Chapter 15
Sierra
Cain is out of the pool before I can process what’s happening, water running off him as he grabs my hand and pulls me after him. The teasing ease he wore seconds ago is gone, replaced by something sharp and unreadable that makes fear creep higher inside me.
“Cain, what do we do?” I ask, stumbling beside him as we move into the hallway.
“Stay here.” He doesn’t even look at me before heading for the stairs.
He takes them quickly and disappears into the darkness before I can say anything. For one second, there is only silence. Then a violent crash erupts above me, followed by the scrape of something heavy dragging across the floor. I flinch so hard my shoulder hits the wall.
“Cain?” I whisper, hoping he can hear me.
Another bang answers me, louder this time, then the unmistakable sound of bodies struggling, feet slamming against wood, furniture shifting under force.
My stomach drops.
He’s fighting with someone.
I back into the living room on instinct, every part of me shaking now, and crouch behind the sofa because it is the only thing my panicked mind can think to do.
My wet clothes cling to my skin, cold and useless, while I listen to the noise upstairs tear through the house. Each sound feels worse than the last.
“Please…” I whisper again, not even sure whether I’m begging for Cain to be okay or for whoever is up there to leave.
Then it all stops. The sudden silence is so complete it makes my ears ring. I stay frozen behind the sofa, barely breathing, until footsteps begin descending the stairs. Cain appears first. Relief hits me so hard my knees nearly give out. I push myself upright and rush toward him.
“Cain, are you okay?”
He looks at me with something I’ve never seen on him before—fear. His hands hover near shoulder level, palms open, like he knows better than to make one wrong move. Water still runs down his skin, but the effortless composure he had minutes ago is completely gone.
Before I can understand why that feels so wrong, another presence fills the doorway behind him.
A man dressed entirely in black steps into the room with slow confidence, heavy boots quiet against the floor, broad shoulders cutting through the shadows like they belong there.
A black helmet hides his face, the dark visor reflecting my own pale expression back at me.
One gloved hand holds a gun pressed steadily between Cain’s shoulder blades, the barrel angled into his spine like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and every drop of blood in my body turns cold.
Cain moves aside. Not away from him, but because the gun at his back forces him to.
The stranger tilts his head as if he enjoys the fear locking me in place, and when he speaks, his voice slides over my skin like smoke.
“Were you worried about him, kitten?”
The blood in my veins turns to ice so fast it burns. Air catches somewhere in my throat, refusing to move no matter how hard I try to breathe.
I know that voice.
I would know it anywhere.
My eyes lock on the black helmet, on the broad shape of him standing there like he owns the room, and nausea twists low in my stomach.
The forest.
The dirt under my back.
The crushing weight of his body pinning me down while pure survival instinct ripped through every nerve I had.
It’s him.
The one who held me against the ground like I was nothing more than something to control.
I stumble back a step before I can stop myself, pulse roaring in my ears.
“You,” I whisper, the word torn out of me.
A dark chuckle hums through the helmet.
“Cute,” he says, slow and amused. “She remembers me.”
My eyes fly to Cain so sharply it hurts. He’s standing rigidly to the side, hands still raised, jaw tight, the gun never leaving his back. Understanding hits ugly and sharp.
“Leave him alone,” I force out, my nerves bleeding straight into the words. “He has nothing to do with this.”
The stranger goes still for half a second, then a low laugh rolls out of him.
“Doesn’t he?” he murmurs. “You always did miss what was right in front of you.”
Something about the words hooks under my skin, wrong in a way I can’t name. Cain’s jaw tightens, and when his eyes meet mine for the briefest second before dropping to the floor, my stomach sinks with a dread I can’t explain.
I turn back to the stranger, hating the way my body remembers fear before my mind can catch up.
He takes one slow step forward.
Then another.
Every instinct in me screams to run, but my legs feel nailed to the floor.
“Easy, kitten,” he murmurs. “You’re breathing like I came here to hurt you.”
“Then why are you here?” I throw back at him, the edge in my voice sharper than I intended. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”
Tears sting my eyes before I can stop them, dread climbing so fast it makes the room tilt around me.
He moves before I even register it. One second he’s across the room; the next, a gloved hand is around my throat.
My back crashes into the wall, the framed picture beside my head rattling sharply from the impact.
A gasp tears from me as he lifts me high enough for my toes to barely brush the floor.
My legs kick uselessly beneath me, trembling and unsteady as they search for ground that isn’t there.
Air.
I need air.
My fingers claw at his wrist, but he only watches me through the visor, head tilted with a sick kind of satisfaction.
The pressure on my throat tightens, my lungs burning as every passing second leaves me with less air than the last.
“Time for payback, kitten,” he says smoothly, cruelty woven through every word.
Shock crashes through me harder than fear. The memory of the forest, of dirt beneath my back and helplessness in my veins, tears wide open inside me. What stands in front of me isn’t a man. It’s something colder. Something vicious.
A strangled sound escapes me as black spots begin to gather at the edge of my vision. The room starts to sway, walls bending in and out like they’re breathing with me. His fingers feel distant now, more pressure than touch, while the pounding of my own pulse drowns out everything else.
I try to lift my hands again, but they barely move. Somewhere to my left, Cain says something I can’t hear, his voice muffled by the ringing in my ears. The stranger doesn’t even look at him.
The last thing I see is my own body reflected in the mirrored visor as it finally goes limp. Then he speaks from somewhere inside the darkness, the sound of him lingering long after the moment passes.
“Kitten, kitten… hear that sound?
That’s your pulse when I’m around.
Call me monster, call me sin…
Still you let the devil in.”
And then everything goes black.