Mine

I awoke the next morning, dazed and groggy. My mind was a haze as I struggled to recall the events of the previous night. As snippets of memories rushed back to me, I was finally able to feel the emotion that had been sorely lacking during the nightmarish events: complete and utter terror.

Had it really happened? Had I really allowed it to happen? I slipped the blanket off me and noticed a large, red welt staining my pale inner thigh and a wave of nausea swept over me.

It had.

I had.

I fisted the blanket and curled myself into the smallest ball possible, my body wracked with heaving sobs.

I never left my bed that day.

The second day passed much the same. Fear, repulsion, misery, the only emotions I allowed myself to feel. A constant stream of unending sobs, my only aural companion.

On the third day, I rose.

That was the day the presents began arriving on my doorstep.

Johnathan's POV

Wilted roses for my wilted queen.

She was finally mine. She understood me. Loved me. Needed me as I needed her, and she would appreciate my offerings.

Each day a new one, until she would venture out from the confines of her concrete prison and come to me.

Always the same. Wilted red roses. Each with a note that read 'Mine.' She would understand this. Would know they were from me, know what they meant; that she was mine, and I hers, and there would be no other to come between us. Ever.

Each day, I stood in the shadows, watching…waiting for her to emerge to find my gifts. Watching, waiting for the smile that would light up her beautiful face. But the smile never came.

The first day, she shrunk back in fear, as if my flower had burst into flames.

The second day, she screamed and slammed the door.

The third day, she sobbed and kicked at it.

The fourth day, she threw it in the garbage.

My gifts did not appease her. I would have to find something else, some grander gesture to prove my love. Was it not enough that I watched her as she slept each night, ensuring her safety? Did the fact that I so thoughtfully duplicated her keys, in case she herself misplaced her own mean nothing to her? Did my knowledge of her home, her work, her friends not prove that I loved her above all else? That no one could love her as I did?

What would it take? What could I do to ensure that she knew, once and for all, that we were meant to be together, and that I alone could love her as she deserved?

It was a week from the day I began with the roses that opportunity presented itself. I watched her, as I always did, from the darkness of a doorway across from her apartment building. Hearing her voice flitting through the still night air, I peered out into the street, careful not to be seen, and saw, to my dismay, that she was with another man.

How could she? If my heart could beat, it would have stopped in that instant.

I closed my eyes and listened.

"Thank you for the lovely night, David. I needed to get out of the house."

"No problem, honey. It was great to see you. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks again." Then she kissed his cheek and a growl slipped from my lips.

I crossed the street and made my way to the confines of a shadowed alleyway not more than a hundred feet from the door to her apartment building.

Now she would know. This would prove to her that I was the one. Me and me alone. No other.

I listened and waited. Waited and listened, and finally I was rewarded as I heard the distinct boots of the man she called "David" making their way in my direction.

He whistled to himself and walked smugly past my hiding place. Before he was able to reach the other edge of the alley, my hand shot out with lightning speed and pulled him into the shadows.

I clamped a hand around his mouth to stifle his screams, and I growled in his ear,

"She is mine."

Without another word, I placed my other hand on the back of his head and twisted. With a deafening pop, his spine shattered in my hands, and he slumped lifelessly to the ground at my feet.

This would show her. Now she wouldn't be able to deny my love for her. If I was willing to kill for her, obviously I loved her more. Who else could she say that about?

I stealthily carried the body back into the apartment building, placing him on my queen's doorstep and pinning my usual note to his chest. Mine.

She wouldn't find him until morning, I knew this, and so I waited. I had nothing but time.

The morning came and with it brought the bloodcurdling scream of my beloved. I closed my eyes and relished in the sound. This was it. She would see now that I would kill for her, again, and again, until she was mine and mine alone. There would never be another, for me, or her. I would see to that. I would kill all who attempted to come between us. And when I finally made Faith White mine for eternity, we would kill together, and she would see it was meant to be that way. It was fated.