Page 117 of Inflict

Sean waited a long time for this. He would not have simply killed Evelyn the first chance he could, not when she was the one victim he had held off on killing for this long.

“Find her,” Connor snarled, pushing past his friend in the doorway.

Connor slammed open the two other bedroom doors to find them empty, each room wafting the scent of mustiness and death. Even the closets held nothing, except rotting clothes and forgotten belongings. He found the same emptiness in the kitchen, and in the mud room at the front of the house. Since the place was old, it didn’t seem to have a proper bathroom.

Where the feck is she?

“Connor!” Killian shouted. “Out here, mate!”

He bolted for the sound of Killian’s yelling, finding his friend on the outside of the house, standing over what looked to be a cellar door. It was on the other side of the house, facing the cliffs, where Connor had not come. While everything about the house was old, the brand-new lock on the cellar door holding the rusted chain together was certainly out of place.

Connor lifted his gun, aiming at the rusted chain. Three shots were all it took for the chain to break, and he couldn’t get those feckin’ doors opened fast enough.

“Stay,” Connor said over his shoulder as he headed down the cellar stairs. “Stay up here.”

Killian looked down into the darkness. “But—”

“Stay!”

Connor stumbled down the last two steps, or rather, one had given way under his weight. He caught himself just in time, straightening to a scene that damn near put him on the ground again. While the house had been mostly dark but for the one lamp, the cellar was lit with oil lamps and candles.

His lungs stopped working.

His heart clenched painfully.

He felt sick.

Evelyn hung from her wrists with the same kind of rusty chain that had locked her inside the cellar. The chain was wrapped around a rotting beam, and her feet were dirty and bloody from dragging across the floor, probably in an attempt to keep balance.

She wasn’t entirely naked, as she still had her knickers and brassier on, but the rest of her clothes were nowhere to be seen. Welts crisscrossed her body in a pattern that made his rage swell all over again, from her ankles to her neck. A pile of ropes rested at her feet, waiting to be used.

Her chest barely moved, and her eyes were closed, but he saw the faint puff of white come from her lips. It was cold enough down there for him to see her breath.

Connor couldn’t move fast enough to get to her. “Lass … love … open your eyes for me, Evelyn. Look at me!”

He struggled to get her free from the chain, his attention distracted by her eyes fluttering open and the hard breath she released at seeing his face. Finally, he got her down, and he felt her goddamn shoulders crack from the pressure being released as she fell into his arms.

Connor fell to his arse on the damp cellar floor, holding Evelyn in his lap, his arms circling around her to warm her up as she blinked up at him.

“She was screaming for so long,” she whispered. “I wanted to tell her that it was what he wanted, for her to scream, but I couldn’t.”

Her eyes watered, her guilt climbing.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Her shivering became worse, but she didn’t stop staring at him.

“I messed up the studio,” Evelyn mumbled.

“It doesn’t matter, love.”

Tears raced down her dirty cheeks. “He was angry because I wasn’t scared of him.”

Connor held her closer.

She shouldn’t have had to do any of this at all.