Chapter 45
Micah
They come down the stairs like vultures gathered for a feast. Vale’s footsteps pound. Corinne follows, moving with the calm of someone who’s practiced cruelty until it became a routine. The machine hums behind them like a beast waiting to be fed.
Katana sees them and unravels. She’s a wild thing on the end of a leash—screaming, thrashing, every primal part of her trying to dislodge the chains and the world that wants to own her. Vale grins as if she’s a toy that finally woke up to its purpose.
“Help restrain her,” he orders.
Corinne’s hands are steady and precise. They unhook Katana, then half-carry, half-wrench her toward the apparatus. Leather buckles meet flesh. Corinne snaps the straps into place with a clean efficiency that makes bile rise in my throat.
“Feisty one, isn’t she?” Vale breathes. He looms over her like a butcher admiring a cut. “I’ll enjoy breaking her.”
“Such spirit. It always burns out sooner than you think,” Corinne murmurs, tightening a strap.
I’ve heard that line before in the mouths of men who think they own the world.
I’ve been patient long enough.
Vale’s hand skates across the console, and wires hum in reply like a chorus.
“I’ve been watching,” he says, his voice slick.
He nods in my direction. “You talk to him, don’t you?
Tell the monster your secrets. But you won’t tell me the truth.
” His gaze sharpens, cruel curiosity lighting his face.
“You were touched, weren’t you? Someone stole from you. ”
The color drains from her face. She doesn’t answer.
He needs nothing more than her silence.
He throws the switch. The machine screams to life—its high, metallic shriek ripping through concrete and bone. My mouth tastes like metal, and the skin on my arms lifts.
“This will only hurt for a minute,” Vale taunts as he slams his hand on the panel. The shock hits her. The bulb above flickers, then dies, plunging the room into a darkness so complete it feels like drowning.
Katana’s scream slices the dark.
For a second, I’m blind before everything else sharpens: the thud of her heart, the wet rasp of breath, the machine keening, Vale’s cruel laughter echoing in the dark. Panic sears through me.
I yank at the pipe until it shrieks—metal protesting—then breaks free. My muscles coil as I bend, my fingers closing around the syringe, slick with the phantom sweat of waiting. It’s small and fragile in my fist, but the needle is a promise.
The machine delivers another brutal pulse. The bulb flares back on, snapping the world into color. Vale leans over the console, delighted, like a man savoring dessert. Corinne’s hands move with the calm of routine.
Katana’s body bows against the restraints. She arches, a sound tearing out of her that will haunt me until I die, before going still. Spittle beads on her lips, and her skin bleaches to the color of moonlight. She gurgles once, like a machine losing power, then falls silent.
Oh, fuck. She’s dead.
Something in me breaks—a howl, a tearing, a shape I’ve kept caged for years. Tears cut hot tracks down my cheeks as I look at her—the woman who made me feel anything close to alive.
She lies on the metal table, pale and still, the last flicker of light gone from her eyes.
“Katana,” I scream. The monster I buried snaps back to full voice. Vale was the lock; Katana the key. With her gone, nothing holds it in.
The monster wakes. It wants blood.
Vale turns at the otherworldly growl that rumbles through my chest. The sound explodes from my throat—demonic, full of rage and pain. His eyes widen as I race toward him, unleashed.
But it’s too late for him.
I lunge. The broken pipe swings from my shackle, heavy as a club.
The syringe finds his neck in one brutal motion—no theatrics, just the sting of plastic biting skin, the wet pop, a stunned sound ripping from his lips.
He claws at the wound, and blood slicks his fingers.
His smile vanishes, replaced by something small and terrified.
He tries to curse, but the word dies before it leaves his mouth. He staggers back. I don’t give him space to recover. The pipe becomes an extension of my arm. I swing.
Metal meets flesh with a sound I’ll carry like a verdict. He crumples against the console, clutching his throat, his eyes blazing with a fury that’s already fading. He flings a handful of blood at me, a last wasted motion, and topples.
He doesn’t rise.
I’m not done with him.
I straddle him and bludgeon him—over and over—until his face is ruined and the machine’s dying whine fills my skull. I punish him for the shocks, for the cruelty, for killing the only person I ever loved. He’ll never touch anyone again. I’ll make sure of it.
Corinne’s scream—sharp and animalistic—echoes through the room. Everything becomes noise: my breathing, the pipe’s echo, the syringe skittering across concrete. Instinct takes over.
“No! You sick—”
That’s all she gets out before I’m on my feet, my hand closing around her throat. I lift her into the air. She flails, nails scraping uselessly against my skin.
“You’re going to untie her,” I growl. “And you’re going to fix her. Make her well.”
I squeeze until she nods, then drop her hard. “Remove my cuffs. Then fix her. NOW!” I release her just enough to let her breathe.
Her professional mask has shattered. She’s pale, body shaking. She scrabbles in the tray for the vial I’d already spotted—the one labeled in neat, clinical script: the reversal agent.
“Please—” she gasps. “You can’t—”
My fingers crush her throat until the room narrows to the single sound of Vale’s ragged breathing on the floor.
Katana lies motionless beneath the light. There’s no rise of her chest. No whisper of air from her lungs.
Panic claws bright and hot at my ribs. If her eyes remain closed and her heart refuses to beat, I’ll become the monster they always feared.
Corinne whimpers, choking out, “Okay.”
I ease my grip so she can move. She unlocks the cuffs, metal clatters to the floor. With shaking hands, she plunges the syringe into Katana’s neck and pushes the plunger.
Katana convulses once, like a struck animal, then shudders. Color crawls back into her face as if the room itself exhales. She coughs—a small, ragged sound—then drags in a lurching breath that evens out. Her lashes flutter, then her eyes open, unfocused, before finding mine.
Relief tastes like acid in my mouth. I shove Corinne aside and collapse over the table, hauling Katana into my arms. I hold her tight, feeling the fragile rise and fall of her chest.
She tenses, then gasps. “Micah.”
I lift my head, following her eyes.
Corinne snatches a scalpel from the tray and lunges, slashing my forearm in a desperate arc. Pain flares, and warm blood beads on the cut.
“You killed my husband,” she spits, venom braided with grief. “Now I’m going to kill her.”
I don’t hesitate. My hand clamps her wrist while the other crushes her throat. The scalpel skitters away. There is a single, cracking sound as I end the threat. Her eyes go empty before I toss her on the floor beside her husband.
Silence slams down like a lid. Blood dots the concrete, dark and obscene.
“Micah,” Katana whispers.
I rush to her and wrap my arms around her. She clings to me, trembling. When she whispers my name—small, and raw, the sound like a choir. “Micah… you saved me.”
I pull back slightly. “I’ll always save you.”
She cups my face, her voice shaking. “I love you, Micah.”
The words land like a shock. I let her see the darkness behind my eyes. Let her see the monster within. “I love you. I’m never letting you go.”
She grins, small and fierce. “You better not.”
I help her up to a sitting position. She’s trembling, still weak from what she endured. I find a glass that somehow survived the chaos and press it to her lips. She drinks. The world outside the room feels both farther away and impossibly close.
For a long, breathless second, it’s just us—two wrecked monsters holding each other in the stunned quiet after the thunder.
She swings her legs over the side of the table, and I help her stand. She takes a few steps, then bends, grabbing the scalpel. I watch with interest as she bends down, slices Corinne’s throat, then does the same to Vale’s.
Her eyes glimmer with something monstrous when they meet mine. “You’re not the only monster in the room.” She rises, still holding the scalpel. “I needed to make sure they’re dead.” Her chin lifts slightly, eyes burning with a possessiveness that makes everything come to life—including my cock.
“I take care of what’s mine.”
My feet eat the distance between us, my hands cupping her face. “We belong to each other. Forever.”
She smiles. “Forever.”
We gather the phones, the wallets, and Corinne’s keys. In Vale’s pocket, I find a set of car keys.
I scoop Katana into my arms and carry her up the stairs. She protests once, weakly, before relaxing against me, her head resting against my chest.
We are dirty, thorned, and lethal as we leave the basement. The air shifts—less rot, more oxygen—but still heavy with ghosts.
I set her on a chair, pausing long enough to fill a bag with bottled water, fruit, meat, and bread—survival in its simplest form.
When I turn back to Katana, she stands, one hand gripping my arm. “I can walk,” she whispers. “I just… need to walk out of here.”
I nod. She needs to prove—to herself more than anyone—that they didn’t break her. As if they could. My little murderess is a monster like me.
Even wrecked, she looks like a queen walking off a battlefield.
Outside, a black van waits in the driveway—rear compartment sealed and windowless, reeking of oil and burned metal. Vale’s machine on wheels. Now our escape.
Katana’s fingers slip into mine as we step into the fading daylight. Two ruined creatures walking out of a house that tried to kill us.
The light stings, raw and strange, but it’s freedom all the same.
I’ll make us disappear, and the world will have to wonder what happened inside the gothic house.
Let them whisper their stories. Let them guess what happened. None of it matters. We know the truth.
Hand in hand, we walk toward the van.
And we don’t look back.