Divine told herself she would never see him again. That was what she promised in the quiet hours after the book signing, clutching the inscribed copy to her chest like a curse she could not throw away. Yet promises are fragile things, especially when desire and dread become indistinguishable.
Two days later she found herself standing outside the gates of a secluded property in Quezon City, her fingers curled around the bars. The invitation had come not in words but in a folded piece of paper slipped inside her bag at the event. She had not noticed until she returned home. No one else could have placed it there. The address was scrawled in careful handwriting. No greeting, no explanation. Only an hour.
Eight in the evening.
The house loomed behind the gates, its structure hidden by tall trees that whispered in the night breeze. A lantern glowed faintly near the porch, soft and golden, like the eye of some patient predator. Divine’s breath trembled as she pushed the gate open and stepped onto the path.
The door opened before she could knock.
Xavier stood there as if he had been waiting for her. He was not in the tailored suit from the signing but a simple dark shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows, his hair slightly disheveled. Yet nothing about him seemed casual. Every detail of his presence felt intentional, as though he knew exactly what impression it would leave.
“Divine,” he said. The way her name slid from his lips made her shiver. He did not ask her to come in. He simply stepped aside, and she found herself crossing the threshold.
The air inside smelled faintly of candle wax and old paper. Shadows moved gently across the walls, shaped by dozens of candles flickering in glass holders. Bookshelves rose from floor to ceiling, their spines worn, their colors muted. Stacks of manuscripts lay scattered across the table in the center, pages half covered in ink.
“This is my study,” Xavier said quietly, closing the door behind her. “My sanctuary. And tonight, yours too.”
Divine’s gaze roamed the room, caught between awe and unease. The place felt sacred, yet not holy. More like a chapel built for words instead of prayers. She stepped closer to the table and brushed her fingertips against one of the pages. The handwriting was bold, deliberate, and familiar in ways she could not explain.
“Do you often invite strangers here?” she asked, her voice steadier than she expected.
“You are not a stranger,” he replied, moving to stand beside her. “You never were.”
Her throat tightened. She turned to him, forcing her eyes to meet his. “You knew my name at the signing. How?”
Xavier studied her as though weighing how much she could endure. Finally he said, “Because you have been with me longer than you realize. Every word I have written, every villain I have shaped, has carried pieces of you. Not imagined fragments, Divine. You. Your scars, your silence, your fury. You are the ink that has guided my hand.”
Her stomach dropped. “That is not possible. We never met before that night.”
“And yet you are here,” he said softly, his eyes gleaming in the candlelight. “Does that not feel inevitable?”
Divine shook her head, backing away slightly. “You are saying you based your characters on me. But how would you even know me? I never sent you letters, never submitted stories. I never—”
“You visited me,” he interrupted, his voice deepening, “not in body but in dreams. Long before you held my books in your hands, you came to me at night. Your face would appear, sometimes blurred, sometimes sharp as glass. You spoke words I did not understand until later, when I heard them echo in your world. You led me through corridors of pain and memory, and I wrote what I saw.”
Divine froze. Memories of her own nightmares rushed forward. The villain’s voice, the typewriter clacking, the pages that seemed to know her secrets. Could he have been dreaming them too?
“You expect me to believe that I entered your dreams?” she whispered.
“I do not expect. I only reveal,” Xavier said. He leaned closer, his presence pressing against her like a shadow. “You are not just a reader of my work, Divine. You are its origin. You are the phantom muse who has haunted me for years.”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. She wanted to dismiss it as madness, yet part of her recognized the truth in his tone. He spoke with no trace of jest, no hunger for applause. He believed every word.
She turned away, pacing toward the shelves. “If that were true, then why does it feel like theft? You write things I lived, things I never told anyone. You turn my pain into fiction. How is that not stealing?”
His gaze followed her. “Because they were never only yours. Pain is not a possession, Divine. It is a current. Yours found me, and I became its mouthpiece. Perhaps I exploited it. Perhaps I honored it. But it has always belonged to us both.”
The words scraped something raw inside her. For years Maverick had stolen her voice, twisting her truth into something unrecognizable. And now Xavier stood before her, claiming that her suffering was not only hers. The thought repulsed her, yet also tethered her to him.
He stepped closer until the scent of candle wax and ink wrapped around her. “Do you not feel it?” he asked. “This connection that defies reason? Why else would you be here tonight?”
Divine opened her mouth to deny it, but the protest dissolved on her tongue. Because she did feel it. The pull had been undeniable since she first read his novels, since she recognized Maverick in his villains, since she dreamed with his voice in her head.
She whispered, “If what you say is true, then I am trapped in your stories.”
“No,” Xavier said, lifting a hand but stopping inches from her skin, as though afraid to touch. “The stories are trapped in you. I only set them free.”
The silence between them swelled until Divine felt it pressing against her ribs. She wanted to flee, yet her feet refused. She wanted to hate him, yet curiosity gnawed harder.
“What do you want from me?” she asked finally, her voice breaking.
His eyes softened. “I want nothing but truth. To know why you came to me in dreams. To understand why your shadow has shaped every darkness I put to paper. And perhaps,” he added, almost reverently, “to see if the real you is stronger than the one I created.”
Divine’s hands trembled at her sides. She did not know whether to weep or laugh. This man who terrified her also spoke the words she had longed for someone to say. That her story was more than brokenness, that even her darkness held weight.
She turned toward the table again, her eyes catching on another stack of manuscripts. She picked one up, flipping through. Her heart stopped when she found her own childhood written there. Descriptions of the small chapel her mother once brought her to, the way she traced the cracks in the wooden pews. The smell of rice porridge during stormy mornings. Details so intimate she had never spoken them aloud.
She slammed the pages shut. “How do you know this?”
Xavier’s expression did not change. “Because you showed me.”
Her chest tightened, tears pricking at her eyes. “No, I did not. I never gave you permission.”
“I never asked,” he admitted, his voice low, almost mournful. “But I listened. You came unbidden, Divine. I only opened the door.”
The candles flickered violently as if stirred by her pounding heart. She pressed the manuscript against her chest and closed her eyes. Part of her wanted to burn every page. Another part wanted to beg him to keep writing, to see if he could uncover pieces of herself she had buried.
When she finally looked at him, she saw not just the author she admired but a mirror of her own fractured self. Both haunted by visions, both prisoners of words that would not let go.
“You are dangerous,” she said, her voice shaking.
“So are you,” he answered softly.
Silence fell again, thick and alive. Outside, the wind moved through the trees, whispering like unseen witnesses. Inside, the candles sputtered and recovered.
Divine set the manuscript down and stepped back, needing space, needing breath. “I should go.”
Xavier did not stop her. He only nodded, as though he had expected it. “The story will wait,” he said gently. “It always does.”
She turned toward the door, her body trembling. Yet before she left, she glanced back one last time. Xavier stood in the middle of the candlelit study, his shadow stretching against the shelves, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that was both devotion and possession.
Divine opened the door and stepped into the night. The cool air struck her skin, but it did not clear the heat in her chest. She walked quickly down the path, the book clutched in her hand, the manuscript’s words still burning in her memory.
As the gate closed behind her, she realized she had not escaped anything. She had only walked deeper into the labyrinth.
Because Xavier Isidro had confessed the unthinkable, and she knew she would return.
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.