Page 32 of Don’t Let Him In

Only then does his grip relent. My arms collapse between us, and I throw my palms against the floor, skittering backward before stumbling to my feet.

“Fine,” he says quietly, rising to his feet. He doesn’t move any closer, only watches me, a trace of wistfulness dulling the hardness in his eyes. “We have time.”

A shudder rips through me.

“I won’t even have to tie you up this time.”

The din inside my ears wells. My head hammers.

None of his words make sense. Confusion fogs my thoughts until the abandoned bundle of rope beneath the table’s crossbars snags whatever scattered focus I have left. Unable to contain the tremors coursing through me, I grit my teeth, clinging to the desperate plea rising in the back of my mind.

Please. Please. Please.

This can’t be happening.

I don’t understand.

My teeth scrape against my lips as my mind races through every possible escape before an abrupt ringing cleaves through the room, the echo ricocheting around the walls hard enough to make me flinch.

A flash of cold white light spears across my vision, razor-wire bright.

My phone.

Every thought scatters.

I tear my gaze away from it, only then realizing Blair has gone quiet.

She pushes herself upright, tossing Dax’s phone aside as a sharp gasp catches in her throat. Her eyes remain fixed on the harsh glare from the chair beside the ropes where I’d left my phone.

“What is that?” she whispers.

A noose wraps around my throat.

Drawn toward the table, she falters momentarily, mascara streaking the apples of her cheeks, her hair hanging in matted tangles around her shoulders. Once she’s close, she bends low enough to jerk the chair backward, its legs shrieking across the floor, burying Dax’s intermittent moan.

Her fingers hang over my phone for a second before curling around it. Moisture drains from my mouth as the moment stretches. Helplessly, I watch her thumb sweep across the screen. Although I don’t know what message has surfaced, I know exactly what pulls her mouth into a scowl.

Spinning hot on her heel, she charges back to Dax. “Why is there a picture of you next to that girl on this phone?” she screams. “Have you been lying to me this entire time? You…you animal!”

Her face crumbles as she throws my phone onto his heaving stomach.

He isn’t going to make it.

Dropping to her knees, she doesn’t bat an eye at the blood soaking the floor around her, grinding her knees deeper into it as she lunges for Dax, snatching a fistful of his jacket and shaking him. “Why is her phone here? Where is she? What did you do to her?”

Spittle spatters across his horrified, pained face. He croaks again, his lack of coherence sending her nails deeper into his skin until she tears a sharper cry from him, his eyes screwing shut. It’s not enough. Still clutching his head, she slams it against the floorboards before gouging at his eyes. “You’ve done something awful to her, haven’t you?”

His screams rattle the walls. The inner lining of my chest.

More of Dax’s blood gushes through her fingers and down her arms, the wet squelch turning my stomach as his shouts dissolve into ragged rasps and groans, the last of his vitality bleeding away.

A glint catches on a shard of glass beside his leg, his hand trembling violently around it. My teeth sink into the insides of my cheeks until metal floods my tongue as I watch him struggle to lift it, stunned there’s enough will left in him to try. Blair’s too far gone in her desperate shouts, scraping her nails further into his wounds until another broken cry escapes him.

“You monster!” she hurls at him, intent on finishing him off. The shard crawls higher in Dax’s fist, every inch wrung from what little strength he has left, until one final burst sends it into the side of her neck.

She goes mute.

Her hands abandon their battered assault to seize the jagged glass, ripping it free in one swift motion as her breath stutters. Blood jets from her neck, spreading across the already drenched floor. Heavy smoke banks at the top of the stairs, snagging my gaze upward.