AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At least it was a quick death.
When I pull my hand back, it’s shaking.
How had Westcott gotten to him?Whoglamoured him in the first place? Is it someone on the inside? Someone here working with Westcott?
This is only the first.
The first to die, he’d meant.
He’s going to keep killing until I come back to him.
The tremble in my fingers spreads up my arms, down my chest, engulfing the rest of my body. I push to my feet and take several steps back, each breath I pull in shallower than the last.
I’m back in Central Park covered in blood. The city is deserted. Death is everywhere I go, at my hands. Just killing and blood and bodies.My fault. My fault. My fault.
I run into something hard, then fingers grip my arms.
My vision blurs around the edges, blackening, the world going dark.
“Come on.” The hands pull me back.
“What happened here?” a voice booms behind me. “What—”
Doors creak, footsteps echo, and then I’m in darkness.
“Take a deep breath. Look at me.”
Hands frame my face.
“Come on. Breathe.”
I blink several times, Reid finally coming into focus.
Every line of his face is hard, a crease running deep between his eyebrows as he studies my face. “There you go,” he murmurs. “Breathe.”
The rest of our surroundings register—a supply closet, a single naked bulb hanging overhead.
“Tell me what happened.” He drops his hands once it’s clear I’m no longer on the brink of hysteria, but he’s still standing inches away.
“That man,” I whisper, “he came and found me on the tower. He’d been glamoured to deliver a message from Westcott, and when he was done, he jumped.”
“Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
I shake my head.
Reid exhales and runs a hand over his face. “What was the message?”
I recount as much as I can remember, freezing as something finally sinks in. My mother. He’d said my sisterandmy mother were waiting for me.
Is that where she disappeared to when she left here? Did she go there by choice or did Westcott abduct her and stage the entire thing like he did for me?
Or was that another lie?
“He’s going to keep killing people. As long as I’m here—”
“He’s going to keep killing people whether you do what he wants or not. Taking the Carrington estate won’t be the end of it.” Quieter, he adds, “He knows your heart. Your conscience. He’s trying to prey on your best qualities to lure you back.” I startle as he takes my chin in his hand, forcing me to meet his eyes. The hardness of his expression is gone now. “Don’t you dare let him.”
Silence falls between us as he takes a step back, and I look down at my hands. I’m coated in that man’s blood.
