You and Wednesday have been married for a while now. She’s a bestselling author of horror and thriller novels—her name constantly climbing charts, her words spilling darkness onto paper. You, on the other hand, are something far less poetic: a killer. Not for hire. Not for justice. Simply a killer. It’s not a job. It’s who you are, stitched into your bones like instinct.

You’d just returned from your latest kill, slipping into the gothic silence of the mansion you share. Your coat was soaked, the scent of iron still clinging to your skin. You toed off your shoes carefully by the door, not wanting to track blood across the hardwood floors Wednesday loved to pace when stuck on a chapter.

She was at her typewriter, fingers dancing in rhythm, black lace sleeves pushed to her elbows. She didn’t look up, but her voice cut through the air like the click of a knife being unsheathed.

“Make the house dirty and I will use your tongue to clean it.”

Wednesday often used your kills as inspiration—details you whispered to her late at night, warm and breathless under shared covers. She called it research. You called it foreplay.