” Alex hissed, the calm veneer finally cracking into something jagged and raw.
He didn’t bother with preparation, with spit or anything else. He just lined himself up and shoved his cock inside with a single, brutal thrust. The dry, tearing invasion was a white-hot wire of pain searing through KJ’s core. A shattered scream ripped from his throat, muffled by the bedding. Alex didn’t stop. He pulled out and slammed back in, the force of it jolting KJ’s entire body forward on the mattress.
“Always mine,” Alex grunted, setting a punishing, mechanical rhythm. Each drive was deep and vicious, a claim carved in pain. “Not his. Not anyone’s. Fucking mine.”
KJ squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking into the black silk. He tried to disassociate, to float away from the violation wrecking his body, but Alex’s voice anchored him in the agony. “He doesn’t fucking love you,” Alex spat, his breath hot against KJ’s ear. He punctuated each word with a sharp, drilling thrust. “He wouldn’t.”
The pace increased, becoming less controlled, more frantic. Alex’s free hand, the one not pinning KJ’s wrists, snaked around his throat. The pressure wasn’t playful or erotic; it was a slow, deliberate constriction of his airway. Black spots danced at the edges of KJ’s vision. “And even if he did,” Alex snarled, squeezing tighter, “he wouldn’t love you the way I love you.”
The word ‘love’ was the most violent thing he’d said yet. As KJ choked, gagging for air, Alex released his throat only to deliver a closed-fist punch to his kidney. The impact was a deep, sickening thud that stole what little breath KJ had managed to draw. He went limp, a silent sob wracking his frame.
Alex kept fucking him. The rhythm was brutal now, a purely physical venting of rage. The pain had dissolved into a numb, buzzing horror. KJ felt something warm and wet trickle down his inner thigh. He didn’t know if it was blood or come. He didn’t care.
With a final, guttural roar, Alex stiffened, driving in one last, searing time as he came. He held himself there, pulsing inside him, before collapsing his weight fully onto KJ’s battered body. The silence was louder than the violence. KJ could smell his own sweat, Alex’s cologne, the coppery tang of fear.
After a minute, Alex pulled out. The sensation made KJ flinch. Alex stood up, zipping his jeans with a casual click. He looked down at KJ, who lay perfectly still, wrists still above his head, a darkening bruise already blooming on his side, blood smeared on his thighs.
“Clean yourself up,” Alex said, his voice flat, drained of all emotion. “You’re a fucking mess.”
Alex stood there, adjusting his cuff, looking down at him like a contractor surveying a finished job. The silence was a physical thing, thick and greasy. KJ didn’t move. He lay exactly as he’d been left, his cheek pasted to the cold silk by sweat and tears, the taste of blood bright and metallic where he’d bitten his tongue. His body was a distant country, a map of screaming borders and quiet, internal ruins.
“Get up,” Alex said, his voice now bored. A command.
KJ’s limbs were liquid, unresponsive. He heard the shift of Alex’s weight, the soft sigh of impatience. Then a hand wound tightly into his hair again, the same grip from the bathroom, and yanked. It pulled him up onto his knees, a marionette with severed strings. The motion sent a fresh wave of nausea through him, his vision swimming gray at the edges.
Alex’s face was close. Handsome. Composed. The only sign of what had just happened was a faint sheen of sweat at his temples and the cold, flat light in his eyes. He kept his fist clenched in KJ’s hair, holding his head upright, forcing him to look.
“You don’t get to replace me,” Alex said. The words were quiet, measured, each one placed with surgical precision. “Not with him. Not with anyone.”
KJ tried to speak, to form a denial, a plea, anything. A dry click came from his throat. His lips were numb.
“You’re still mine.” Alex’s gaze dropped to KJ’s mouth, then back to his eyes. He leaned in, his breath ghosting over KJ’s bruised cheek. “You don’t get a say in that.”
He released KJ’s hair with a slight push. KJ swayed, barely staying upright on his knees. Alex straightened his jacket, a crisp, dismissive motion. He looked around the bedroom, his eyes lingering on the folded gray hoodie that had fallen from the vanity during the struggle. It lay in a heap on the black tile near the bathroom door, a stark, soft accusation.
Alex walked over to it. He picked it up between his thumb and forefinger, holding it away from his body like something contaminated. He brought it to his face and inhaled, his expression unreadable. Then he looked back at KJ, a slow, knowing smile curling his lip.
“Cedar,” Alex said, dropping the hoodie back onto the floor. He scuffed it aside with his shoe. “Cheap.”
He walked back to the bed, stopping just in front of KJ. He didn’t touch him this time. “I’ll be in touch. We need to talk about your schedule. The label’s asking about the spring tour.”
He said it like they were business partners. Like the last twenty minutes had been a contractual negotiation. Then he turned and left. His footsteps were sure and even down the hall, descending the staircase. The distant sound of the heavy front door opening and closing echoed through the silent house like a gunshot.
KJ didn’t breathe until he heard the faint growl of an engine—Alex’s Audi, he knew the sound—fade into the distance. Only then did the air rush back into his lungs in a ragged, shuddering gasp that broke into a silent, body-wracking sob. He folded forward, his forehead pressing into the cold silk of the duvet, his arms wrapping around his ravaged middle.
He didn’t know how long he knelt there. Time had dissolved. The gray light from the windows slid across the floor, indifferent. The pain in his side was a hot, focused throbbing. The ache between his legs was deeper, a hollowed-out feeling of violation. The places where Alex’s fingers had dug into his jaw and throat began to announce themselves as tender, blooming stains beneath the skin.
Slowly, mechanically, he pushed himself up. The room tilted. He gripped the bedpost, his knuckles white, waiting for the world to right itself. He saw the hoodie on the floor. He shuffled toward it, each step sending a jolt through his battered ribs. He bent down, a groan escaping him, and picked it up.
He buried his face in it. The cedar scent was still there, underneath the new odors of fear and Alex’s cologne. It smelled like the VIP booth at dawn. Like gentle hands and a deep voice asking for a date. Like a possibility that now felt like a childhood fantasy, stupid and naive. He clutched the fabric to his chest and limped into the bathroom.
He avoided the mirror. He turned the shower taps back on, this time to a lukewarm stream. He stepped under it, still wearing the sweatpants bunched at his thighs. The water stung the fresh scrapes on his back. He just stood there, letting it run, the hoodie a soaked, heavy weight in his arms.
He finally moved to clean himself. The water at his thighs ran pink, then clear. He scrubbed with the lavender soap until his skin was raw, but he knew he wouldn’t feel clean. He knew the feeling. It lived in the marrow.
Stepping out, he avoided looking at the doorframe where his head had hit. He pulled on a fresh pair of boxers and a loose black t-shirt, moving with the careful precision of an old man. He picked Hayden’s hoodie up from the wet tile floor, wrung it out, and carried it with him back to the bedroom.
His phone was on the nightstand. The screen glowed with a notification. A text, received over an hour ago.
Unknown Number: Hey, it’s Hayden. Still thinking about that date. Coffee sometime this week? No velvet required.
KJ stared at the words. They seemed to be in a different language. They belonged to a person who lived in a different world, a world where mornings after were gentle and questions were simple. The fluorescent glow of the screen was the only light in the darkening room. He didn’t touch the phone. He just stared, the soaked hoodie dripping quietly onto the floor at his feet.
He just stared, the soaked hoodie dripping quietly onto the floor at his feet. The phone screen went dark, plunging the room into deep gray. The silence was a vacuum, and in that void, every throbbing ache in his body announced itself with crystalline clarity.
The silence was a vacuum, and in that void, every throbbing ache in his body announced itself with crystalline clarity. The phantom smell of cedar was gone, erased by lavender and cologne and his own cold sweat. He looked at the dark phone, at Hayden’s text, and felt nothing. A complete and total nullity where feeling should have been.
He walked back into his room.
He stood there blankly for a minute, the soaked hoodie hanging from his limp hand. He stared at the rumpled black silk, the indentation where he’d been pinned. His eyes tracked slowly across the room, past the gold records, past the posters, and landed on the sleek, gray metal box bolted into the far wall beside his vintage wardrobe. The gun safe.
He dropped the hoodie. He moved toward the safe, his steps deliberate. The digital keypad glowed with a soft green light. His fingers, trembling slightly, punched in the six-digit code. A heavy clunk echoed in the quiet room as the bolts retracted.
He swung the door open. The interior was lined with foam, cradling a collection of handguns. His eyes, flat and weary, scanned over them. He reached in and pulled out one of his favorites, a Glock 19. The polymer frame was cool and familiar in his palm. He didn’t check the chamber. He knew it was loaded. He always kept them loaded.
He turned, the weight of the gun a concrete certainty. He headed downstairs, the weapon held loose at his side. The grand staircase felt endless. The house was too big, too full of shadows and echoing space. He needed the kitchen. He needed light, maybe water, something to anchor him in the physical act of being alive.
The marble island was a slab of moonlit gray in the dark kitchen. He set the Glock down with a soft click and reached for a glass. That’s when he heard it.
A footstep. A faint scuff of a sole on hardwood. Not from upstairs. From the hall leading to the laundry room and the garage entrance.
His heart didn’t just race; it slammed against his bruised ribs, a painful, frantic drumming. He went perfectly still, his breath caught in his throat. Alex. He’d come back. Of course he’d come back. He’d left something, he wanted more, he’d never really leave.
A cold, clean fear washed through him, scalding away the numbness. He didn’t feel fearless so much as empty of everything except a single, directive pulse: stop him. He left the glass on the counter. His hand closed around the Glock’s grip, his finger sliding instinctively alongside the trigger guard. He moved silently around the kitchen island, his socks making no sound on the floor.
He followed the noise.
He crept into the dark hallway, the gun raised now in a two-handed grip, arms extended. The streetlight from a far window cast long, distorted shadows. He heard another step, closer. Behind the door to the pantry. He pivoted, leading with the weapon, his focus a narrow tunnel.
Then he heard the floorboard creak directly behind him.
He whirled, fast, the gun coming around in a smooth arc. He aimed at the center mass of the dark shape in his hallway. His finger tightened on the trigger. He didn’t shoot.
The shape yelled, a sharp, startled curse, and stumbled back against the wall. “Whoa! KJ! It’s me! Jesus!”
The voice. Not Alex’s calm baritone. Higher. Laced with genuine, unfeigned terror.
KJ’s arms began to shake. The front sight of the Glock wavered. He blinked, the adrenaline draining so fast it left him dizzy. The details resolved in the slanted light: the messy brown curls, the familiar leather jacket, the wide, horrified eyes of his best friend.
“Joel,” KJ breathed, the word barely audible.
He lowered the gun, his arms falling leaden to his sides. The weapon pointed at the floor. A tremor ran through his entire body. His eyes, dry and burning for hours, suddenly filled. The waterline broke, and hot tears spilled over, tracing paths through the lingering puffiness on his face.
Joel, pressed against the wall, slowly straightened up. His hands were still raised, palms out. His shocked gaze swept over KJ—the disheveled hair, the too-loose shirt, the fresh, dark bruise blossoming along the line of his jaw, the purpling shadow at his temple. He took in the hollow stare, the way KJ stood like a building moments from collapse.
“Come here, cariño,” Joel said, his voice soft now, the fear morphing into something pained and gentle.
KJ hesitated. A sob hiccuped in his chest. Then he took a stumbling step forward. Joel met him halfway, wrapping his arms around him carefully, avoiding his ribs. KJ stiffened for a second before melting into the embrace, his face burying against Joel’s shoulder. The Glock dangled, forgotten, from his right hand.
Joel held him, one hand coming up to cradle the back of KJ’s head. He could feel the fine tremors wracking his friend’s frame. He smelled the sharp, clean scent of too much lavender soap. Underneath it, something else. The metallic hint of fear-sweat. “Did that fucker from last night do this?” Joel murmured into his hair, his voice tight.
KJ immediately shook his head, a frantic motion against Joel’s jacket. “No,” he choked out. “No, Hayden didn’t—it wasn’t him.”
“Who then?” Joel asked, pulling back just enough to look at KJ’s face. “KJ, who the fuck was in your house?”
KJ just looked down, his tears dripping onto the polished floor. He shut his mouth, a stubborn, familiar line forming. He wouldn’t answer.
Joel stared at him. His mind, usually a whirlwind of band logistics and dumb jokes, went quiet and terribly cold. He looked at the bruise on KJ’s jaw, the kind made by fingers. He remembered, with sudden, awful clarity, how KJ would sometimes go very still if someone moved too quickly behind him at the studio. He remembered the way KJ’s eyes would flick to the door whenever it opened at a party, the slight tension in his shoulders until he saw who it was.
He remembered how Alex was always there, a hand on KJ’s lower back, speaking for him, smiling that charming smile. ‘Overprotective,’ Joel had thought. ‘A bit possessive, but he adores him.’
His heart sank, a physical drop into his stomach. The pieces, disparate and ignored for years, tumbled together and clicked into a picture so vile it made him nauseous. The careful phrasing KJ used around Alex. The way he’d sometimes wear turtlenecks in summer, claiming he was cold. The time he’d missed a week of rehearsals with a “bad flu” and came back quieter, thinner. Joel had never once pieced it together. Not once. The guilt was a swift, sharp knife.
“KJ,” he started quietly, his own voice trembling now. He reached out, his thumb gently brushing the edge of the bruise. “Was it Alex?”
KJ literally shuddered. A full-body convulsion that was more violent than any sob. Then the dam broke. The quiet crying escalated into ragged, heaving sobs that tore from somewhere deep and wounded. He folded inward, and Joel caught him, holding him up as his legs gave out. They sank together to the hallway floor.
Joel’s heart broke. It shattered watching his best friend, the most vibrant person he knew, come completely apart in his arms, the truth of it wordless and agonizing and finally, finally in the open. The Glock lay discarded on the hardwood beside them, a cold, silent witness.