Page 150 of Cold Mercy

Thomas fights against the guards, the chair, the pain, trying to reach me even now.

“Sophia, don’t listen to him…stay with me…”

The masked man snaps his head toward Thomas, irritated by his existence.

“You’re too loud.”

He fires again, just as casually as before.

The bullet punches into Thomas’s shoulder, and his body bucks violently against the restraints, a hoarse roar tearing out of him as blood spills fast, darkening the floor beneath the chair.

My scream rips my throat raw. “Stop! Stop hurting him, please.”

“For touching what’s mine.” The masked man turns back to me.

I shake my head so hard it makes me dizzy. “I’m not yours. I don’t even know who the fuck you are—”

He laughs, low and quiet, the sound worn smooth by use, like something practiced over years rather than felt in the moment. It isn’t…unfamiliar.

He steps closer, slow, deliberate, until he’s standing right in front of me. Then he crouches down so we’re eye level, close enough that I can see the faint crease at the corner of his mouth beneath the mask.

“Of course you know me,” he says calmly, almost amused.

My body locks up before my mind can catch up. I don’t move or breathe properly. I just stare as his hand reaches up and hooks under the edge of the mask.

I shake my head without meaning to. My throat tightens when he pulls it off, and it feels like the ground drops out from under me.

The man standing in front of me…the man standing in front of me is Noah.

Peek-a-boo, surprise, surprise, wipe the tears from your blind eyes. The grave is empty, the lie is true, look who came back to break you.

Older. Sharpened into something that looks like it was carved down instead of built up. I recognize the bones of him but not the man himself. The softness that used to live in his face is gone. His jaw is no longer gentle, his shoulders sit square and rigid, trained into stillness, into control. Everything about him looks disciplined in a way that makes my stomach turn.

And then there are his eyes.

They are calm, unbearably calm, but the calm is wrong. It is coiled beneath the surface like something that has learned patience only because it learned violence first. There is no warmth in his expression, no hesitation, nothing human left there except that twisted glimmer I know too well. It used to mean love, now it's an obsession.

Everything spins, everything crashes.

“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no…this is wrong-this is sick. It can’t be—”

Noah's eyes locked on mine.

“Did you miss me, love?”

My entire chest caves inward at the sight, my breath disappearing completely

I spit in his face, but he wipes it off with two fingers, his expression unnervingly calm as if I’ve performed exactly as he expected.

“Still fiery,” he murmurs. “Good, I didn’t want a corpse.”

“Go to hell,” I sob, forcing myself onto shaky knees, grabbing my stomach as another throb of pain shoots through it. “Go to fucking hell!”

Thomas yells behind us, his voice raw. “Let her fucking go! Let her go, motherfucker.”

I lunge, aiming for his throat, not caring if I break every bone in my body doing it, but he doesn't even flinch. Instead, he grabs both my wrists in one hand, pinning me effortlessly as his other hand catches the back of my neck, forcing my gaze up.

“I love you,” he rasps, but the tone is all wrong, like a claim, not a confession.