Bound Eternal
Part One
MEANT FOR ONE ANOTHER
Donny had been out of prison less than a week when Emma decided he was hers.
He still carried the place on him. Not the obvious things—no tattoos, nervous twitches, or predatory eyes. No, it was more subtle than that if one knew how to look the right way. Donny stood with his back angled toward exits. His face had settled into something harder than handsome, the kind of beauty that came from surviving consequences. Sharp, sad eyes and a mouth that smiled to get by; the kind of man who’d learned consequences the hard way and came back quieter and less forgiving from them.
Emma noticed all of it.
She was alone at the bar, legs crossed, drink untouched long enough to be warm. She didn’t sit like someone waiting for company. She sat like someone waiting for an outcome to what she was there for. Men looked at her and saw a beautiful woman, assumed softness. They always did. Emma let them. It made things easier later.
When Donny took the stool beside her, she didn’t turn right away. She watched him in the mirror behind the bar for a second. Emma tracked the way his eyes moved and how his shoulders never quite settled. This man didn’t really relax.
“You’re fresh out,” she said.
He blinked, then laughed under his breath. “That obvious?”
“You look like you still belong on a schedule,” she shrugged. “You know every exit in here and who to kill first kind of vibe. I’d say you’ve done some time.”
That got his attention. He turned fully then, studied her face. Pretty in a way that felt practiced, like she’d learned how to wear it. Her eyes stayed on him too long, flirting in a way that she knew what she wanted.
“And you?” he asked.
“I watch,” she said. She leaned in just enough for him to smell—something dangerously sweet. “I like to know what I’m choosing.”
He should have moved. But he didn’t.
They drank, and time slipped by. The bar emptied around them without either of them noticing. They didn’t trade biographies or dreams. They traded simple irritations, people who disappointed them, and the draining cycle of everyday life. Emma laughed at the right moments, and Donny said more than he meant to. It was damn near perfect.
The liquor loosened their tongues, stripping away any pretense until only truth remained. At some point, her knee pressed against his. Emma didn’t apologize and didn’t move it either. Then her hand rested on his. Donny smiled at the warmth of her touch; it had been too long.
By the time they left, no one said a word about going together. It just happened, quiet and certain, as if it had been decided long before they met.
And Emma even paid the bill.
The room smelled of old cleaner and stale smoke, the kind of scent that never really left. The carpet was damp in spots, and a single fan in the corner hummed a loud tune. It was a cheap room, but it didn’t matter to them. What this room was going to be used for was the important part.
Emma kicked off her shoes and began undressing before the door could close. She didn’t want to wait another minute before he could touch her. She grabbed hold of Donny by the collar and pulled him in, hard. Her fingers curled into the fabric like she was testing its strength—or his.
He froze for a heartbeat, eyes wide, breath caught somewhere between surprise and want.
“Relax,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
The sex came fast, reckless—the kind born from too much liquor and too much need. Their bodies didn’t meet so much as crash, a violent rhythm of hunger and surrender. Skin against skin, breath against breath, teeth dragging over flesh like a promise and a threat all at once.
Emma moved with the confidence of someone who’d done this too many times to count, while Donny’s hands trembled, unsure where to land. He was rusty, but she didn’t mind. There was something raw in his hesitation, something that made Emma feel seen instead of used.
She took control, laying on top of him with her full weight, and pinned his arms without acknowledging it. Donny came hard and was ashamed of how little it took. He didn’t last that long.
But Emma didn’t seem to mind.
SWEET CONFESSIONS
They lay tangled in the sheets, the room still humming with the afterglow of what had just happened. Emma clung to Donny like someone she’d known all her life, her breath warm against his skin. He lit a cigarette and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling through the haze. The smoke curled upward, lazy and soft, as he tried to make sense of the night.
It had started as a bad day—one of those where the world pressed too hard on him. His plan had been simple: get drunk, blow off steam, maybe knock over some white-collar yuppie for the thrill of it. But then Emma happened. And somewhere between the drinks, the laughter, and the confessions, something shifted.
She rested her head on his chest, her voice low and thoughtful. “I think I’d be good at crime.”
“No, sorry,” Donny laughed, the sound rough but genuine. “You don’t look it.”
“That’s why. I’d be the perfect distraction for a man like you to do the job, right?”
The outside world felt thin compared to what they shared.
“You ever killed a man before?” she asked.
Donny didn’t answer right away.
Not because he was shaken by her bold curiosity, but because he was deciding how much truth to give her. He watched the condensation crawl down his beer bottle on the nightstand before finally answering. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Two.”
Emma didn’t react the way most people did. No sharp inhale or fake laugh to clear the tension. No, she simply tilted her head and looked up, interested.
“Oh,” she said with a devilish smile. “Do tell.”
He exhaled a large huff of smoke through his nose and grabbed his beer.
“The first one’s the boring one,” he said. “That’s the one that got me locked up.”
Emma leaned in a little. Not touching him. Just close enough to make it clear she wasn’t going anywhere and very interested in what he had to say. Donny found this odd but flattering.
“He was a guy I grew up around,” Donny said. “Not really a friend, I would say. Just… someone you know too long that borrows shit all the time and never pays it back. Comes over, bums all your smokes, beers, and uses your drugs.” He guzzled the rest of the beer down and placed the bottle back on the nightstand. “Started showing up drunk, talking shit, one night when I was having some people over. I was coked out of my skull. Shit-faced all day. He pulled a knife on me…”
Donny shrugged, his voice lowering to a mere regretful whisper now. As if he were standing in that very moment, watching himself all over again. “I took it off him and slapped him around a little. He didn’t learn his lesson. I pushed him. Hard and… he hit his head on the edge of this coffee table I had. I mean hard.”
He paused.
“That sound,” he said quietly. “When someone hits just right. You know immediately.”
Emma’s eyes stayed on his face. “What did you do?” Emma asked.
“I sat down,” Donny said. “I remember just sitting down knowing he was dead. Everyone else did too. Didn’t even fight the charges.”
Emma smiled faintly. “And the second?”
“Yeah, would have never happened if I didn’t go to prison.” Donny’s jaw tightened. This one always did that. “Honestly, wish I would have fought the charges, prolly would have gotten less time because I would have been out by then. Wouldn’t have been caught up in the shit on the inside that got me transferred to where this asshole was.”
He lit another cigarette.
“You regret it?” Emma asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“In some ways, yeah,” Donny said, his voice flat and distant. “But I didn’t have a choice. The guy was on me from day one—always in my space, touching my stuff, standing too close. Then he saw a picture of my sister and started running his mouth about her in the day room. I couldn’t let that slide.”
He shook his head slowly. Emma stayed quiet, watching him.
“One night, he followed me into the showers,” Donny continued, his tone steady, almost hollow. “That’s when I ended it. For what he said. For the way he disrespected me.”
Emma’s lips parted slightly. Not in a smile, but in quiet fascination. The man across from her was confessing to murder, and she couldn’t look away.
She reached out, her fingers brushing his wrist. His pulse beat steady beneath her touch—calm and unshaken. His composure, blanketed by some sort of quiet danger, drew her in more.
“Thank you for telling me.”
Donny studied her, wary. Most people would’ve recoiled by now. But Emma leaned closer, attracted to this side of him.
“That’s honest,” she said softly. “I like honest.”
“So, that didn’t scare you?” he asked.
“No.” She smiled into the dark. “I guess it’s my turn.”
Donny turned his head toward her, half-expecting something small, almost petty. Maybe she’d stolen something, lied to someone, or done a little damage just to feel dangerous. He felt it would be exaggerated just to impress, but wasn’t going to blame her.
“When I was in college,” Emma said quietly, “I watched something happen.”
Her tone didn’t waver, and that stillness unsettled Donny more than the words themselves.
“There was this streetlight outside my dorm,” she said, her voice drifting somewhere between memory and confession. “Too bright. It flickered once, then steadied—like it was fighting to stay alive, ya know. I saw a girl run under it. Then a man came out of the dark and just grabbed her. I watched the whole thing.”
Her eyes lost focus, her tone smooth and unbroken. “I could’ve yelled. I could’ve crossed the street to help but… I could’ve done something while he raped her. Picked up the phone. Called the police. But I didn’t. I just… froze.”
“People freeze in those situations. It’s okay.” Donny blinked, thrown off balance. The air between them felt heavier now. He hesitated, then asked, almost wishing he hadn’t, “You been carrying guilt over it? Did you end up calling the police?”
“Nope.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s when I realized I knew her,” Emma said, her voice low and rough, a growl curling beneath the words. Her expression soured at the memory. “And I wanted to see what would happen.”
Something shifted in Donny then, a quiet fracture deep inside. For the first time, he wondered if this woman’s darkness might be deeper than his own.
“She died,” Emma said, her tone flat, almost bored. “Later on.”
Donny’s throat tightened. “I take it you didn’t like this girl?”
“No, not really. I just didn’t move at all,” Emma replied. Her eyes didn’t move from his. “After I waited to feel some kind of way, but couldn’t.”