n Chapter 16 of H.D. Carlton’s “Haunting Adeline,” titled “The Manipulator,” Adeline faces an intense and controversial confrontation with Zade Meadows that serves as a pivotal, disturbing moment in the story. The chapter, often discussed for its graphic nature, depicts a non-consensual act involving a gun and explores themes of trauma, with subplots involving a threatening, older man from the past and historical diary entries.
I
Chapter 15
The Manipulator
’m completely immobilized beneath his stare. I can only imagine the look
on my face when I see him standing there, waing for me.
The sconces behind my bed are lit, offering dim lighng. Enough for
me to get a clear view of him. He’s clad in all black. Leather boots, jeans
that wrap ghtly around broad thighs, and a matching hoodie that looks a
size too small with the way he fills it out.
Sll, I can’t see much of his face—that damn hood.
My tongue darts out, weng my dry lips.
“Take off your hood,” I say, a slight tremor in my voice. He doesn’t. Nor
does he speak.
Anger begins to build beneath the fear.
“You wanted me to come find you, kiy cat. I did. So take off your
fucking hood and show me your face,” I demand, my voice rising alongside
my anger.
A sinful smirk tugs at his lips when he hears his new nickname. He thinks
this is a game of cat and mouse. If he wants to debase me with a nickname,
it’s only fair I return the favor.
Slowly, he reaches up and slides the hood off his head, the knife glinng
as if to mock me. I have my own knife, too.
Any triumph I felt over my lile jab dissipates like buer in a hot skillet.
And all the fear I’ve been feeling triples. His face is… unlike anything I’ve
seen. But that’s the thing—I have seen him before. The mismatched eyes
give him away.
In the bookstore, I only saw porons of his face. At the me, he seemed
mildly aracve. But now that I see those pieces as a whole, he’s
devastang.
His right eye darker than the midnight sky, and the other the exact
opposite. His le eye is so bleached of color, it’s nearly white. The scar
starng from the middle of his forehead, slashing straight down through
his white eye and to the middle of his cheek, is something I haven’t been
able to forget since I saw him in the bookstore.
Despite the ugly scar, it only serves to heighten his uer beauty. A
jawline so sharp, he could cut diamonds with it. A straight, aristocrac
nose. Full lips. And short black hair, just long enough to run your hands
through.
This is wrong. So wrong.
I shouldn’t be aracted to a stalker.
His presence is so overwhelming, it feels as if he’s ten feet tall with a
shadow crawling up the ceiling, slithering toward me. This room feels ny
with him in it. I feel ny with him in it.
He takes a step toward me, a hint of that smirk remaining on his face—
just the slightest curl in his lips.
I take a step back. Finally, my insncts aren’t completely jacked sideways,
and I make my first smart move of the night.
“Cat got your tongue, lile mouse?”
Briefly, I close my eyes. His voice washes over me, leaving goosebumps
in its wake. The sound is as deep as his black eye.
I swallow again, nearly choking on the very muscle. It feels like my
tongue has swollen to double its size.
“What do you want from me?” I choke out.
He prowls towards me. My spine ghtens, and despite the gallons of fear
pumping through my heart valves, I stay sll. When he gets close enough,
I’ll stab him.
Aim for the throat, Addie.
My eyes lock with his, and all thought escapes me. He presses the
enrety of his body against mine. No shame. No shyness. No, let me buy
you a drink first before I press my man pecs into you.
The boldness of it has me nearly bing my tongue in surprise.
It takes several seconds for my body to unlock. Before I can think about
what I’m doing, I swing my knife towards him, but meet resistance when I
aempt to li it.
I look down in confusion, just to see his bare hand wrapped around the
blade. Blood pools in his hand, a small trail heading straight towards my
own.
I gasp, my eyes widening and snapping back to his. Not a single iota of
pain shines in his eyes. Not even a glimmer.
He jerks on the blade once, ripping it from my weak hold, blindly tossing
it behind him.
The knife claers loudly against something before toppling to the floor,
the sound reverberang in the otherwise quiet room. Nothing but my
heavy panng breaks the stac of silence surrounding us. His presence is a
vortex, steadily depleng the oxygen from the room—and even from my
brain.
Because I cannot think straight with his body so close to mine. With the
fear coiled ghtly around me, the force of it turning my body to stone. I’m
useless. Powerless. The inability to fight rages in my head, my survival
insncts tell me to just move, yet my body refuses to.
And then his bloody hand is wrapping around the back of my neck and
bringing my body flush with his once more. I cringe at the feel of his life’s
essence dripping from his hand. The blood feels like menacing fingers
crawling down my spine, staining my skin as if to mark me.
To my horror, he lis his other hand—the one sll gripping a much more
wicked-looking knife than mine—and brings the p of the blade to the
underside of my chin.
He applies enough pressure to force my chin up further, the metal bing
into my skin. The slightest curl to his lips stalls the breath in my lungs. The
act speaks of something daunng. Something condemning.
“You’re even more beauful up close,” he murmurs, his sinful eyes
devouring my face.
I scowl and plant my hands on his chest, ignoring the pure steel beneath
his flesh, and aempt to push him away. But he resists the force, his lip
curling into a snarl.
Tears rim my lids as frustraon grows.
“Please, just leave. I-I don’t want you here. I don’t want you. Just leave
me alone,” I beg. It feels like reaching a hand inside my chest, yanking out
my pride and throwing it onto the floor. But I don’t give a fuck about my
pride in this moment.
I just want this man to fucking leave.
He presses in closer. “Are you going to cry, Addie?” he taunts. My hands
are sll pressed firmly against his chest. His heart is racing beneath my
