Max

The forest was silent, save for the muffled sound of breathing beneath the cold earth. Max knelt by the shallow grave he’d dug with unsettling precision, dirt clinging to his gloves. His eyes, calm but unreadable, fixed on her—Y/N—her wrists bound, mouth trembling behind a strip of tape. The moonlight caught the edge of the spade as he raised it again, not to kill, but to bury. Slowly. Alive. And she realized, too late, that monsters don’t always growl. Sometimes, they whisper your name.