His touch isn’t holy

Chapter two

At first, I told myself it was just luck.

The rent money that appeared in my account.

The job that called me back after I’d already quit.

Even the ex who suddenly texted me an apology like he’d seen a ghost whisper in his ear.

But Malik wasn’t luck.

He was movement — a presence that slid through my days like smoke through a keyhole, never fully there, but always felt.

Sometimes, I’d catch his reflection where he shouldn’t be — in my phone screen, behind me in photos I took alone, in puddles that rippled without wind. He liked that game: showing up where mirrors kissed the light.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I whispered one night, lying across my bed, candles burning low.

His voice came from the corner, smooth as velvet. “Crazy? No. You’re awake. Most people live their whole lives half-dead, begging for something real.”

His shadow stretched toward me, curling like smoke fingers across the sheets. When it touched my ankle, warmth flooded me — too heavy, too good.

He smiled. “You called me for a reason, baby.”

I didn’t deny it.

Truth was, I liked the way he made the world bend. Bills paid. Enemies quiet. Even my skin looked clearer in the morning, like his presence smoothed me out from the inside.

But there was always a price.

The first one I noticed was my laugh — gone. I couldn’t remember how it used to sound. My friends said I’d changed, that my voice had this echo now, like I was talking from somewhere far away.

Malik said it was nothing. “You’re evolving,” he told me. “Pain leaves pieces behind. I’m just taking out the trash.”

And when he said it, I believed him.

By the second week, Malik wasn’t just a shadow in my room — he was everywhere I went.

Not walking beside me. Not holding my hand.

No, he moved through the world like smoke — a whisper in my ear when somebody stepped too close, a heat on my neck when I was alone.

It was intoxicating… and terrifying.

One night, I came home to find my front door already unlocked. I froze, keys still dangling from my fingers, when I heard his voice from the kitchen.

“You didn’t eat all day.”

He stepped out of the dark, no sound in his footsteps. He wasn’t holding food. He was holding a heart.

Not the Valentine kind — a real, still-dripping one.

My breath hitched. “Malik… what the hell—”

He smirked, tossing it on my counter like it was nothing. “He followed you from the train. Thought about touching you. I handled it.”

My skin prickled, fear running alongside something I hated to admit — relief.

I should’ve screamed. Should’ve told him to leave. Instead, I asked, “You… you’re sure nobody saw?”

His eyes gleamed. “Nobody ever sees me unless I want them to.”

That night, he didn’t just stay in my bed — he sank into me like he was planting roots. His touch was cold and burning all at once, his kiss like smoke curling into my lungs until I forgot how to breathe without him.

When I woke, my sheets smelled like cedar and blood. And my skin… my skin had his fingerprints burned into it, faint black marks trailing my thighs and waist. They didn’t hurt. They pulsed. Like they were alive.

He cupped my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes.

“You’re mine now. No prayers, no candles, no church will change that. I’m in you.”

Something in me should’ve fought back.

Instead, I whispered, “Good.”