“Orwhat?”
“Or you’ll regret it. Because if I see even a hint of attitude, you won’t pay the price.Shewill.” He touched his handgun, gesturing at Evie. “Am I clear?”
Harper stiffened. Evie did too, only to immediately shake her head.
“Don’t, Harper. Don’t do what he says.”
Harper stared at him. At his grinning, satisfied expression. As though he’d been struggling with a hard riddle and had finally been given the solution.
Hand still on her arm, he led her towards the back of the warehouse. A door led into an adjoining building—the interior similar to the cabin she’d just left behind.
Harper didn’t speak. Didn’t struggle. She just followed along as Evie shouting her name lowered in volume and then vanished when the door slammed behind them.
She balled her hands into fists. It would be fine. Maya was on her way. She would have pushed through the injury and called the Chains for backup. Any minute, she would roll into this place—wherever the hell it was—with an army in tow and get them the hell out of there.
She would come. She would. The alternative was too devastating to consider.
Chapter 38
Death was supposed to be painless. Getting to that stage might be agonizing, but once you actually crossed over, it was supposed to be a peaceful state. An endless sleep. A severing of your cognitive functions; a disconnect from your senses.
Pain was a language. A way for your body to communicate to your brain that something was wrong. Once death set in, it was useless. No one was present to hear the alarm, so it shouldn’t be ringing at all.
Which meant the agony firing through Maya’s bodyreallyshouldn’t be there.
Though she felt it all over, it had a primary source. It pulsed from her heart as waves of fire, extending to the very tips of her fingers and toes. A paralyzing sensation that tightened her muscles so much it felt like they were seconds away from tearing.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even open her eyes. All she could do was scream internally, as the harrowing image of Harper’s frightened eyes played on repeat in her head.
Maya had seen her scared before, and even then it was rare. It only happened under specific circumstances. Once the danger had passed and her fight instinct dulled, or when she feared for the safety of the people she loved.
When she’d looked at Maya, pinned under Kieran’s foot, she hadn’t just been scared.
She’d been terrified.
The snow crunched. Someone was approaching. Time was kind of hard to keep track of when every second felt like an eternity of torment, but Maya was fairly sure it had been several minutes since she heard any noise beyond the howling wind.
Harper screaming and yelling. Barked orders and the pop of firearms. Car engines sputtering to life and then fading away.
Now someone was there. Walking towards her. Closer and closer.
“Oh no…” a frail voice said. “No, no,no. This isn’t happening.”
Maya knew that voice. But that didn’t make its presence any less surprising. She’d thought its owner too timid to approach a corpse.
“Okay, don’t panic.” Nell’s voice was trembling. “You can’t panic right now. You have to… have to do something.Anything.”
The footsteps grew rapid. She was walking back and forth, her breathing going shallow despite the self-imposed order of “Stay calm. Just stay calm.”
Maya tried raising her hand. Nothing happened.
A finger, then? Still nothing.
She couldn’t move a muscle, her body feeling more like a cage made of agony than it did a controllable vessel.
Sheneededto move. She needed to get up andmove. Before Kieran fled beyond her reach. Before he acted out that desire she’d sensed the first night she saw him. When he’d pinned Harper against her car and delighted in seeing her struggle.
Her fingers curled into the snow. A movement so slight it probably wasn’t visible, but it didn’t need to be. The monumental effort it took pulled a strained groan from her lips.
