I Married My Killer; He Thinks I'm His Wife

PROLOGUE

I married my rapist.

After the wedding, I became the perfect wife.

I would always remove my makeup after he fell asleep, and have it perfectly reapplied before he woke up.

My husband, Garrett, would brag about it on his Twitch stream, boasting that it was the kind of devotion every woman should have.

One night, a bullet comment scrolled across the screen, a stark warning in a sea of praise and crude jokes:

0RUN. ONLY THE PAINTED LADY DOES HER MAKEUP AT NIGHT. THE MORE ROTTEN THE CORPSE, THE THICKER THE PAINT. SHE S NOT FAR FROM SHEDDING HER SKIN AND DEVOURING YOU WHOLE!0

I covered my mouth, a sly grin hidden behind my hand.

Oops.

I must have forgotten the concealer.

How did that patch of lividity get out?

01

My husband is a rapist, but I don t care.

I was ten minutes late getting back from the grocery store, and Garrett Pike exploded in front of thousands of viewers.

Where the hell have you been? Get over here and kneel!

As I knelt obediently, the audience, once so quick to condemn my weakness, had grown numb.

0A beauty like her with a monster like him. And she paid *him* a dowry. This world is insane.0

0He made her dance in a bikini in the snow for clout. He s a special kind of scumbag.0

0Forget it, guys. People tried to help. Lawyers got involved. She told them she was devoted to him. They re locked in for life.0

Garrett s Twitch channel was built on one thing: filming his daily life of tormenting me while I served his entire family. He harvested views by inventing new ways to degrade me.

When he finally allowed me to stand, a patch of foundation on my knee had been rubbed raw, revealing the hideous, crimson mottling of lividity underneath.

Damn it.

My purse slid from my shoulder. I snatched it, frantically covering the spot.

Foundation designed for the living just didn't have the staying power I needed.

It always rubbed off in the summer heat.

Luckily, the webcam wasn t angled to see it.

I calmly changed into a long skirt, covering the evidence.

On camera, my makeup was flawless, my looks rivaling any influencer's. That, combined with my tireless work ethic and absolute lack of temper, drove the male viewers wild with envy.

They flooded the chat, begging Garrett to share his secrets on wife-taming.

My husband puffed out his chest, shamelessly preening. The key to handling women is simple. You can t give them an inch.

I told her I like pretty women, so she s never dared to show me her bare face. She takes her makeup off after I m asleep, and it s back on before I m awake.

It s a wife s most basic duty! To satisfy her husband s visual needs!

Amid the flood of comments some worshipful, some disgusted one stood out, its font bold and glowing.

0Your wife is a Hollow. Only the dead paint their faces in the dead of night.0

0Does she do it at 3 AM? That s when the veil is thinnest. It helps the illusion hold.0

02

Garrett burst out laughing.

What kind of bullshit is that?

The user, named Silas, was persistent. His profile showed a picture of an old, leather-bound book some kind of folklore journal. Even as Garrett s followers spammed him with insults, he kept posting.

0You ve been married three years, haven t you? That s pushing the limit for a Hollow s skin. Has she been taking longer with her makeup lately?0

0A Hollow needs to be near the living to sustain itself. Does she cling to you, 24/7, like she can t bear to be apart? After you re intimate, do you feel sick, like your life force has been drained?0

That last one made Garrett pause.

It was true. Before the wedding, he was built like a brick shithouse. Now, he was constantly catching colds, always feeling run down. And my God, how she loved to touch him. She d trace the lines on his palms, run her fingers over his skin. He d gotten a small burn from a cigarette once, and she d looked like she was about to cry.

0She wants to cry, but she can t. A corpse has no tears. Have you ever seen her cry?0

No. He hadn't.

A cold knot tightened in Garrett s stomach. Why the hell should I believe you?

0Tonight, put a few drops of sage oil in her makeup remover. Sage is a purifying agent. The moment a Hollow touches it, its skin will begin to rot.0

0Man or monster? You re one drop away from knowing the truth.0

03

I accepted the new bottle of makeup remover from my husband with a grateful smile.

Garrett stared at me for a long moment, then snorted, his tense shoulders relaxing.

Look at you, wagging your tail like a pathetic little dog. A Hollow? Give me a break.

But Silas s message in the private chat was deadly serious.

0The three of you you, your father, and your mother your birthdays all fall within the same month. It s a rare astrological conjunction. A powerful source of life energy. For a Hollow, consuming such a family would be a feast.0

0Your birthday is in three days. That s when she ll make her move. That s when the slaughter begins.0

Garrett was an only child. After we married, I moved into the Pike family s sprawling, dilapidated house in the heart of Appalachia, a place where his parents also lived.

My mother-in-law, Loretta, was famous in our small town for being relentlessly cheap.

Any leftovers Garrett didn t finish, she d let them sit in the fridge until they were sour before giving them to me.

Every day, she would thoughtfully set aside two plates for my dinner: one of plain, boiled potatoes, and one of saltine crackers.

It s for your own good, Paige, she d say, her voice dripping with false concern. Too much rich food will make you fat. And my Garrett doesn t like fat women.

I always thanked her. After all, a Hollow has no metabolism. My stomach doesn t digest.

If I ate meat, the corpse energy clinging to me would become heavier, harder to conceal.

The last time we d celebrated Garrett s birthday, he d magnanimously placed a small piece of roasted pork on my plate. I d forced it down, fighting back nausea, and spent the rest of the night vomiting up black bile. It set my recovery back six months.

So I d gnaw on my crackers and personally serve Loretta plates piled high with fried chicken and buttery mashed potatoes.

Watching her body grow softer and heavier with each passing day, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction. I imagined the moment of harvest, the texture of flesh and fat, and had to swallow hard to keep from drooling.

As long as you re happy and well-fed, Loretta, that s all I could ever wish for.

A good mood, after all, directly affects the quality of the meat.

Later that night, I waited until Garrett s breathing had deepened into a rumbling snore before I slipped out of bed and crept to the bathroom.

A girl wants to look beautiful, even in death.

My makeup routine was a lengthy ritual. First, I had to peel away the layers of caked, cracking foundation, then remove the false eyelashes and colored contacts. After that came a deep moisturizing treatment, all to ensure the next day s application would hold better.

After concealing the patches of lividity, I would set everything with a three-layer powder-and-spray technique.

The moment the makeup wipe touched my face, a searing heat erupted across my skin.

At the same instant, I felt a chilling presence behind me. The hairs on my arms stood on end.

I whipped my head around. The bathroom door, which I had locked, was now ajar.

Garrett stood in the doorway, his face a mask of grim shadow.

Paige, he snarled. Turn around. Let me see your face.

04

A Hollow has no senses, not really.

But in that moment, I could almost feel a cold sweat bead on my skin.

Before I had entered the bathroom, Silas had sent Garrett a final, private instruction.

0Smear a little bullfrog oil on your phone s camera lens. It s an old folk trick to see past illusions. Let your viewers see what she really is. Show them her true form.0

It wasn t that Garrett fully believed the folklorist. But as he watched the viewer count on his stream skyrocket, as the donations poured in, he knew he was onto something big.

He advanced on me, his voice booming for the camera. What s with all this sneaking around every night? You that ugly without your paint on?

I clutched my thin nightgown, my face buried in my hands as I began to sob, my body trembling as if I were about to faint.

The chat filled with protests. Let her be, they said. It s obviously just some troll trying to get a rise out of you.

But Garrett grabbed my wrist, his fingers like ice-cold steel. He yanked my chin up.

The viewers are paying for a show, Paige! If they paid to see you strip naked, you d do it! Don t you dare disobey me, or I ll beat you to death right here!

Helpless, I had no choice. I slowly, deliberately, poured the new makeup remover onto a cotton pad.

The moment I wiped it across my cheek, Garrett and everyone watching the stream held their breath.

But the skin beneath the foundation was flawless, smooth and perfect.

The tension drained from Garrett s face, replaced by a wave of relief and anger. He started cursing out Silas, calling him a fraud. The chat exploded in agreement.

0Leave the poor girl alone! Isn t her life miserable enough?0

0This has to be a setup. The three of them are in on it together. His views are higher at 3 AM than they are all day!0

Silas was silent for a long moment. Then, a new message appeared.

0I see now. Today is February 29th.0

0It s a Leap Day. A day that exists between the folds of time. A day when the veil between worlds is thin. The rules don t apply. The Hollow s body becomes indistinguishable from a human s.0

I felt a sliver of genuine surprise. This Silas, whoever he was, knew his stuff. He had some real knowledge.

0She s not a common Hollow. She s The Hungering a corpse animated by an all-consuming rage. That s why ordinary purifiers like sage have no effect on a day like this.0

His tone shifted, becoming gravely serious.

0What did you do to her, Garrett Pike? What did you do to create such a monster?0

05

Garrett, furious and embarrassed, banned Silas from the chat.

To save face, he declared that my bare face was ugly and ordered me not to leave the house without makeup on.

I smiled sweetly and agreed.

Of course.

He had already forgotten this face.

Forgotten the face of the girl he had personally strangled to death four years ago.

Then again, it was dark that night, wasn t it? And the rain was coming down in sheets in those woods.

In my struggle, Garrett had smashed my head against a rock. My face was already a bloody, unrecognizable mask of terror.

He had broken my arms and my legs. After he had finished violating me, his hands closed around my throat.

I begged him, my voice a pathetic whisper. Don t kill me. I swear I won t tell anyone& please& my grandma is waiting for me&

Please, I m a senior in college. I just got accepted into a prestigious graduate program.

I haven t even had the chance to tell my grandma the good news.

The old woman had sacrificed everything for me. She d worked her fingers to the bone, her eyes growing dim from lack of care, all to pay for my education. She d never known a day of comfort in her life.

She can t lose me. She just can t.

But Garrett just grinned, a sick, drunken leer on his face, and squeezed harder.

My body convulsed. Tears streamed from my eyes. With a final, sickening crack, my neck snapped.

And just like that, I was dead.

In my last moment of consciousness, I thought I saw her.

My grandma.

She was wearing her old, faded quilt coat, sitting on the porch stoop, her eyes fixed on the dirt road leading to the house. In the kitchen, a batch of my favorite biscuits and gravy was being kept warm on the stove.

She always kept it warm, wanting the first thing I tasted when I came home to be fresh and hot.

She didn t know.

She didn t know that her granddaughter had been thrown away in the deep woods.

My dignity, my future, my life all gone.

I rotted in the damp earth, my rage a cold, undying flame.

I became a Hollow. A thing of patches and paint, neither living nor dead.

When I finally emerged, with a new face, I sought out a local matchmaker. The old woman was baffled. Why Garrett Pike?

I just smiled, a shy, girlish expression on my new face.

Oh, it s not for his family or his money, I d said. It s for him. Just him.

For the blood debt he owed me.

A debt that could only be paid in full.

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