Chapter 33
Micah
The room smells like antiseptic and old oil—clean and rotten in the same breath. A single fluorescent bulb burns above, throwing shadows that make everything look sharper than it has a right to be.
Even with the drug still riding through my veins, I catalog the space.
This isn’t a cellar for storage. It’s a lab.
Glass vials in a rusting rack, coils of tubing like pale intestines, a steel table bolted to the floor with clamps, instruments that glitter with intent.
Charts are tacked to the walls—handwritten notes, smears of something dark.
Jars line a shelf, each filled with cloudy liquid and neat labels that smell faintly of chemistry and menace.
Katana and I are chained to a broad metal pipe that runs from floor to ceiling—industrial and immovable.
The iron bites my wrists; the cold spikes up my arms. At the far end, wooden stairs vanish into blackness.
Above, the house breathes: a distant clock, the groan of old boards settling.
Vale made sure this place had privacy. No easy exits.
I watch Corinne as she goes into a closet, noting the keys hanging from her belt loop that she uses to unlock it. She slips through the door, closing it partially behind her so we can’t see inside.
She slips out, closing and locking the door behind her like she wants to preserve the secret inside.
“Things are almost ready. I have some things to do upstairs to prepare.” She gives us a smile that I catalog as attempting to come off as reassuring, but I don’t trust it.
Sometimes, the worst humans pretend to be nice until they can no longer hide the monster inside.
Neither of us says anything, but it doesn’t faze her.
“I’ll see you soon, children.”
After she disappears upstairs, my gaze roams over Katana, checking her for new injuries. Other than being terrorized and chained to an industrial floor-to-ceiling pipe, she’s okay.
I need to get us the fuck out of here.
Now that we’re alone, I test the pipe like I do a man—slowly and deliberately.
There’s no give. The shackles are old but solid.
The thought lands with the weight of a stone—we were brought here for Vale’s twisted experiments.
My eyes move to the metal table across the room.
Needles and machines, a man who studies fear.
Katana curls against the wall, folding down until she’s a small, hollow thing. She slides to the concrete, knees drawn, nails curled into her palms.
I tighten my jaw until it aches, hating that I couldn’t protect her, like I promised. I try to reassure her anyway. “It’s okay, little murderess.”
Her head lifts, hazel eyes meeting mine, fear and a drop of hope in them. Nothing is okay about this situation, and I’m fucking pissed that I allowed this to happen to us, but I’ll do anything I can to protect her.
He found my weakness. Now he plans to exploit it.
I pull. The chains bite. I try angle, leverage, and brute force. Metal groans and my muscles scream, but there is no give. There are things even I can’t break by will alone.
I let my shoulders hit the cold wall as I slide to the floor, my legs straight out in front of me. I stare at Katana, hating to see her so scared.
My slip-ons scrape the floor as I toe one off, then the other. I extend my bare foot and try to touch hers, offering her comfort the only way I can.
She looks at my bare feet, then at me. She shifts, extending her legs out in front of her, feet almost touching mine. She toes her shoes off, one at a time. Then she stretches out her legs as far as she can. Our feet meet—skin to cotton. An anchor in engineered terror. Her socks are white and warm.
“Little murderess,” I say, and the name tastes like truth. My voice is low and raw. “I’ll get us out of here. I fucking promise.”
She looks up. A stubborn spark lives in her hazel eyes. It steadies me more than I expect.
“And when I do,” I add quietly, my voice hard as iron. “I’ll tear him apart until there’s nothing left. He’ll never terrify you again.”
The words are ugly and final. The monster hums under my skin—patient and hungry, waiting for the signal.
For now, we breathe… and wait.