Through the Crack in the Door

“It isn’t always what people say that damns them—it’s what they still choose to do when they know you’re watching.” — Violet Dallow

Violet stepped into the corridor, her pulse still hammering, breath shallow and uneven. She lingered just beyond the doorway, paralysed by uncertainty. Some part of her still expected Clarke to follow — to call her back, to relent, to offer something other than the wall of silence he had built between them.

But the silence stretched.

Then, suddenly, a curse cut the air inside. Harsh, sharp, guttural. Violet flinched. A moment later came a heavy thud, wood reverberating as though struck by a fist. Her imagination filled the gap: Clarke, alone, raging at the desk.

And then — a sound that made her skin crawl. A moan. Low at first, then rising, muffled, urgent.

Violet’s breath snagged. Fear twisted with a dreadful curiosity, each nerve in her body caught in the pull of both retreat and revelation. Against the screaming protest in her mind, she edged closer, leaning just enough to peer through the narrow crack where door met frame.

What she saw stole the air from her lungs.

A body lay across the desk — a young man, pale skin bared, face turned away. Over him loomed Clarke, moving with relentless intensity, his body taut, every line of him sharpened by strain. His features were contorted, as if carved from fury itself — though whether it was anger, passion, or something more twisted, Violet could not tell. The rhythm of his movement was brutal, raw, and yet there was a terrible abandon in it too, as though he had surrendered wholly to some force beyond himself.

For an instant Violet thought her presence must shatter the tableau — that he would stop, recoil, cover himself in shame. But Clarke’s head lifted, his gaze snapping to hers across the room. Their eyes locked.

He didn’t flinch.

If anything, something darker crossed his face: defiance, or perhaps triumph. With a sharp motion, he seized at his shirt and ripped it open, buttons scattering across the floor like spent shells. His chest heaved, sweat glistening, and his hips drove harder, each thrust a violent punctuation mark. The moans beneath him rose in tandem, raw and desperate.

Violet’s breath broke in her throat. She tore her eyes away, stumbling back into the corridor, her hands trembling so violently she could barely steady herself against the wall. Panic seized her limbs, propelling her towards the stairwell, away, anywhere but here.

Behind her, a final sound rang out — guttural, furious, almost triumphant.

She fled into the stairwell, heart pounding a jagged rhythm as she descended, as though she had brushed against something not merely forbidden, but profoundly dangerous.