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“We have to get out of here!” The thought of being trapped down here by the cult terrified me. Cain and the others would eventually track us down—but they would never find us if we were buried alive. I scrambled for the stairs. I wanted Stellan right behind me, but he paused to grab the lantern, then raced behind me.
We emerged into the light of the basement just as the chanting grew louder and the first feet came into view on the stairs. Stellan kicked the panel back into place, hiding the subfloor from view, just before the first cult member emerged.
I breathed a sigh of relief because the sub-basement was closed.
Then it was on to the next disaster, because these people had seemed very interested in killing us already today.
“What do you want?” I demanded as the first cultist emerged.
He was an older man, someone’s grandpa most likely, his eyes shining with manic glee.
“We want you to take your place, of course, Delilah,” he said. “Prove to us that you’re truly your father’s daughter and not just some common whore who was never worthy of his name.”
“You people really need to learn a bit about sex positivity,” I muttered.
Five more cultists streamed down the stairs. But what made my heart stop was the sound of struggling on the stairs. Of a gagged scream. Of panic.
The last two cultists were wrestling a woman down the stairs. Her hands were bound, and her mouth gagged. Her hair was wild around her face, some strands stuck to her skin with tears and mucus. Her eyes were desperate.
“It’s going to be alright,” Stellan promised her, and I shot him a dark look, because we might very well need to act as if we were willing to kill her. But then I saw how he was focused on her, the pain on his face—as if he was imagining Sophia on the stairs—and I softened.
How many rounds did he have in his gun? Given that he carried concealed, he might have just eight rounds in his magazine.
“I hope you’re better at shooting than you are at locking people in trunks,” I muttered.
The gun was already in his hand, hidden behind his back. “Too soon,” he repeated my words back to me, offering me a cocky smile that made my heart flip-flop.
Well, my heart was well and truly out of control. But I’d always loved him.
And also, I was a broken person.
The sight of Stellan ready to do violence—to save someone from turning into another of my father’s victims—turned me on a little.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded.
“We want you to kill her. Show us how it’s done,” one of them said. “Or have you completely abandoned your father’s ways?”
They looked at me as if they were eager to hurt me if that would make my father happy. They’d do anything for him. Follow me. Flay me. It could go either way. Bile rose in the back of my mouth. I was so disgusted by people who worshiped my father.
But I made myself smile.
“I’m down a table and some tools,” I drolled. “But I guess I can get creative.”
She let out a scream, as much as she could, and I gestured for them to give her to me.
One of them pushed her toward me.
I grabbed her and spun around, shielding her.
Stellan raised his gun and pointed it at the deranged grandpa, squeezing off two quick rounds. They each hit him in the center of mass, the sound so loud it made my ears pop.No, Stellan, you don’t have enough rounds for two in the body, one in the head, I thought desperately, suddenly willing to bet that was how he’d drilled at the gun range. Sure enough, he was moving on autopilot, already sighting in on the next cult member.
They were screaming, charging for the stairs or charging toward us, either way. For people who wanted to be hardened killers, they didn’t have a lot of chill. It was embarrassing, really. “My father would despise you,” I said. “He probably already does.”
I shoved the bound girl toward the ground where she would be safer from the gunfire. Then I turned back to see another body slump to the ground. My ears buzzed, my hearing damaged from the gunfire in such close quarters. It made everything feel surreal as another cultist charged at me, their knife raised.
Stellan fired twice, and the man stopped, a look of horror spreading across his face at the same time as blood spread across his shirt. Then the man fell to his knees in front of me.
Two men leaped on Stellan at once, struggling to get control of his gun hand. The gun went off. Five shots. But Stellan tossed the gun toward me without hesitating, then set to work slamming one of them into the wall while the other tried to stab him from behind. I didn’t dare shoot at him when he was so close to Stellan, the three of them moving quickly, spinning in circles and trying to gain control. There was no clear angle to fire. I was just as likely to kill Stellan as to kill one of them.
