Blood and dark fluid slide down the abdomen in slow, uneven trails, dripping steadily into a floor drain beneath it.
My stomach drops so hard it feels like freefall.
For a split second, my brain refuses to process anything except shape. Black hair matted with blood. Tattoos. Ruined flesh where legs should be.
Brooke.
I’m too late.
My breath locks in my chest, like my lungs seize completely. Heat rushes into my face, then drains out just as fast, leaving me cold and unsteady. My hands start shaking, fingers tightening uselessly around my gun as my pulse spikes into something wild and uneven.
I see her the way she looked the last time I touched her. Alive. Angry. Breathing. I hear her voice in my head, not screaming, not begging, just saying my name the way she always does when she needs me to focus.
I’m not there.
I picture her alone in this room, looking at that door, waiting for it to open. Waiting for me. I imagine her realizing I am not coming in time. I imagine the moment hope leaves her face.
My vision tunnels hard. The edges of the room darken. The smell of blood thickens until it feels like it is coating the back of my throat. My legs feel hollow and useless. I can't feel the floor beneath my boots.
I've seen death before. I've caused it. I've watched it happen slowly, deliberately, without mercy. None of that prepares me for this moment. None of it matters when the shape in front of me matches the nightmare I've been carrying since the second she was taken.
My heartbeat slams hard enough to hurt. My knees threaten to give out.
This is not just a body.
It is the end of everything I have built my life around.
Something inside me snaps.
I am going to tear every man in this house apart.
I don't care how long it takes. I don't care what it costs. I am not stopping at a bullet or mercy. I will rip them apart with my hands if I have to. Elliot first. Anyone still breathing after him next. I will make this place choke on what it has done to her.
I want them to feel it. Every second of it.
And when there is no one left to kill, when the house is silent, empty and soaked in blood, I am going to end myself too.
Because if she is gone, there is nothing left to live for.
Beau’s voice cuts through the roar in my ears, distant at first, like it is coming through water. “Seth. It’s not her.”
I don't hear him.
My body refuses to accept it. My chest is too tight to expand, my heartbeat slamming erratically against my ribs.
Beau steps closer, firm now. “Seth. Look at the tattoos.”
I force myself to breathe. Force my eyes to focus. Force my brain to catch up.
The ink is wrong.
Heavy black script curls along the ribs. A half finished design on the shoulder blade. Lines and symbols that don't belong to her, scars that don't match the map I know by heart.
Reality snaps back into place with a sickening jolt. Relief hits hard and ugly, immediately followed by something just as dangerous.
Rage.
Then the sirens start.
