Chapter 13 #2
I rise to my feet, knowing what I have to do.
Shuffling back to my bed, I pull the switchblade from under my pillow and quickly move to my bedroom door.
Sweat slicks my palms, pulse drumming in my temples, but I won’t cower and be picked off.
I won’t be the fourth victim. Someone is killing hopefuls, someone who’s not playing by the rules, and that someone is only a few flights of stairs away.
If I can make it to another bedroom on the floor above, one with a window that doesn’t face the same way as mine …
I have to move fast, and silently. Forcing a breath through my teeth, I wrench back the door, and find a figure on the other side, waiting—
I gasp.
My training kicks in, and I thrust up with my switchblade, but they twist quickly, blocking my arm against the doorframe and as I bring my knee up, aiming a swift crunch between their thighs, they pin me to the wall.
‘For goodness’ sake, stop,’ Alden hisses. ‘My window was open and I heard a scream. The front door creaked open right after. Someone is in the hall downstairs.’
I hear the footsteps below, the quiet tap and shuffle of someone making their way up. Alden raises his eyebrows and I step back to let him inside.
Alden closes my bedroom door quietly then gets to work, locking it, then beginning to shove the large wardrobe in front of it.
I help him shift it into place, then back away as footsteps sound on the other side of the door.
They must have seen me at the window, watching them.
Alden takes one step back, palms slightly raised at his sides, and we both wait for the person to reach our landing.
The one who’s here to kill.
We hear the metallic click as the door handle is turned. Without realising, I move closer to Alden, placing my hand on his back, just as we were in the tunnel in Alabaster House. He looks down at me, brown eyes shadowy and watchful in the dark, and my heart stutters.
There’s a thud, as though the murderer has thrown a shoulder against the door and my fingers tighten on the material of the shirt on Alden’s back.
I have followed murderers for the Collector, I have dealt with the unsavoury, the downright vile in the backstreets of Dinar Tar, but if this person is picking off hopefuls who are better wielders than I am, then I’m outmatched.
There’s another thud and I flinch, trying to control the racing thoughts, the fear flitting electric through my veins as we both move into position, in case they find a way in.
Alden reaches for my hand, drawing me closer, and I lean my forehead into his arm for a heartbeat.
I breathe in his scent, all fresh laundry and cedar and something smoky and rich, like that night at the bar.
Not the sharp tang of copper, not that awful scent in the Morlagh Woods, or the night Dolly died.
No. This is a person, a hopeful, and I’ll be damned if they end my time here.
But then their footsteps recede from my door, and I release a silent breath.
Only to flinch again at the sound of a door cracking open, right across the landing.
I open my eyes, looking up at Alden to find him staring at the wardrobe, jaw clenched, entire being poised and ready for a fight.
They don’t know he’s in here with me. They’ve gone after him instead.
‘Don’t,’ I whisper to him. ‘Alden, no.’
The sound of scrapes and thuds echoes from Alden’s room and his hand twists around mine, as though he is unconsciously forming a fist.
‘The cowardly bastard …’ he mutters darkly. ‘I would have been asleep in there.’
I reach up, fasten my fingertips around his jaw and pull his head sharply towards me. ‘But you weren’t. You’re here, with me. Let them take what they like – better to ransack your room than your life.’
He growls, deep in his throat, and I feel it through every inch of me. ‘If they steal from me …’
‘Alden. I am not just saying this to stop you from opening that door and getting me killed. I don’t want you to die.
’ As I say this, I realise it’s true, that this is more than me protecting my own interests.
I genuinely do not want to see him hurt.
Taking half a step so my body is flush with his, I tug on his chin again. ‘ Eyes on me .’
I feel his heartbeat pounding with mine, his filled with fire and fury.
‘Eyes. On. Me.’
There are more sounds of rummaging, of furniture being shoved and thrown before footsteps sound again on the landing, eventually heading for the staircase, and departing. Silence, heavy and hot, wraps around Hope Hall.
And I realise we’re still staring at each other.
My fingertips flutter from his chin to rest lightly, on his chest. His eyes are dark pools, burning into mine as he reaches up, closing his hand around my fingers.
He leans his forehead down, resting it on mine, and I close my eyes, the world around us falling away.
I can feel his heart, beating beneath my fingertips, and somehow, it’s more intimate than the kiss we shared in the bar the first day we met.
His touch, his vulnerability, his beating heart …
it’s like he’s cracked open a doorway into his soul and allowed me to hover on the threshold.
‘Sophia,’ he breathes.
‘Yes?’ I say, not daring to move, not wanting to.
‘You are not allowed to die. I forbid it.’
Then his lips gently brush mine, leaving a smouldering trail.
He kisses the corner of my mouth, just like that night in the Morlagh, then along my jaw, and I’m afraid that if I move, he’ll stop.
Sparks fill my veins as he moves back to my lips, kissing me tentatively, like it’s our first. For a moment, we stand there, lips touching, breathing softly.
It’s so still, so quiet, I almost believe I’m imagining it.
With a low exhale, he releases my fingers and steps back, breaking the spell. ‘I have to check if they’ve taken anything. If they’ve taken something I had in my keeping.’
My heart clatters and I want to reach for him; I want to live in that moment for longer.
But he runs a hand down his face, gaze moving from the wardrobe to the window before striding across the room to shove the wardrobe away from the door.
I wait, trying to get a grip on myself as he pushes it aside, throwing back my bedroom door and stalking for his room.
I take a breath, pressing my fingertips into my eyelids as I come up for air, shaking off his lingering presence, which still whispers around me like a fever dream, before trailing after him.
His room is chaos.
The mattress is flipped, torn sheets and blankets scattered across the floor, books and papers ripped apart, chair upturned, a lamp on its side, shards of glass glittering darkly.
This person picking us off must have been pissed that I witnessed the latest murder.
Even more so that they couldn’t lure us out and claim more kills, it seems.
I swallow and look at Alden. He’s silent, lethally so.
‘Locke, talk to me,’ I say quietly. ‘What did you have in here? Something precious? Is there anything missing?’
‘I …’ Alden blinks, as though coming back to himself and glances at me, then away. ‘Nothing of significance.’
I narrow my eyes, watching as he checks then rechecks the room, as though searching for an item that is missing.
The last time he acted like this, averting his eyes from mine and dodging specific answers, was in the Morlagh.
‘Liar. Is it about that pale monster in the Morlagh? You never told me what you know.’
‘Damnit, DeWinter,’ he growls, rounding on me.
I stand my ground and tip my chin up to meet his gaze.
‘Something of value, yes. Something important to me. The last letter from my father, a note, warning me not to go into the woods. It had information I need, something vital I’m still trying to piece together …
It was all I had left of him from that night.
It’s gone and in the wrong hands …’ He shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair.
‘Never mind. I will … I must sort out this mess. They won’t be back tonight. I’m sure they got what they came for.’
I fold my arms, regarding him. ‘And what’s that?’
He sighs. ‘Our sense of safety. We’re marked now, and they made sure we both know it—’
A scream rips through the walls, followed by shouting.
Doors open, banging back, more voices echoing up the staircase.
I take one last look at Alden then move towards the stairs, hearing more commotion, then the commanding voice of a professor.
I suppose they’ve found the young woman’s body outside.
When I turn back, I find Alden has closed his bedroom door, leaving me alone.
I barricade my own bedroom door with the wardrobe, but I don’t sleep again all night.
The smallest noise sends my pulse racing, heart thumping in the deathly quiet.
But it’s not just the dead hopeful, or the murderer, or the fear that churns up my thoughts.
It’s Alden Locke, and how he risked leaving the safety of his own bedroom.
How he heard that scream raking the night air outside Hope, and his first thought was to protect.
How he shut us both in here together, and for a moment, for a tantalising moment, peeled back every layer.
That kiss … it’ll haunt me. If I had left my bedroom and sought refuge in a room on a higher floor, would I have been able to hide from the murderer?
Or would I have been claimed as the next victim?
As much as I hate to admit it to myself, Alden Locke may have saved my life tonight.
Alden with his deep brown eyes, his scent of cedar and something darker, smokier, that kiss that’s left me craving more, that I can still feel like a whisper on my lips … I shake myself, dispelling the molten dreams of him, the memory of the day we first met, and now, the moment we shared tonight.