Chapter 11: Ethan
The apartment was quiet, a kind of quiet that felt earned. Three years of it. Scott’s books were piled on the coffee table, a blanket was draped over the arm of the couch where he’d been reading, and the soft glow of the floor lamp painted everything in warm, safe light. Luke sat in the armchair, watching him. Scott, now twenty-four, had filled out a little, the sharp edges of starvation and terror softened by routine and someone who made sure he ate. But the anxiety still lived in his hands, in the way his thumb rubbed absently over his knuckle as he stared at his phone.
The buzz was invasive. Scott flinched, then glanced at the screen. A visible tremor went through him before he quickly flipped it over on his thigh.
“Ethan?” Luke asked, his voice neutral. Too neutral.
Scott nodded, not looking up. “Yeah. Just… checking in.”
“At ten-thirty on a Tuesday.”
“He knows my sleep schedule,” Scott murmured, a weak defense.
Luke let the silence stretch. He could read the lie in the tension of Scott’s shoulders, in the rabbit-quick beat of the pulse in his throat. “What does he want, Scott?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Show me.”
The words weren’t a request. They were an invocation of their oldest rule: no hiding, not from him. Scott’s eyes darted to Luke’s, wide and pleading, before surrendering. He picked up the phone, unlocked it, and handed it over.
The message was brief. Ethan: You up for a session tonight? I’m feeling the Hunter. Need my little Rabbit.
Luke’s blood went cold, then very hot. He scrolled up. Past similar exchanges. I’ll be quiet if you catch me. Just don’t use the knife prop this time, okay? Scott had written. Promise you’ll stop when I use the safe word?
Hunter doesn’t listen to safe words, Rabbit. That’s the game. Ethan had replied two weeks ago.
Luke’s thumb hovered over the screen. His vision tunneled. “The Hunter. The Rabbit. Explain this to me.” His voice was dangerously calm.
Scott shrunk into the couch. “It’s… it’s just roleplay. It’s stupid. It’s something he needs.”
“He needs to pretend to be a killer. And he needs me to pretend to be his victim.” Scott stated each word as a flat, horrible fact. “And you do this?” Luke asked.
“I do it to make him happy,” Scott whispered. “Things are easier when he’s happy. I can manage it. I just… I can’t do the endings anymore. Not the ones where I ‘die.’ I can’t breathe after. I told him that.”
“You manage it.” Luke repeated the word like it was a piece of rotten fruit in his mouth. He stood up, a sudden, massive motion that made Scott gasp. The phone felt like a live wire in his hand. “He is using your trauma as a fucking fetish. He is getting off on the very thing that broke you. And you manage it?”
“He’s my boyfriend, Luke. You don’t get to choose–”
Tears were streaming down Scott’s face now, silent and fast. “You said you wouldn’t interfere. You promised. After Melissa, you promised you’d let me have this.”
“This is not a relationship! This is desecration!” Luke hurled the phone against the wall. It cracked, the screen going black. “He is nothing. A parasite. A sick, fucking cockroach playing in a sacred wound.”
Scott curled into himself, arms wrapped around his knees. “Please,” he sobbed. “Please don’t hurt him. Luke, I’m begging you.”
Luke paced, his boots heavy on the floor. Every instinct screamed to find Ethan, to break him into components, to erase him from the world with his bare hands. To paint a new hallway red. The vision was clear, cathartic. Simple.
But Scott was weeping. Not from memory, but from the present terror of him.
Luke stopped. He forced air into his lungs. The chaos inside him slowly re-formed into a colder, harder shape. He walked to the couch and knelt, bringing himself down to Scott’s level. He cupped Scott’s wet face, his thumb stroking the cheekbone. “Look at me.”
Scott’s terrified eyes met his.
“I won’t touch him,” Luke said, each word a vow laid on an altar. “For you. Because you asked me not to.”
A shuddering breath of relief escaped Scott.
“But,” Luke continued, his voice dropping to a low, intimate rasp, “I will not let this go.”
Scott nodded, helpless.
“Good.” Luke leaned in, hugging Scott protectively.