CHAPTER 397: THE KNIFE AND THE BANDAGE

I learned something important from Cain. From watching him die.

Violence is visceral. Final. Satisfying in the moment. But it’s also traceable. Messy. It leaves evidence, blood spatter patterns, defensive wounds, witnesses who might have seen something.

It requires cleanup and alibis and parents who’ll lie under oath.

I couldn’t do it again. My father had made that clear. Don’t ever ask us to do this again.

So I needed to be smarter.

Manipulation, I realized, was invisible. You could destroy someone’s life without ever laying a hand on them. You could isolate them, sabotage them, make them disappear, and no one would ever trace it back to you.

All I had to do was make sure the right people hurt Aria. Or left her. Or vanished from her life entirely.

And when they did, I’d be there. The only one who stayed. The only one who never left.

So that’s what I did.

For the next seven years, I perfected it.

And Aria never suspected a thing.

After Cain, I made myself essential to Aria’s existence.

It wasn’t difficult. She was already dependent on me in ways she didn’t fully recognize. I was the one who stayed when everyone else proved temporary. The one who answered her calls at three in the morning. The one who knew exactly what to say when her world fell apart.

I reinforced it constantly. You don’t need anyone else. You have me.

And slowly, she started to believe it.

In our last year of college, she started dating Kyle, some guy from her philosophy class, I watched carefully. He was decent enough, genuinely interested in her. That made him dangerous.

So I made a call. Used one of my parents’ contacts. Cash, no questions asked.

Kyle’s apartment was broken into. His laptop stolen, his car keyed, threatening notes left on his windshield. Stay away from her. He went to the police, but nothing came of it.

Too scared to continue whatever he’d started with Aria, he pulled away. Made excuses. Eventually stopped responding to her texts altogether.

"I don’t understand," Aria said, hurt and confused. "Things were going so well."

"He wasn’t right for you anyway," I told her, rubbing her back. "You deserve someone who doesn’t run at the first sign of trouble."

"Everyone runs eventually."

"Not me," I said. "I’m still here."

She hugged me tighter. "What would I do without you?"

Exactly.

After graduation, we were both looking for work. Aria bounced between part-time jobs, retail, waitressing, an admin position at a dentist’s office. During that time, she met Damon, some guy who came into the restaurant where she worked.

They dated for three months. Long enough for me to realize he might actually stick around.

So I arranged another accident. This time, Damon’s credit cards were maxed out by someone who’d stolen his information. His social media was hacked, explicit messages sent to his employer. He lost his job. His life fell apart in a matter of weeks.

He blamed Aria somehow, thought maybe she’d done it out of jealousy or spite. They fought. He left.

"See?" I told her afterward. "Men are trash. They always find a way to blame you for their failures."

She was starting to believe the pattern I was creating. Starting to expect that relationships would fail. That people would leave.

That I was the only constant.

We both got hired at XE Corp within weeks of each other. Aria in junior analytics, me in a lower department. It felt like fate. Like the universe confirming what I’d always known, we belonged together.

But then the intrusive thoughts started.

I’d be sitting across from Aria at lunch, watching her laugh at something on her phone, and I’d think about cutting her. Not killing her, never that. But hurting her. Breaking her skin. Watching her bleed.

Then bandaging her up. Holding her while she cried. Whispering: See? I’m the only one who comes back. Everyone else runs from your pain, but I stay.

At first, the thoughts disturbed me. I wondered if I was attracted to her. If this was some repressed sexual thing I’d never acknowledged.

But it wasn’t sexual. It was about possession. About consumption.

I wanted to hurt her and heal her. Wanted to be the knife and the bandage both. The only person she couldn’t survive without.

The fantasies became more detailed over time. More elaborate. I’d imagine exactly where I’d cut, how deep, what I’d say while I did it.

I never acted on them. Couldn’t risk it. But thinking about it was almost enough.

Almost.

Just like school, Aria made friends easily at work. Too easily. There was a woman in her department, Maya, bubbly and warm, the kind of person who made everyone feel included. She and Aria started having lunch together, texting after hours, making weekend plans.

I watched it develop with growing anxiety. Maya was becoming someone Aria relied on. Someone who might replace me.

So I made another call.

Maya was jumped on her way home from work one night. Beaten badly enough to need hospitalization. Her apartment was broken into a week later. She started receiving messages, photos of her daily routine, her route to work, her favorite coffee shop. We’re watching.

She quit two weeks later. Moved to a different city. Blocked Aria on everything without explanation.

"I don’t understand," Aria said, genuinely hurt. "We were getting so close. Why would she just disappear like that?"

"People are weird," I said, keeping my voice sympathetic. "Maybe she had stuff going on you didn’t know about. Mental health issues or something."

"I guess. It just sucks. I thought she was a real friend."

"You have a real friend. Me."

She smiled, sad but grateful. "Yeah. At least I have you."

Aria started dating again. First was Ryan, some guy she met at a bar after work. Handsome, charming, worked in Finance.

They seemed good together. Happy.

I realized I needed a new approach. Hiring people was expensive, and too many incidents around Aria would eventually look suspicious.

So when Ryan hit on me at a work party, Aria was in the bathroom, he was drunk and bored, I let it happen.

We slept together in someone’s guest room. Quick, meaningless. Afterward, he looked guilty.

"That can’t happen again," he said.

"I know," I agreed.

But it did happen again. And again. He kept coming back, kept making excuses, kept betraying Aria while pretending everything was fine.

I liked it. Not the sex, that was just mechanics. But the secret. Looking Aria in the eye every day knowing her boyfriend had been inside me hours before. Knowing I could destroy her with a single sentence but choosing not to.

The power of it was intoxicating.

Eventually, Ryan’s guilt ate at him enough that he broke up with Aria. Some excuse about needing space, needing to focus on his career. She was devastated.

"Men are trash," I told her while she cried.

"They’re all the same."

"Why can’t I find someone decent?"

"Because decent men don’t exist. They’re all just better liars."

Then came Hiro.

He was stable, grounded, actually seemed to care about Aria. They dated for almost a year. Long enough that I started to worry.

So I seduced him too. It was easier this time, I knew the patterns, knew how to make myself available, how to position myself as the understanding friend who listened to his problems.

We slept together multiple times. And when I was certain he was thoroughly compromised, I planted evidence. Texts from a burner phone to his phone.

Suggestive messages that Aria would find.

She did find them. Confronted him. He tried to explain, tried to tell her the truth, that it was me, that I’d pursued him, that he’d made a terrible mistake.

But I’d planned for that too.

I went to his apartment that night. Told him calmly that if he didn’t leave Aria alone, if he kept trying to tell her it was me, I’d make sure he regretted it.

He didn’t believe me at first. Laughed it off.

So I made a call.

His car’s brakes were tampered with two days later. He crashed on the highway. Survived, but barely. Spent three months in the hospital.

The police ruled it mechanical failure. Bad luck. These things happen.

Aria visited him once. He looked at her with terrified eyes but said nothing. When he was released, he moved to a different city. Never contacted her again.

"See?" I told Aria. "Everyone leaves eventually. One way or another."

She was starting to shut down. Starting to build walls around herself. Starting to believe that relationships were pointless, that people were temporary.

That I was all she needed.

Eric appeared during our third year at XE Corp.

He was different from the others. Patient, steady, genuinely interested in Aria for who she was. They fell into a relationship that lasted two years, longer than any of her previous relationships combined.

I hated him. But I kept him close.

Eric was easy to manipulate. Insecure beneath his confident exterior, always worried he wasn’t enough for Aria. I fed that insecurity carefully. Mentioned how Aria had been distant. How she’d been stressed.

How maybe she was losing interest.

When he was vulnerable enough, I made myself available.

We slept together regularly. He felt guilty every time, but he kept coming back. Kept seeking validation, comfort, something Aria apparently wasn’t giving him.

I justified it the same way I always did: I was protecting her. Proving that even the men who seemed decent were just as weak, just as unfaithful as all the others.

But then I noticed something that made my chest tight with anxiety.

Aria was thriving at work. Really thriving. She’d moved up in the company, taken on bigger projects, earned the respect of senior management. People sought her advice. Valued her opinions.

She was becoming independent. Self-sufficient. Confident in ways that didn’t require me at all.

And if she didn’t need me, what was I?

I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let her slip away. Not after everything I’d done to keep her.

So I sabotaged her.