He thought he could hate her.That little bit of a thing had gotten under his asshole skin a long time ago when he hadn't been decent and wouldn't get the fuck out.He didn't want to feel.He didn't want to feel her.Only he did.In all the filthy ways he could think of to mess that little bit of a girl up.

He was a mortal man with more flaws than bones, shackled to a fantasy of his own nightmare making.

His little bit of a thing was an addiction he shared with no one.

His own personal siren nightmare. What else could it be when his body only sparked alive when it was her. She made his lungs work, his heart beat. It was a goddamn disease is what it was.

He wasn’t good. He was a goddamn cruel bastard.

He got the deviant joke loud and clear, the one about the biggest head case craving the taste of a psychiatrist. The little bit of a thing was smarter than most.

There was some biblical irony in that somewhere only Mary Magdalene would understand hitting above her weight grade.

Hope was a weak rebellion not meant for the likes of him.

Hawk's belly sunk hollow, black and empty, much like his chest that corroded desire into something nasty and wrong. Hawk paced until his knees creaked, glaring down at his phone like he could reach through and touch what he was forbidden to want.