Chapter 58
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CASPER
“I’ve been down here before, ya know.” I nodded towards the hallway to our left, continuing to pull Bellatrix in whatever direction my feet took us. Staying still never did anyone any good. Especially when they were stuck in their own head.
I’d seen it a million times before. The way shock made someone freeze.
Even knowing that it was the last thing they should be doing when they were in danger.
Sometimes they pissed themselves. Sometimes they prayed.
Sometimes they ran—or tried. And sometimes they didn’t do anything but stare.
None of it stopped the bullet from blowing through their brains and splattering their skull out behind them.
It was that deer-in-the-headlights thing people talked about. When you saw your doom coming right for you but you were too stunned to move out of the way. So you just stood there and waited for the car to mow you down.
That’s what she was doing right now. Getting mowed down by her trauma. It wasn’t as messy as two tons of metal cutting through a fleshy blood bag, but somehow it was harder to watch.
And I didn’t know why. Couldn’t say that I cared about her or her dead sister or what being here was doing to her fragile-as-an-egg mental state. Sure, I wanted to know what it was, because knowledge gave you leverage over someone. So I guess I didn’t not care either.
I was stuck somewhere between morbid curiosity and not giving a shit. And all of it made me uncomfortable. Seeing her look so small. The girl who bit part of my dick off wasn’t small—her teeth were sharp and her trigger finger was jumpy. But she wasn’t small.
It was weird for me to be uncomfortable. Usually I was too busy making everyone else feel that way to even notice how I was feeling. But most of the time, it was nothing.
Inside and out, I always felt nothing.
“Back around that corner, I think. The woman of the house liked to keep her trophies…” Arms, legs, and rotting skulls. “…in that little alcove by the stairs.”
I kept talking, trying to be louder than the noise in Bellatrix’s head, as I glanced at the gray-on-gray walls that matched the gray-on-gray floors and the gray-on-gray ceilings. Almost as if the Prescotts were adverse to color. Or they wanted it to feel like a prison.
Probably that last one.
“Come on, I’m pretty sure we gotta go this way.”
Everything looked the same. Dozens of rooms as closed-in as cells.
No décor or really any furniture. It wasn’t all that different from Briarwood, actually.
Back in the day when it was still a nuthouse.
Now it was less sterile and more lived-in.
Less hospital and more high-tech facility.
There were less people and more gadgets.
Here there was no one. Just me and Bellatrix and whatever bodies we hadn’t turned up yet. That was something else rich folks had a bunch of—buried bodies they were hoping would never rise to the surface. Then again, I wasn’t rich and I had plenty of those to my name too.
Guess death wasn’t as finicky about what was lining your pockets as the living were.
When we reached the end of the hall, I realized I walked us in a circle. Or a square. Though I didn’t remember turning that many times. It was like this place was built to be purposely confusing or disorient you.
Bellatrix tugged her arm free and glared in my direction. “You have no idea where you’re going, do you?”
I glared right back at her. “By all means, if you wanna lead the way, do it, princess. Just don’t trip all over your childhood trauma while you’re at it.”
“Says the guy with the emotional bandwidth of a toaster.”
My arm shot up, my palm closing around her throat so tight I could feel her swallow the spit she was thinking about hocking at me. She didn’t try to get away, though. Because as much as she hated me, she loved to fuck me more. She also wanted a distraction.
“And do you know what happens when toasters get wet?” I lowered my mouth to her ear, bit down, and tugged. “They light up.” I skimmed my free hand to the waistband of her pants and shoved it inside. Cupping her soaked pussy through her underwear. “Buzz, buzz, baby.”
Instead of melting against the wall, like I expected her to do, Bellatrix slapped a palm to my balls and squeezed. Then she took a step forward, not stopping until I was backed up against whatever was behind me. A wooden door maybe. Was definitely warmer than the concrete.
She pushed up on her tiptoes, hovering her lips just above mine without touching them. She twisted her hand and grinned when my ab muscles instinctively tightened. It didn’t hurt. It was the opposite actually.
“Works both ways,” she whispered against my mouth, and I braced myself for whatever she was gonna do to me next. Because I had a feeling I was gonna like it.
I was wrong.
She didn’t do anything except reach behind me and twist the knob, pushing her way into the room. Leaving me blue-balled and breathless as I leaned against the doorframe and watched her.
She looked around for a few seconds before turning back in my direction. “This was his bedroom.”
“Who?” I asked. My brain was waiting for its blood flow to return to normal. Otherwise I would have known the answer to that.
“Dr. Lambert,” Bellatrix replied. Her lip curled when she said his name.
Like they weren’t as friendly as the Bossman wanted me to believe.
Then she lifted her chin towards the bed in the far corner.
It had one of those painter’s cloths thrown over the top.
But it was obvious no one planned on doing any painting. “They say he was born here.”