Chapter 22 A Valley of Ashes #2
She couldn’t leave here without her locket.
Maybe she could ask Aunt V for help finding it—if she ever saw the woman again.
She should have never brought it with her.
There were a lot of things she should have done differently in the last twenty-four hours, but there was no regretting things she couldn’t change.
Daisy looked down at her body, hidden now beneath his shirt. Shame flooded her chest, hot and suffocating.
Her gaze returned to her file. How many people had seen it? All of them?
Hadrian knew things about her, things written on these private documents. Every tribute was numbered. Why, so they could reference them?
The hunters probably studied each image, memorized every body before the chase even began. Embarrassment curdled into something darker and harder. Something with teeth.
She ripped the photograph out of the file and tore it in half. Then quarters. Then kept tearing until nothing remained but confetti.
The other pages in her file followed. The copy of her ID. Her mother’s certificate. Every scrap of personal information they stole without her knowledge or consent. She shredded them with vicious efficiency, her breathing ragged, her fingers working until they cramped into fists.
How dare they?
How dare he?
She pulled another folder from the box. Another woman’s face stared up from the photograph inside. Another life laid bare in clinical detail.
Daisy tore it apart.
And the next. And the next. She worked through the box systematically, destroying every file she touched, every photograph, every invasion of privacy her hands could find. The carpet at her feet disappeared beneath a growing drift of paper snow.
Then she found Maggie’s, and her hands stilled. Her folder felt different. Personal. Heavier.
Daisy’s gaze drifted to the balcony doors, to the darkness beyond where the hunt continued. Maggie was out there somewhere. Running or hiding or caught. There was no way to know.
What if she never made it to the safe zone?
Daisy lowered the file aside, her fingers lingering on the number briefly, before she stood. What could she do? She was as helpless up here as she’d been down there.
They were all helpless.
The leather box waited, half-empty now, its remaining contents already damned. She carried it to the hearth and knelt before the flames, feeding the files to the fire one handful at a time.
The paper caught immediately, and flames roared to sudden life, blazing higher than she’d expected. Heat washed over her face, and she scrambled backward.
They were all gone now. All but one. She stood and turned, her heart jerking at the mess she’d made of the pristine room.
“What have I done?”
She surveyed the destruction with cold, sickening dread. Paper fragments covered the rug. Torn, colored photographs littered the floor like fallen leaves. The room was ransacked, violated, unmistakably destroyed by hands that had no right to touch any of it.
Her heart shuddered.
Panic clawed up her throat as the magnitude of her actions crashed over her. She had destroyed evidence. Invaded the privacy of someone who obviously valued it. Burned records that didn’t belong to her.
She was going to pay for this. It sank into her bones.
Maggie’s file.
Daisy rushed forward and snatched it from where she’d set it aside, her eyes darting around the suite for a hiding place. Somewhere safe. Somewhere, she could retrieve it later and return it to her friend. But where?
The empty drawers? The safe was locked. Every surface belonged to him, and nothing in this room would survive his discovery.
There was no safe place. Not here. Not anywhere on these grounds.
The only way to protect Maggie was to ensure no one ever saw what was inside her file.
Daisy opened the folder with shaking hands. The photograph on her ID showed a smiling woman with dark hair and bright eyes, someone who hadn’t yet learned what this night would cost.
Margaret O’Brien. 24 Ashford Lane, Dublin.
She repeated the name. The address. Echoed them again and again until they lodged in her mind like splinters. Then she fed the file into the flames.
The fire licked at the manila paper for a moment, then erupted with tall, greedy flames, climbing higher and consuming the evidence.
A valley of ashes gathered beneath the logs. Fragments of the files still remained, but most were now lost to the embers.
“What the…”
A small scrap of singed paper, curled in the back corner of the fireplace, handwritten and illuminated by the dancing flames. Custom stationery with the letterhead JT at the top. The names leapt off the page against the licking flames Peter Pangbourne, Tannh?user, Hadrian Welles.
Not thinking, she reached into the fire and snatched the note. The hair on her arm scorched immediately as her sleeve caught fire.
“Stop!”
Daisy spun, swatting her arm, putting out the flames, staring into the eyes of Jack. The paper fell to the floor, burning into the carpet.
He crossed the room in two strides, eyes furious, and stomped on what was left of the burned list.
“What have you done?”
Flames reflected in his silver eyes. His dark hair was disheveled, his crisp, white collar speckled with red that looked remarkably like blood.
“Answer me!”
Daisy tensed, reflexively stepping back, forgetting the fire was right behind her. He grabbed her arm with swollen hands, split at the knuckles. More blood.
She looked down at the singed burn hole in the carpet. The note was gone. “Why did you write that list?”
Rather than answer, he yanked up her scorched sleeve, exposing her burned skin. “You’re hurt.”
She tugged her arm away. “Did you set it up? Did you send them for me?”
His mouth formed a flat, disapproving line. Scowling, he snatched her hand and tugged her toward the bathroom, but Daisy jerked her hand out of his grip. “Let go of me!”
“You need—”
“I don’t need anything from you. You’re one of them. But worse. Who are you? Why did you have that list?”
“That list is private.”
“Like the files?” She flung out a hand. “What is all this? Are you the J.T.? Who’s R.A.? Why are you doing this? Did you pick me on purpose?”
“I didn’t pick you,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“Then why am I here?”
His grey eyes moved slowly across the room, cataloging the wreckage, before landing on her with sharp accusation. Cold and dangerous. “I don’t know.”
Daisy’s frantic gaze dropped to his hands, then jumped to his collar. “Is that blood?”
He took a step forward, and she panicked, reaching for the poker and accidentally knocking down the rest of the fire irons in the process. Metal clattered, and she tugged.
“No!” His battered hand closed around her wrist, squeezing where her skin had blistered, shaking loose her grip.
“No!” she screamed, wrestling the poker free.
He jerked it out of her hand. “What are you going to do with that?”
“Defend myself!”
“From who?”
“You!”
“I’m trying to fucking protect you!” He threw the poker, and Daisy ran.
“I can protect myself!” Breathless and terrified, she bolted for the door, throwing herself against the wood as she frantically twisted the key.
He crashed into her, looping an arm under hers and pulling her back.
“No!” She kicked and screamed, thrashing wildly to break his hold. Swinging her head back, her skull connected hard with his face, and he dropped her.
“Fuck!”
She unlocked the door and dove into the hall.
“Daisy!”
No idea where she was, she ran as hard and fast as she could toward the end where the corridor turned.
“Daisy, get back here!”
Her legs pumped and her lungs worked. He was gaining on her. She sprinted right. Music pounded from below. She passed a staircase. It was a funnel of endless doors. A woman laughed. A naked couple, plastered against a wall. Some doors were opened. Beds. Bodies. Moans. A wide hall.
She turned right. Left. Another right. The music faded until his pounding footsteps were all she could hear. He was a wave, building—closer and closer—about to crush her.
Ahead was a table and a vase. The hall split. Left or right. How far could she go?
“Daisy, stop! You can’t go there!”
She didn’t listen. Her legs burned as her muscles screamed and her blood pumped. Almost there. Her feet slid as she prepared to take the sharp turn.
A massive giant of a man with black hair and terrifying eyes appeared out of nowhere. She was moving too fast to stop when his arm, thicker than her waist, snapped out, like a swinging steel bar.
“No!” Jack yelled, but it was too late.
The world whipped sideways as her feet left the ground. She soared through the air, thrown back hard enough to take flight. Then she landed hard enough that her vision sparked and her head snapped forward, then back.
Pain exploded up her spine as hot pressure seemed to collapse her larynx. Daisy sprawled across the floor. A death wheeze escaped as she gripped her throat, which was now a pinhole too small for her to suck in air.
Jack’s face flew into view. He pulled at her hands, but she fought him. “Look at me.”
A horrific peal of breath rasped through her windpipe. She was going to die.
The beastly man who clotheslined glared down at them, not an ounce of remorse in his cold, black eyes. “No one enters family wing,” he growled in a thick Russian accent. “Rules are rules.”
“Daisy, look at me,” Jack demanded, ignoring the Russian giant.
Panicked she would suffocate in this house of horrors, she clawed at her throat.
Her vision swam behind a wall of tears, strangled by an invisible hand that wouldn’t let go.
She gasped and shook her head. She needed air.
“Don’t panic,” Jack said, hoisting her off the floor and holding her upright.
She leaned into him, terrified of the man standing over them. Hulking. Scarred. Flat, dead eyes.
“Hey—hey, look at me.”
Her hands clawed at her throat, eyes wide, panic flashing so bright she could see little else. “I—” The words broke into a rasp. Air scraped painfully.