CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

MIRA

––––––––

No amount of stuffing my hands into my mouth stifles the stupid whimpers escaping my throat. In the hollow chamber of the cellar, they are loud. Atomic bombs exploding over the desert.

Even without the whines, my heart is a jackhammer in my chest. There is no hiding from the long legs stuffed in filthy boots descending the stairs with a flashlight.

I scrunch harder against the wall, sliding as low to the ground as I can humanly allow myself without digging a hole. His thick beam of light sweeps along the bodies, outlining them in a golden thread before dropping them back into their darkness.

“I know you’re in here,” he drawls, taking another step deeper into my tomb. “You’re not stupid enough to run into the woods at night covered in my brother’s blood.”

His tone is calm, level. But there is a vibration beneath it, a taut thread of rage he’s trying to conceal. I know when he finds me — because he will — he will not go easy. He will not show mercy and all I keep thinking is how gentle and thoughtful my boys had been just the night before. How careful they’d been to take care of me.

I want my boys.

I want to be home with them entwined around me, pulling me out of this nightmare.

But more than anything, I need to tell Christian how much I love him. If I die, he will never know. I don’t even give a shit about the curse anymore. How can anything matter when I wasted so much time being scared when I could have spent every second with them, loving them and letting them love me. I just want another chance with them. I will do better. I will tell them every day how much I love them.

If I make it out.

But the foul perfume of death and fear leaves no room for such fantasies, especially when he’s moving through the row of bodies straight in my direction.

Biting my lip, tasting my own blood, I consider scampering sideways, moving along the walls, away from his searching halo of light. But the thought of moving, of giving away my location has me paralyzed in place.

“Come out, come out wherever you are, dead bitch.”

A sharp pain slices up my arm, a biting gnaw that has my gaze dropping to the fistful of keys I’m clutching with the phones. The jagged teeth are cutting into my clammy palm, creating a steady trickle of blood down to my elbow.

Something like fire sparks in my chest, a flicker of almost hope I don’t cling too hard to because I know I’m going to fail in the end no matter what. But I lace the metal bits between my fingers, threading them through like a macabre knuckle brace. It won’t kill him. Will most likely make things worse, but I’m not dying without a fight. Even if I have to take chunks of him with me.

When the light finally slashes over the wall above my head and stops on my face, I know it’s over even before his low, grating snicker.

“Found you.”

No shit, I want to snap, but don’t. I stay focused on my breathing, on my will not to cry or scream. I have one shot and I’m going to make it count.

“You killed my brother, you stupid cunt. Boyd never did anything to anyone.” Yet the evidence of their crimes dangle from the rafters around us. “Now, you are never going to die. I’m going to keep you down here with all your new friends and visit you every day and remind you what you took from me.”

Breathe.

Breathe! I will myself.

I hear the jingle of a belt buckle. The hiss of leather being yanked free. He’s no more than a hazy silhouette behind the hot, blinding light, but I know what he’s doing.

The flashlight waves and bobs. It’s shifted from one hand to the other and moved to rest on a stack of moldy boxes. It’s too high to highlight much, but maybe it’s better that way.

Filthy fingers catch in my hair and drag me away from the wall. The stone foundation scrapes across my knees, drawing blood that goes unnoticed when I’m shoved to the ground. The phones tumble out of my fingers, but I grip tighter to the keys even as I try to scramble backwards.

“No, you fucking don’t.” His clammy fist closes around my ankle. “You should have let Boyd have you. He was still learning. He would have been gentle. I like when they scream and beg, and bleed. The more you bleed, the better it feels.”

My stomach heaves and I have to fight not to throw up, to stay focused.

The fingers around my foot yank and I’m dragged across the dirt. I’m only vaguely aware of the bodies swaying straight above me as he claws his way up my body.

Now! Now! Now! My brain screams as his weight presses me into the concrete. His hips slam up between my thighs. All the bells are clanging in my head and I’m momentarily frozen when he reaches down and rips my panties off.

The sharp burn against my skin jolts me back.

I drive my makeshift weapon into his face. Into his eyeball. The squelch and suck sends bile up into my throat, but I don’t stop. Even as Dirk howls and rears back, I stab him again.

The neck. The chest. The face again

My hand is slick with hot, sticky blood and the keys are slipping from my grasp, but I keep going until I lose my hold and he’s shrieking and wailing.

I shove him and he rolls slightly, hands clutching his face. Crimson streaks oozing between his fingers. Frantic to get away, I try to scramble up, to get to my feet. I almost make it when something twists into the back of my shirt and drags me down.

I hit the ground on my face, losing my breath. Tasting copper and inhaling dust. Something hot and sticky trickles down into my eye.

“Bitch!” Dirk is screaming, crying.

His fist twists in my top and I’m yanked beneath him again. Something hard collides with the side of my head.

Once.

Twice.

Stars explode across my vision and the world wavers. I know I’m not getting out of this. He’s straddling my back, slamming his fist into my skull. Ripping at my hair. The meaty thuds echo between my ears over the alarm bells.

This is how I die, I realize dimly, hoping he kills me quickly.

Suddenly, the beatings stop. Something heavy crashes over me, on me, tackling Dirk over. His flailing and bellowing barely register over the dull ocean pulsing in my head. But something urges me to move, to get up. It’s a strange, phantom insistence digging into my sides, prickling across my abused scalp.

I groan and drag my aching body up. I manage to crawl a couple of feet only to feel myself stop and glance back.

The light’s been kicked off the box. It’s on the ground, angled wrong to see anything properly, but I can just make out Dirk’s flailing shape fighting a small bulge, a contorted bundle of pale limbs. My gaze lifts to the rafters and the two empty hooks, but three empty spots.

They must have slipped off their hooks in the struggle. The thought is both a relief and revolting, but their combined weight has Dirk pinned. Vaguely, through the heavy fog of pain clawing to pull me under, I acknowledge the way they’re crossing over him, just perfectly so to keep him contained. Like they’re saving me, protecting me the way no one protected them.

It’s insane. Delusions, obviously, but it fills me with a new purpose. A new fire.

Leave! The voice in my head urges. Run!

But my swaying body is climbing to its feet. It shuffles in the dirt as I wobble back to stand over the monster fighting his own demons.

I can’t see his face. I can barely make him out at all, but I see the blur of his motions, hear the blood curdling screams. I can just make out the silver glint of steel jutting from a curved spine.

I waver between awake and soothing darkness, but I close filthy, bloody hands around the hook handle and jerk. The decayed flesh tears easily and I stagger back a step only to rear forward with what little strength I have left. My good arm swings up then down again and again, driving the sharp point into Dirk’s head. His face. Slamming and ripping until his wails are gurgles then silence.

“Piece of shit!” I scream. Sob. Choke.

Only when I can’t anymore and the world is a blanket of thick, rancid ashes swallowing me up, do I finally submit.