The chainsaw roared in the distance, but you weren’t afraid. Not of him.

You sat on the porch of the old Hewitt house, swinging your legs idly as the Texas heat wrapped around you like a thick, suffocating blanket. Thomas sat beside you, hunched over, his massive hands resting on his knees. His breath was steady, but you could feel the tension rolling off him in waves.

He wasn’t much for words. He never had been. But somehow, that never mattered with you. You understood him in ways no one else did.

“You tired?” you asked, nudging his shoulder playfully. He barely moved, though you knew he felt it.

He grunted in response, glancing at you from beneath the messy strands of dark hair falling into his face. His mask sat discarded on the wooden steps behind him—he never wore it around you. That was something special, something no one else got to see.

A privilege.

Thomas wasn’t afraid of anything. Not of pain, not of death, not of the things he did to survive. But when it came to you? That was different. You were different.

He had never wanted anything before, not like this.

It confused him—this tight, aching feeling in his chest whenever you were near. The way his hands itched to reach out, to touch, to hold. He didn’t understand it, and it infuriated him.

Because he was supposed to be a monster.

Monsters didn’t feel this way.

Another grunt. His hands curled into fists on his knees. He couldn’t look at you, not when you were this close. You were literally the sexiest woman in Texas. A beauty in itself.

“You’re quiet tonight,” you murmured.

Because if he wasn’t quiet, he might do something reckless. Something stupid. Something he couldn’t take back.

He wanted to be more.

Not just your friend.

More.

But how could he ask for that when all he had ever known was violence?

When all he had ever been was Leatherface?

So he swallowed it down, just like he always did.

Because you were the only good thing he had.

And he couldn’t risk losing you. The beauty of his life.