Chapter 7
Ribbons of fear unfurl in my stomach the longer he remains transfixed on the ring, his gaze growing haunted, distant, almost as though some unseen force had quietly stolen him away.
Somehow, this tiny silver band is of significance to him.
I can feel it.
See it.
It’s carved into the deepening pleats between his brows, his expression marked by something that lies far beyond my understanding.
A frown creases his mouth, his complexion turning sallow before tears gather along his lash line, lending a liquid sheen to the pitch-black of his irises until the grief inside them becomes impossible to ignore.
It’s as gut-wrenching as it is unnerving.
“How did you get that?” he rasps.
His gaze finally tears itself away from the ring before finding mine, the movement slow, reluctant, almost pained. The pulsing knot in my throat swells.
“I…” My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. “I found it downstairs.”
Mustiness saturates the air, the mold creeping from the corners of the walls until its damp, foul odor wraps around me, shrinking the room by imperceptible degrees.
He doesn’t respond right away. Doesn’t even move or blink.
Only stares.
His hardened gaze flicks back to the ring once more, the seconds stretching into minutes that fail to ease the pressure settling over me. A prickle crawls the length of my spine.
Stay calm.
Stay focused.
I swallow, but my throat refuses to cooperate. My tongue brushes the split in my lower lip, a bright burst of copper spreading across my mouth before I can stop myself from worrying it between my teeth. The persistent burn anchors my thoughts, offering a brief reprieve.
When I blink again, black flecks drift through my vision, writhing until they resemble dancing maggots. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the dizzy spell to break, only for the room to tip farther off its axis.
And then he moves. A subtle shift, then a full-blown step toward me, his crestfallen eyes remaining fixed on the ring as he closes the distance.
I stagger away, stumbling backward as my stomach drops at the abrupt change in him. That shred of hurt in his eyes curdles into a feverish fixation.
Colliding into the wall behind me, my fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms as I drag them out of view. His eyes snap up to mine, and the world tones down into an eerie hush that lacks the usual thudding of my heart.
My pulse.
Disturbingly silent.
“The ring,” he whispers so low that I would’ve almost missed the faint crack in his voice.
Carefully, I make sure to keep myself still enough that my knees don’t buckle, my nails digging harder into my tender skin to keep from trembling. His brows draw in, still silent as he takes in my words.
I wait for him to speak again.
Offer any form of explanation.
“Don’t do that,” he warns.
A pulse kicks in my throat. “What?”
My hand slides from my collar to my stomach, instinctively clutching it as my fingers shake harder. Bitter saliva floods my mouth, every nerve painfully aware of his pointed glare. Then it all snaps into place.
The ropes.
The blood.
The ring.
It’s all connected. Something terrible happened between him and whoever owned this ring. I don’t know how, but somehow, I’ve been caught in the middle of it.
Butterflies flood my stomach, but they aren’t the pleasant kind. They turn rabid, scraping and tearing through my insides until I can’t help but double over, clamping my hands over my mouth.
Please, please, please don’t freak out.
Not now.
Fatigue bears down on me all at once, weighing down my limbs until they threaten to give out beneath me. Refusing to let myself come apart, I pry my chin back up.
But my resolve evaporates the moment he takes another step toward me, a longer stride than the one before.
I feel the sharp edge of anxiety pecking its way through me, harder this time.
I try to inch back, but the arctic wall at my back keeps me immobile, my head fixed forward on him. Blinding heat prickles my eyes.
“Manson?”
No response.
With my chest constricting and my mind reeling, I search wildly for a way out, but panic eats through every half-formed idea.
Through my periphery, I make out the blurred entryway, unable to stop measuring the distance between me and it as I debate whether I should just break into a sprint.
But where do I even go?
Nothing else is left for me here.
He closes in on me, eyes locked on mine. My shoulders hitch against the wall behind me as I tense.
Reaching for my wrist, his grip is punishing, fingers digging into the delicate skin enough to make me flinch. “W-what are you doing?”
His brows bunch, eyes glazed with a distant look as he tightens his hold on me, like he’s afraid I might slip through his fingers and vanish from view.
Our joined hands become his sole focus. Standing still as a statue, I chase the pulse climbing his cheek and the tightening of his jaw.
Following each tiny betrayal. Trying to read into it.
Dig something out. But he gives nothing else.
Time collapses.
Beneath my feet, the floor turns to quicksand, threatening to swallow us whole. His iron-rod grip hauls me under with him until I almost feel the earth closing over my head, smothering what little moonlight remains.
Pain saws through my wrist as he tightens his grip, wrenching a wince from me.
“Manson, please,” I force out in a weak, pathetic squeak, my lips quivering as I try to snag his attention back. “You’re hurting me.”
The tiniest flicker returns to his hooded eyes. A sign he’s heard me. His tears well, encouraging my own. Up close, my attention snags on the vein beneath his eye. Bruised and serpentine, it cords more prominently now, standing out starkly.
The moment a salty tear lands against his hand, he jerks away with a heavy rasp. “I-I’m sorry.” Jabbing his fingers into his hair, he twists them at the roots. “Shit, I don’t know—I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you.”
Gawking at him, I swallow against what feels like sandpaper and shake my head, a full bobbleheaded sway. “You didn’t.”
“I did,” he snaps a little too loudly, making me jump in place. Fingers tug harder at his hair, the tendons along the back of his hand bulging with the effort. “I did. I did. Fuck…”
My insides pitch.
A prickling sensation licks along the tips of my fingers and toes, pulling a full-body shudder from me. Unable to dredge up anything else, I lapse into a stunned, brittle silence.
Somewhere beyond the room, the floorboards creak beneath a familiar set of footsteps. “Shit, I think I left my lighter back there.”
Dax.
Fear, hope, and doubt crash into me, churning heavily in my gut.
Swinging my gaze toward the doorway, I watch as he fills it, a string of curses slipping past his lips, utterly unaware he isn’t alone.
He moves past us, crossing the threshold to the far side of the room. Stooping beside the fireplace, he retrieves the lighter he’d left behind, tucks it into his pocket, then pivots back toward the doorway.
I wanted to call out to him.
Plead for him not to leave.
But my throat narrows to a stifling point. It’s useless.
Nobody else can hear me.
A broken sob slips free despite my best efforts to smother it.
Abhorrent pain punctures through me, shredding what’s left of my brave exterior.
More tears plummet down my face, unstoppable now.
Manson leans back in, fumbling through tangled strands clinging to my cheeks before sweeping them aside.
His thumb desperately skims beneath my eye, only to be met by a fresh rush of tears.
Bowing my head, I squeeze my eyes shut and jerk away, unable to endure the frantic tenderness in his touch. I want to crawl into my own skin. Hide. Disappear.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, cupping my face and gently coaxing me to part my eyelids. I don’t. I can’t. “Please, please don’t cry. I can’t stand it.”
His unsteady voice grows warped and muddled, every word reverberating through the hollow space inside my head. Bristling, I press my lips into a thin line until they ache, but my restraint gives way to a worse fractured sob, raw and ragged with grief.
I don’t snap out of it until a thunderclap boom sounds from beside us, an explosive crack that rattles the walls and echoes in my ears.
The door.
It’s slammed shut.
Dax is still on the inside, his hands shooting toward the door before he shouts, “What the fuck?!”
Shellshocked, I tear myself off of Manson, my mind scrambling to piece together what just happened.
For a beat, Dax keeps his gaze fixed on the unmoving door. His fingers slowly curl into fists before he stalks the remaining distance, every stride taut with barely contained rage.
“Blair!” His voice booms.
Impatient, he pounds the door with one fist while the other slides to the rigid doorknob, clasps it, and twists.
It’s jammed shut, and ice radiates down my spine.
“Blair,” he calls a little louder, this time banging more insistently and jostling the knob until it chatters against the latch.
“Dax?”
“Open the fucking door,” he grits out, each twist of the knob meeting the same unyielding resistance.
My chest constricts as though the roof itself has caved in above me. Crushing me.
Blair’s voice pitches higher to combat his, sounding confused herself. “I’m not touching anything.”
“Seriously?” he snaps, finally pushing himself off the door with a sharp exhale before evening out his tone, softening the edge in it.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, alright?” His hands splay in defense as if she can see them through the barrier.
“It was all a misunderstanding. Let’s just put everything behind us and get out of here, okay?
You can even come back to my place after. ”
The next beat of silence drags.
The noose around my throat tightens. More. Harder.
“I’m not upset,” she says, a tremor in her voice. The knob vibrates, resisting the turn. Dax’s eyes narrow at the rusted metal, harsh lines etched between his brows. “It’s not me, I swear. The door isn’t opening. I don’t know why.”
“Are you trying to get back at me?”
“What? No!”
“I said I was sorry, damn it. What else do you want from me?” he roars, cheeks flushed.
“No, you don’t get it,” she pleads with him, on the verge of tears. “It’s not me. It’s this house. It’s…it’s…”
Dread coils low in my stomach. I don’t dare look at Manson. Instead, I keep my gaze trained on Dax, watching fury burn until his features turn almost incandescent. A thread away from igniting.
“Blair,” he grinds out, speaking around a mouthful of venom. “What…the fuck? I’m asking nicely.”
When she doesn’t answer right away, he loses all civility.
“Cut the shit. Open the door. Now.”
A second later.
“Please.”
Quietly, she whispers, “I’m trying. I swear.”
The doorknob grinds beneath her frantic grip, metal rasping against metal, her nervousness palpable, even through the door.
Heaving out a breath, Dax lets go of the knob, but the rattling persists, and the door remains closed. Whatever patience he has left wears thin.
He lunges for the knob again, ramming his shoulder into it hard enough to make me flinch. “What the fuck, Blair? Is this a joke to you?”
“No, I’m trying. I swear,” she quickly says, trying to placate him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s stuck.”
Dax’s voice thunders through the air, colliding with Blair’s tearful apologies as she continues to work the doorknob more vigorously.
Beside me, Manson trails his hands up my arm, stirring the fine hairs there before he cups my jaw, angling my face so it’s close enough to whisper into. “Don’t be scared. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
A shard of fear whistles through me. It lodges deep inside, splintering wider until the throbbing gives way to numbness, leaving my arms and legs boneless.
He cocks my head, trying to capture my gaze, but I dodge his inquisitive stare, looking straight past him into the empty air, my eyes misting over.
“I thought you’d be happy.”
My jaw drops, but no words come out. Only a small, garbled sound, tight with fear. Frigid water engulfs every inch of me until I’m drowning.
He fuses our foreheads together, and I tense. “Please, don’t.”
I swallow against the swollen lump in my throat.
“Don’t what?”
A tendon flexes in his neck when he pulls back enough to look at me, and I can practically see the gears turning behind his eyes, darkening them into tar. “Don’t act like this isn’t what you wanted.”
“It’s not,” I respond with a wheeze.
“They hurt you.”
I brace myself against another assault on the door, each impact sending a low groan through the walls as Dax bellows only a few feet away.
“Don’t you dare fucking leave, Blair.” The muscles along his neck pull taut, veins bulging.
“I’m fucking warning you right now, if you don’t get back here right this goddamn second. I’m not messing around.”
Flicking my gaze back to Manson, I catch him still staring at me, his eyes searing into my skin. I swallow hard. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be here.”
Dax doubles over, hands on his knees. Every breath leaves his mouth in a pale ring despite the sweat pooling at his temples. Beside me, Manson says nothing. His eyes rake over me with quiet scrutiny, lingering long enough to make my skin crawl.
For the length of a drumbeat, time slows to a dragging pace.
Then, a deafening crash erupts somewhere beyond the door.
Blair cries.
Dax snaps straight, jumping toward the door in a frantic rush that has him stumbling over his feet. “Blair? Blair—”
A sickening knot tugs in my stomach as I watch, helplessly, wanting more than anything for all this to end. Dax reaches for the knob, jiggling it aggressively, but it doesn’t give. Blair moans on the other side. Each ragged breath scrapes louder as she drags herself closer.
“Step back, Dax,” she groans, her voice slightly muffled.
Canting his head, a low, mirthless laugh escapes him. Blair’s words dissolve into the silence between them.
“I know you want to get out.” A guttural groan steals the rest of her breath. “I’ll get us both out of here. Just step back and wait, okay?”
Gnashing his teeth, he ignores her, wrenching the doorknob one final time, and to his utter surprise, it turns. The mechanical whirl clicks, ricocheting around the empty room before he yanks it open with fervor.
Everything else blurs into a flash of silver, then a stagger of teal, before a scream bursts out, sharp enough to split the air in two.
In Blair’s hands is an axe.
Dax recoils, throwing himself backward.
But he’s too late.
The blunt edge slams into the side of his face with a wet splat.