by Lane Hart
Stop.
I force the memory back into the abyss. It doesn’t belong in this hell.
Naked from the belly up, I get to work on the lock. I push the end of the plastic piece into the hole and click around, trying to find the catch. It’s more complicated than a set of handcuffs.
I curse as the tip breaks off inside the lock.
A heavy noise sounds to my right, and this time the sound is unmistakable. I scramble to hide the underwire back inside my bra. The cellar door opens just as I tuck the garment behind my back.
Light spills across the floor. The abrupt brightness hurts my eyes. Momentarily blinded by the flashlight, I shield my face, forgetting my nakedness.
“If this is an attempt to seduce me…” Easton trails off, his voice coarse like gravel. He sets the light on its base to illuminate the ceiling. He’s holding white material in his hand.
Unashamed, I plant a hand to the wall and push myself up to stand, and force my shoulders back. “You tore my shirt,” I say, keeping my voice level, unaffected.
In the white light, I can make out the hike of his brow beneath the hood. For the first time, I’m able to study him. Over six feet tall, he’s well defined; lean muscles fill out a solid frame beneath a leather jacket and gray thermal. His dark-denim jeans are tinged with fresh dirt, and a knife strap wraps his right thigh. His dark-brown hair flops over part of his eye; longish but kempt.
He’s the fiend of my nightmares.
He’s what I see in the storm.
Monsters shouldn’t be beautiful—but this one is. A beautiful demon amid his dark cellar hell.
“You tear your bra, too?” He balls up the material and tosses it at me.
I catch it against my chest. It’s a shirt. I try not to take my eyes off him as I lower it from my chest, lifting my chin defiantly.
“Give me your clothes,” he says, the order clear in his dark tone.
I step on the bra with the heel of my boot. Then I kick the torn shirt and gun harness across the room toward him.
He looks unimpressed as he stands stock-still. “The bra, Makenna.”
It’s the first time he’s said my full name. The way he pronounces each syllable, with so much familiarity, sends a ripple of dread over my bare skin. Despite my aching muscles, I lower myself down, keeping my gaze trained on what I can see of his face, and clutch the garment.
“What’s that around your neck?”
His question throws me off-guard, and I clasp the silver heart charm. His breathing intensifies, chest heaving, as his ire travels the short span between us to physically brand me.
Then he spurs into motion.
I tuck the bra down my pants and then brace for the impact. I wrap my arm around the chain, securing myself in place, unmovable. I can’t fight him. I’m not stupid. He’s twice my size and a beast. But I refuse to give in so easily.
His large hand circles my wrist as his other takes the chain. Fear clogs my throat; I can’t breathe. My arm is wrenched free as he yanks the chain. A loud pop, and the iron spike is dislodged from the concrete.
Debris showers my face. I suck air in past the constriction of my lungs.
“Can you breathe?”
I shake my head, in shock, in conflict with his sincere tone. Finally, air slithers into my lungs, liberating my voice. “Y-yes.”
“Too bad.” He grabs my shoulders and hauls me upward. The chain rattles against the floor as my feet kick for purchase. His hand clamps my throat before I can process what’s happening.
Defenses delayed, I go for his eyes with my thumbs, but his forearm deflects my attack and pins my arms above my head. His hand finds my neck again, tighter now, choking my windpipe.
“Where did you get that necklace?”
I struggle against his hold, every muscle in my body aflame. Panic flares, rational thought lost. Blinking, I force my eyes open past the terror.
I swallow a breath, desperate, sucking down air the only way I can. I’m unable to close my eyes—I can’t look away. Shock registers far more deeply than the dread of my life literally slipping through his fingers. Horrid white scars mar one side of his face. Deep lacerations in varying sizes, as if a blade repeatedly slashed the left side. From forehead to jaw.
“Recognize the handiwork?” he asks.
My vision darkens at the corners. Bands of fire wind around my lungs. Before I lose consciousness, his grip loosens. Air blasts my lungs, and I swallow every molecule, thirsty for more. A painful cough racks my rib cage as my legs dangle freely.
“The necklace?” His question is a roar crashing against my ears.
The last of my energy focuses, and I stare into his heated, deranged eyes. “My partner—”
Easton blinks, reactive. Then my arms are released, but he maintains a vise grip around my throat. My hands drop to my sides, my arms feel useless, but I use what fight I have left to claw at his forearm, trying to tear free.
He pushes in closer, his face so near mine I can’t help but see past the scars. There’s a man beneath the demon with blue eyes—and he’s deceptively striking. This terrifies me as much as his strength, as much as his choking hold on my neck. I want him to be a disfigured beast…so I can make sense of it all.
His heavy breaths push against my mouth. His gaze roves from my face to my chest, eyes lingering there as my own breathing comes faster than before. Terror coils around my spine. I try to escape, but his forearm is made of iron, locking me in place. He reaches for me…and a scream lodges at the base of my throat, petrified like every muscle in my body, as I feel his coarse fingers graze my chest. He clasps the silver charm and yanks the necklace from my neck, leaving behind a burning trail from the chain.
“This doesn’t belong to you.” His voice rumbles against my ear as he pockets my necklace.
I barely have time to take a full breath before he moves—even more frantic now—to the snap of my jeans. He yanks them open and shoves his hand down the front of my pants.
Panic spikes my chest. Tears brim my eyes as anger bites my nerves.
He removes his hand, my bra clutched in his grip. “I’ll take this, too.”
I’m released just as suddenly, my legs failing to support my weight, as my whole body shudders with spent adrenaline. I sink to the floor, my arms weightless, unable to shield me. My throat burns, so raw. My body’s fight or flight response is tapering down, sweating out the panic like poison from my pores.
My heartbeat vibrates in my ears, the whoosh-thud so loud I don’t hear him leave. But when I look up, the cellar is void of his hulking presence. He took with him the key to my escape—and the one possession I had to remember Hudson.
He’s crazy. That’s the only sense I can make of his reaction to my necklace. He’s more than disturbed—he’s absolutely unhinged.
When I’m nearly composed, I drag myself toward the flashlight he left behind. The cuff still cinches my ankle, but I’m free to move. Because he lost control.
That changes things. He’s not in charge. Rage governs him.
And when a person can be controlled, it’s only a matter of finding the right buttons to push to take that control yourself.
He tore the damn spike from the slab. Which means if I push him too hard, too far…
He could break me as easily as snapping a twig.
Using the flashlight, I inspect the door. There’s no latch or knob on this side. There’s not even any hinges. It appears as if it’s been welded into place, one solid block of concrete…but that’s not possible. I watched him open it. I know there’s a trick…
I search the walls, looking for a hidden window. Or another door. I wasn’t out for that long. Not long enough to leave the Seattle area. That means this cellar might not be below ground. There are no basements here, at least not in any house I’ve ever seen.
I listen for the tap to come from the other side of the wall. Hoping, praying that I’m not alone. It’s a sick wish, I know. For another person to be trapped here, tortured like t
his. But that feels surreal. The cellar so still and desolate now.
I’m alone.
It’s not until I’m falling asleep, my body depleted and drifting into an abyss of fraught sleep, that I recall what he said. I hear his voice come to me in a lucid dream.
Recognize the handiwork?
His face… Those scars. The pain I saw on a man’s face buried beneath the monster. He may have suffered, but he won’t steal one ounce of sympathy from me. I’ve seen the carnage. I felt the vileness in him when he held back from choking me. He’s a killer.
I turn the light off to conserve battery power.
I wear the shirt he gave me. I think about the spike he tore from the stone.
And I wait.
Chapter Seven
Catacomb
Luke Easton
Jules was beautiful. Young and vibrant, and beautiful. Not just on the outside; she had this purity that shown from within. An innocence that imbued your soul, made you believe in angels.
That’s what drew them to her.
Evil is like the darkest tar. It adheres and tarnishes. It sticks to your bones and infuses your pores. Like the destructive distillation process that produces the crude material, evil is a pure form of its own, consuming, devouring. Destroying.
Back pressed to the concrete wall, I let the solid coolness temper my anger. My big palm swallows the tiny heart charm. The feel of it there is a comfort. Like I got a piece of her back…even if it’s just a little piece.
I saw the destruction with my own eyes. Her beautiful face bruised, dried blood staining her skin. She was so swollen, I couldn’t recognize her. Her body defiled and assaulted and mutilated to the point the medical examiner had to look away—the sight too gruesome even for a doctor.
I know what evil is capable of. That tar-like depravity that pervades the purest souls, stripping away the good in this world and leaving behind a raped wasteland of death and carnage.
Some people experience the dark underbelly, and their life is torn apart by a shattering reality of what this world is truly capable of—and they mourn. They become bitter, spiteful. They go to counseling. They witness a man executed. They move on.
Then others—others like me—are demolished by the same destructive force.
They never come back.
We become a ruin. Same body, same temple, but the inside is long dead and hollowed out.
An evil like that changes you. Once you’ve stared into its eyes, toeing the edge of malicious sickness, your soul is carved out. You’re bled dry.
My cries and fervent shouts to the heavens about fairness and justice died the day I watched my little sister lowered into the earth.
That’s the day I crashed to my knees and vowed vengeance.
You can cope, you can try to move forward…but if you’re a ruin, you build a cellar for your demons, instead.
I hang the necklace on a nail, run my thumb over the silver heart, before I grab the sledgehammer. I groan and smash and work out all the aggression with every swing. I work the image of a half-naked Makenna right out of my head.
When I’m a spent pile of loose and worn limbs sprawled along the cellar floor, the tool discarded near my feet, I drag in cold air to fill my aching lungs, wipe the sweat from my face.
She owes me.
That’s the thought that surfaces. The clarity shining through the darkness of this fucked situation.
Makenna Davies is bait on a hook.
I open the cellar door, and the piercing pain of impelled flesh takes out my leg.
I buckle at the knee, a roar ripped from my mouth, as she attacks again. Lower to the ground, my head’s an easy target. I catch a glimpse of her wild and crazed eyes before she delivers a blow to my head.
My vision flashes black.
“I’m going to kill you—” Her shrill threat is more annoying than the physical pain.
She holds the railroad spike above her head, chest heaving, as she goes for the kill shot. I brace a hand on the floor and catch the spike with my other. Our eyes lock.
“Let go.” My voice is a low warning.
She grips the weapon tighter, fingers white against the rusted iron. Her boot finds purchase on my thigh, and she pushes off, trying to wrench the weapon away.
That’s it. I stand and give the spike one hard tug. Her tiny body crashes into my side like hitting a brick wall. She rebounds and lands ass-first on the floor.
I make a move toward her, and she scuttles backward.
Dammit. I palm the side of my head, eyes sealed shut against the throbbing ache, and then toss the spike. It slams the concrete with a loud clink. Before my temper pops off, I pace a few steps to work out the flames licking my skull.
“That is the kind of stupid I warned you not to do.” When I feel a thread more composed, I turn to look at her. She’s banked against the wall, arms shielding her face. “Oh, stop it. You’re not some scared damsel. Get the fuck up.”
She lowers her hands slowly. Then, with a defiant lift of her chin, gets to her feet. “I’m still a part of the force. They’re my family. I have people, friends who are looking for me. They’ll realize I’m missing, and when they look into—”
“What?” I snap, stomping toward her. “Your car? Your phone? No one is missing you, Mak.”
She blinks. “What do you mean?”
I bring my hand away from my head and look at the blood. “Your car is parked at your apartment building. Wiped clean. Your phone – that you used to dial 9-1-1”—according to the call log—“is off. SIM card destroyed. Even if the police did trace the call, putting you at the scene of Myer’s shooting, and even if they do grow suspicious enough to get access to your loft, all they’ll find is a planner with your vacation days clearly marked.”
“You’re sick,” she says.
A slow smile forms. It’s such a stupid insult. “Sick people don’t rationalize, Mak. Your training obviously didn’t delve into psych one-oh-one.” I leave her for a moment as I gather the bags from just outside the door. Then I toss them in the middle of the cellar.
Makenna stands still, her hair in wild, tangled disarray. The shirt I gave her—my shirt—hangs off one shoulder. The chain still connected to the cuff wrapping her ankle. The confused draw of her eyebrows the only movement as she stairs at the bags.
“What are those?” she asks, her voice so timid I barely hear her.
I remove my leather jacket and let it drop on the other side of the bags. One is the trash bag I took from her apartment, the other is a canvas tote I loaded with her clothes, toothbrush, and other toiletry shit. “You’re staying a while.” I nudge the tote with my boot. “You’ll need to shower so you don’t stink up my place. And this—” I point to the trash bag “—is your files. You’re an investigator. You’re a detective—”
“Was—” she cuts in.
I huff a derisive breath. “For your sake, you better have been a damn good one.”
She rubs her arms. Either from the chilly air or the nervous thought of me going through her apartment. Maybe both.
“What do you want from me, Easton?”
It’s the first time she’s said my name. Called me something other than monster.
I dig out the heart necklace from my pocket and hold it up. “I’m trying to convince myself that you’re ignorant. Otherwise, I can avow, you’d already be dead.”
I kneel down and rummage through the trash bag, locating the file on Jennifer Myer. With a firm flick, I send it across the floor to her. “You were already on to a lead. Keep going.”
She doesn’t touch the file. Just stares at it, as if it belongs to someone else, or another lifetime. “I’m not doing anything until you give me answers.”
The answers I have for her, I’m not sure she can handle. I look at the necklace, my chest threatening to cave in. “Royce Hudson gave you this,” I say, an accusation. “You worked Major Crimes. You know what a trophy is.”
When I flick my gaze to her, the pale appall s
heeting her face causes me to miss an intake of air. She shakes her head. “You know who I am, then.”
“I know exactly who you are.”
“You’re crazy. You’re…a twisted piece of shit. I watched you kill my partner, and now…. What? You say the most atrocious thing to disgrace his memory? What did you do with him? Where is his body?”
Her dark eyes are smoldering coal, burning right through me. She remembers that night. She remembers me. That’s why she held a gun on Keller, and why she wants me dead.
She’s been hunting me.
When I say nothing, she grabs her head, fingers splaying through her messy strands. “You killed him. You stole him from me. For nothing!” She cries out and launches herself in my direction. “Tell me what you did with him—”
She’s a wild animal as she climbs my back, nails clawing at my face and neck. She goes for the knife strapped to my leg, and I stand, taking her with me. I grasp behind me to grab the chain. I use it to pull her body around so I can reach her arm. I try not to break her as I haul her off and set her in front of me.
She’s broken enough.
“Calm down.” I hold her arms at her sides as she fights. But soon, exhaustion takes her and she gives up, body deflated. “Breathe.”
She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. Her whole body convulses as a spasm racks her muscles. “I’m going to be sick,” she warns.
I release her, and she bends over. Dry heaves tear at her system, and she gags. But nothing comes out. She’s dehydrated and weak. Whatever she had left, she used to fight.
“I’ll get you…something,” I say, and turn to leave.
“Say you’re crazy.” Still hunched over, she holds her stomach, her words laced with venom. “Say it now.”
“Those words will never leave my mouth.”
She looks at me now. Those dark pools flicker with spite.
I stand at the cellar door, matching her glare. I tell her the only truth that she can trust in her state. “We both want revenge. Help me find mine, and I’ll grant you yours.”
When this is over, I’ll let her put that damn bullet in my head.