Chapter 10 #2
Sarah screams, a high, throat-tearing wail that makes my skin crawl. She shoves the plate away and vomits instantly, collapsing out of her chair. She claws at her tongue, sobbing, gagging, retching like she can somehow erase the taste.
Jared pushes his plate away so hard the ceramic shatters. He staggers up, choking, spitting, crying without sound.
Emma gags into her napkin, shoulders heaving, full-body shaking, tears streaming as she presses both hands over her mouth.
Miles stares straight ahead, eyes empty, refusing to look at the plate.
Sophie claps, delighted. “Now Beth lives in all of you.”
Asher bends down to Sarah, whose entire body is trembling so violently she can barely breathe.
He whispers loudly enough for all of us to hear, “Next time, eat slower. Really savor the family recipe.”
Sarah screams again raw and broken.
The rest of the victims cry in varying degrees of horror:
“Stop—please—”
“Oh God—oh God—”
“No—NO—NO—”
I can’t move or speak. I can barely breathe. The room spins. The screaming doesn’t stop. The smell of roasted human meat mixes with vomit and iron and makes my stomach twist violently.
Everything inside me feels cold. Like something essential has been scooped out by these monsters and replaced with nothing but shock.
Elliot stands at the head of the table, looking absolutely delighted.
“What a heartwarming family reunion.”
Sophie laughs and wipes a tear from her eye, like she has just heard a good joke.
Sarah wails again and curls into herself on the floor. No one tries to comfort her. No one can.
I swallow hard, bile burning at the back of my throat. The cruelty is suffocating, thick as the warm air in the room. It presses down on all of us.
And suddenly, the physician’s words flash through my mind:
Most likely, they’ll kill you. Very few survive this place. Everyone dies here eventually.
I had tried to pretend he was wrong. That I was different. That I had enough fight in me to outsmart an entire manor built on terror.
But watching Sarah crumble, watching Jared vomit, watching Emma break, reality hits me like ice water.
I probably won’t survive this.
I’m pregnant, injured, exhausted, surrounded by killers who treat human life like a game. And if I do die, it won’t be clean or quick. It will be twisted. A spectacle they’ll enjoy. A sick, brutal ending—just like Beth’s.
I am not na?ve enough to deny it anymore. But if I go out, I will take as many of these sadistic bastards with me as I can. Every last one I can reach. Every throat I can tear open. Every bone I can break.
They have no idea who they're fucking with.
I lift my head slowly, jaw clenched, breath shaky.
Elliot opens his mouth to speak.
Then the television blares to life with a sudden brEAKING NEWS ALERT.
Everything stops. Every sound dies in place. Even the killers go still, attention dragged toward the screen.
The anchor leans closer to the desk, eyes flicking down and back up again, voice raised with urgency.
“We’re just receiving information out of Colorado. This is developing right now,” she says. “Seth Kincaid, the suspected spree killer connected to the Everspring Hotel massacre, has escaped federal custody.”
My heart slams against my ribs, and my breath stutters like my body can’t decide whether to collapse or run.
A grainy hospital security image appears on the screen. The footage shows Seth moving down a hospital corridor under harsh fluorescent lights. His shirt clings to his body, darkened with blood.
He is walking on his own. He looks pale and badly wounded, but there is no mistaking him.
Seth is alive.
A sound tries to claw its way out of my throat, half sob, half laugh, and I swallow it down hard. My knees go weak.
The anchor’s voice rushes to keep up.
“Kincaid was being held at a Colorado medical center under twenty-four-hour armed guard. Moments ago, hospital surveillance footage confirmed his escape. Authorities now believe he was assisted by an accomplice, believed to be extremely dangerous.”
Another clip replaces it.
A tall man moves through the frame in hospital scrubs, pale blue fabric streaked dark along one sleeve.
His broad shoulders crowd the narrow space as he advances with controlled urgency.
A gun sits steady in his hand, a long barrel fitted with a silencer.
He moves with purpose, body angled to shield Seth as they advance down the corridor together.
“Law enforcement confirms multiple officers were killed during the escape,” the anchor adds, almost stumbling over the words as they come in.
The camera angle changes as alarms begin to wail faintly in the background of the footage.
“At least five fatalities have been reported at this time. Authorities are urging the public to remain indoors as this situation continues to unfold.”
The room goes silent again.
Sophie straightens slowly, her wineglass forgotten, knuckles whitening around the stem. Her eyes stay locked on the screen.
Knox stops moving entirely, shoulders squared, attention sharpened into focus.
Asher freezes mid-step, jaw locked, gaze fixed forward.
Elliot’s smile twitches, just slightly. He reaches for his glass, and takes a slow sip—buying himself a second to think.
When he sets it down, his hand lingers on the stem a beat too long.
The corners of his mouth lift again, but the shine in his eyes has dulled.
He is calculating now. Reworking whatever script he thinks he is in charge of. Trying to look unfazed.
I laugh.
The sound bursts out of me before I can stop it, too loud for the room, pitched on the edge of hysteria.
It scrapes its way up from my chest and spills into the air, breathless and shaking, refusing to be contained.
My body trembles with it, as if my nerves have finally shorted out after holding too much for too long.
My chest shakes as the laughter keeps spilling out, raw and uncontrolled, tears burning at the corners of my eyes.
I had mourned him. I had felt the hollow certainty that he was gone.
They had watched me carry that weight. They had wanted it to break me.
They had wanted my hope dead before my body followed.
They failed.
They all stare at me.
Elliot.
Sophie.
Knox.
Asher.
The other victims.
I drag my hand across my face wiping away the tears, the laughter still bubbling out in uneven bursts, and lift my eyes to Elliot.
Seth is alive.
And now I know, with absolute certainty, that he is coming for me.
“You know,” I laugh, voice shaking, “whether you kill me or not…you’re all so incredibly fucked.”