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A box.
He was...
In. A. Box.
And that noise? That rhythmic thump, thump, thump. That was dirt hitting the lid.
It was right out of his nightmares.
Right out of his books.
Panic burst through him, rushing through his veins like wildfire, burning him from the inside out.
“Help!” he screamed, hammering his fists against the lid. It didn’t budge an inch. His voice was a raw echo in the small space, the sound bouncing back at him.
Okay. He needed to control himself. Panic wouldn’t help him now.
Calm down.
Connelly took a deep breath and held it as he tried to clear his mind. He needed to think, but the suffocating darkness made it difficult to gather his thoughts. Each breath felt more labored than the last. He tried to slow the rising panic with each inhale, each exhale. The air was getting thin, stale. If he wanted to survive, he needed to find a way out.
Suddenly, the thumping noise from overhead stopped. The silence was deafening. Connelly stopped moving and strained to hear past his own thundering heart and sawing breaths. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like he was alone.
The bastard had left him here to die.
And not even in an original way. He was just re-hashing what he’d already done to Lucy Harper.
Or, no.
Jesus.
Connelly realized his mistake then. He’d assumed Lucy had been the imitation of the buried alive scene because that was the second death in his book and she was the second victim. But Lucy hadn’t been buried. She’d been shot and left in a pitch-dark cave. Her fear had been nyctophobia—fear of the dark—the fourth death in the book.
Jeremy Firestone had saved the taphophobia scene for him. Because he’d told fucking told the whole fucking world it was his biggest fear every time he wrote it into a book.
No.
He wouldn’t accept this. He had jumped out of planes and survived wars behind enemy lines while caring for the injured. He could survive this. He would survive this.
He curled his fingers into a fist, drew back his arm as far as he was able in the confined space, and punched upward. Pain splintered through his knuckles.
Again.
Pain.
And again.
Nothing.
The box was harder than he thought, and with a sinking feeling, he realized that it was probably metal, not wood. His breath hitched in his throat, a terrified sob tearing from his chest as the reality of his situation crashed down on him. He was trapped, and each second that slipped by was one closer to the end.
“Veronica,” he whispered into the darkness. “I love you.”
He imagined her beautiful smile. Her soft touch. Her heated kisses...
If he died, it would devastate her. She’d never leave her house again.
Despair gnawed at his insides, but the fear morphed into a blinding rage. He was trapped, but he was not yet defeated. He slammed his fist against the box once again, then again, and again. Over and over until blood trickled from his already bruised knuckles.
