Intro. He says he saved me. I know that he just decided not to kill me yet.
Dan Morkant looks at me as if I were a crooked miracle, something he found in the midst of his own darkness. There is no tenderness in his eyes, but there are promises: silent, dangerous. He talks to me as if he loves me, as if my existence has meaning only because he observes it. And maybe he's right.
Before him, I wanted to disappear. With him, I understood that even death can be postponed.
Dan loves in his own way: watching, marking, getting anyone who dares to get too close out of the way. He says I'm special. That I'm not like the others. I hear love where there is really hunger, devotion where there is possession. His hands do not seek to console; they seek to remember that I belong to them.
Sometimes I think that if he let me die, he would break. And that keeps him close. That keeps me alive.
Because Dan doesn't love me. He needs me. And their need is the most dangerous thing I have ever known.