1| My antidote
Calista POV
Pain is the only antidote.
The room smelled like whiskey, sweat, and leather polished so carefully it reflected the dim amber lights above us. Velvet curtains covered the walls, swallowing sound until every breath felt too loud. Somewhere behind me, someone laughed softly. Somewhere else, chains clinked.
Nobody here pretended to be innocent.
That was the point.
I sat at the edge of the velvet chaise with my legs crossed, staring down at the bruise blooming along the inside of my wrist.
Purple, pretty, almost perfect.
A man knelt in front of me, fingers brushing my knee carefully like I was something fragile.
I hated being fragile.
“You’re distracted tonight,” he murmured.
I looked at him blankly. His name might’ve been Daniel, or Damien.
I couldn’t remember.
People rarely stayed long enough for names to matter.
“I’m fine,” I said.
It came out automatic, empty. The same way people said good morning without meaning it.
His fingers slid higher against my thigh, nails digging in enough to remove blood. Usually that helped. Usually pain blurred the noise in my head long enough for me to breathe properly again.
Tonight it didn’t, the noise in my head only got louder.
The room pulsed with music, and laughter. My skin already ached pleasantly from earlier, but the relief never lasted anymore.
That was the problem with pain, you always needed more.
“You want to stop?” he asked.
I almost laughed.
Stop.
People always assumed stopping was the difficult part, it wasn’t.
The difficult part was existing afterward.
The difficult part was going home alone to an apartment that still smelled faintly like hospital disinfectant and old roses.
The difficult part was remembering tiny things you never asked your brain to keep.
A heartbeat on a monitor. Blood under your fingernails. A doctor refusing to meet your eyes.
I swallowed hard.
“No,” I whispered.
His grip tightened slightly. “You sure?”
I looked past him instead of answering.
That was when I noticed the stranger watching me.
He stood near the back wall, half-hidden behind shadows and gold light. Tall, broad shoulders. Black button-up rolled to his elbows. One tattoo disappeared beneath the sleeve along his forearm.
Most men in this place watched women like they were fantasies. He watched me like I was a problem.
His expression never changed, nor did he have that lusty eyes men usually have, instead he looked like he recognized me from somewhere.
Something unpleasant twisted in my stomach. I looked away first.
“You’re somewhere else tonight,” the man in front of me said again.
I forced myself back into the moment. “Then bring me back.”
His eyes darkened at that.
A hand closed around my throat gently, enough pressure to hurt. The room blurred at the edges as sensation sharpened rippled across my skin.
Better.
There it was. That familiar feeling is beginning to creep in now. Pain was merciful that way, it demanded your full attention.
No room for memories, no room for grief.
I exhaled slowly.
“Harder,” I whispered.
The pressure increased.
A sting spread across my skin somewhere below my ribs. My body responded instantly, muscles loosening as relief flooded warmth across my bones. The noise in my head softened.
Finally.
Finally.
The stranger across the room moved.
I noticed because everybody else in the room seemed careful around him without realizing it. Conversations shifted subtly as he walked past. Space opened naturally in his path.
Dangerous men always carried silence differently.
He stopped beside us.
“Enough.” His voice was calm.
The man in front of me frowned. “Excuse me?”
“She’s dissociating.”
My stomach dropped. The word hit harder than any bruise ever could.
I lifted my gaze slowly.
Up close, the stranger looked worse somehow. Not cruel, not soft either. His face carried the kind of exhaustion that settled deep into bone. A faint scar cut through one eyebrow.
But it was his eyes that unsettled me most. Steady, he already knew every ugly thing about me.
“She asked for this,” Daniel-or-Damien snapped.
The stranger didn’t even look at him.
He looked at me. “You still with us?”
Heat crawled beneath my skin.
I hated that question.
“I’m fine,” I said coldly.
A lie, a useless one.
His gaze flickered briefly toward my wrist. The purple bruises. The faint healing cuts hidden beneath bracelets.
Then back to my face.
“You say that like it’s rehearsed.”
Something sharp flashed through me.
Embarrassment. Anger. Fear.
I stood too quickly, shoving the other man away. “Mind your fucking business.”
The stranger stepped back immediately. That should’ve made me feel better, it didn’t.
Because he still looked at me the same way, like he saw straight through me.
Straight through the carefully curated version of Calista Benett that survived by pretending nothing touched her anymore.
“You don’t want pain,” he said quietly. “You want silence.”
My throat tightened violently.
No one had ever said that before, not therapists. Not the countless strangers who touched me because I asked them to.
They all thought the pain itself was the point.
But this man—
This stranger—
Looked at me like he understood exactly how unbearable my mind became when the world got real quiet.
I hated him instantly for it.
“You don’t know me,” I whispered.
“No,” he agreed.
His voice stayed infuriatingly calm.
“But I know that look.”
Something inside me cracked slightly. This man was dangerous in a completely different way.
Not because he could hurt me, but because he made me feel seen.
And that was far worse.
I grabbed my coat from the chair beside me and shoved past him before my expression betrayed anything humiliating.
The hallway outside felt colder.
I walked fast, then faster. My pulse hammered violently beneath my skin.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
By the time I reached the bathroom, my breathing had turned uneven. I locked myself inside a stall and pressed both hands against my mouth hard enough to hurt.
The panic came anyway. Images slammed through my head without warning.
White hospital sheets.
Red.
So much red.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Stop,” I whispered to myself.
My nails dug into my palms harder. The sting helped, but not enough. I pressed harder until sharp pain bloomed across my skin.
Better.
My breathing slowly steadied. Then suddenly, three soft knocks sounded against the stall door.
I went still.
“You’re bleeding again,” his voice said quietly from outside.
That calm voice.
“How do you know it’s me?”
A pause.
“Because everyone else in this place sounds comfortable.”
I stared at the locked door silently.
“You should leave,” I whispered.
“No.”
The word came easily without hesitation. Like he already decided something.
I hated how much that unsettled me.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
Another pause.
Then he says, “I know pain when I see it.”
My chest tightened unexpectedly. For one horrifying second, I wanted to open the door.
I wanted someone to stay.
The feeling terrified me more than anything else tonight.
So instead, I wiped the blood from my palm, unlocked the stall, and walked out without looking at him.
But as I passed, my eyes caught something dark staining his knuckles. Fresh blood, not mine.
I stopped.
He noticed where I was staring. Neither of us spoke. Then he flexed his injured hand once slowly and said, “See?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“I’m not doing much better than you.”
