Chapter 8
Dax’s first shriek tears through the house, driving me backward before I even realize I’m moving. The pitch is deafening, too high and raw to sound like it came from a human throat.
Nausea spews bile against the roof of my mouth.
Blair doesn’t move. Rooted in the doorway, she stares at him, both hands still clamped around the axe handle, her eyes blown wide into glassy, unblinking spheres.
“Oh, God,” she chokes, her complexion draining of color. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
Her chin sags, on the verge of fainting, until Dax’s ear-shattering scream sharpens into a coherent demand. “Get it off! Get it fucking off!”
Saliva floods beneath my tongue, spilling between my teeth as I retch, slapping both hands over my mouth to smother the sound.
I can’t see the full extent of the damage.
But I don’t need to. The wooden handle still juts from his face, the metallic tang thickening in the air, mixing with the vile rot already ingrained in the warped floorboards and threadbare carpet.
Her sobs mount, breaking into frantic wails as she nods with weak conviction. Unable to say anything besides panicked prayers, she jerks the axe back, dragging another skin-curdling cry from Dax, his voice shredded by pain.
My stomach lurches as she tries again, her pleas to God growing louder.
“Oh, God, oh, God!” Hands shaking, her knuckles blanch as she yanks the serrated edge back, dragging him out of the doorway along with it.
Tugging with all her might, it finally releases his mutilated flesh with a gush-filled thwack.
Animalistic screams tear out of him again, ringing in my ears.
That sound will stay forever ingrained inside me.
Chunks of skin and flesh peel before us, sticking to the axe.
A pungent, foul smell accompanies them, dispersing through the stale air.
His shoulders hunch, his hands hovering blindly in front of him as he stumbles sideways, unable to hear or see anything past the shooting pain and Blair’s desperate cries. He careens toward the staircase, loses his footing on the edge, and plummets below.
Each hard impact echoes through the house, tangling with his ragged screams until a final thud silences everything.
Staggering forward, Blair drops the axe and rushes down the stairs, leaning on the bannister for support. Still stumbling, she chokes on her tears, her shoulders hitching and heaving as she reaches the bottom. “Dax? Dax, are you okay?”
Pressure forms in the pit of my stomach, jarring me out of my dazed terror enough to hurl me forward and dash straight down the stairs, never once looking back over my shoulder for Manson. I need to get away from him.
But the moment I reach the last step, I solidify in place, standing shoulder to shoulder with Blair, who’s turned inconsolable. Beneath us, Dax lies motionless. A horrifying pool of blood halos his head, creeping around his shoulders.
And his face.
His face—
My stomach sours.
The knot in my throat tightens as my eyes meet the scarred, gaping hole in the side of his face.
Everything screeches to an agonizing crawl, and my ears feel like they’ve been stuffed full of cotton, muffling Blair’s grief-stricken cries as her knees buckle, arms reaching toward Dax before freezing mid-air, afraid to touch him.
I can’t rip my eyes away from the ragged tear in his face, watching the maggots return to my vision, writhing their way back into my stomach.
Blood runs in uneven rivulets, winding haphazardly down the sides of his face and onto his neck, where the muscles flex and strain. His left eye is gone. The other is glossed and unfocused, red veins bursting around what used to be crystalline blue, now muted and lifeless.
He moans again, sound returning to his throat in a pathetic croak that reminds me of a clogged drain. I can almost feel his suffering in my own body. The ache too heavy, the tender skin, the god-awful throbbing behind his eyes.
Guilt stirs low and rampant inside of me.
I did this.
I was angry—furious with him, but this was never what I wanted. This is a mistake. A horrific, monstrous, unforgivable mistake. And it’s my fault.
Another convulsion seizes him. My gaze drops to the jagged shards of glass embedded along his sides, dozens more scattered across the room. Foam bubbles at the corners of his mouth before dribbling over.
This spurs Blair to sob harder before swallowing the sound long enough to force herself into motion, scooting closer on her knees.
Her complexion has gone ashen. Even the color on her lips has worn away, leaving only their chapped, paling edges quivering.
“Stay with me, Dax. You hear me, s-stay with me. I’m calling for help. "
Leaning forward, she pats down his spasming legs.
My eyes shamefully snag on the bulge in his pants.
Horrified to have noticed something so intimate in a moment like this, I wrench my gaze upward instead, only to catch a line of snot trailing from Blair’s nose.
She tries to wipe it away with her shoulder, smudging it farther across her upper lip.
Her brows knot as her hand skims along the pocket of Dax’s scuffed jeans until her fingers catch on something rectangular tucked inside.
Almost imperceptibly, the strain cinching her features loosens.
She yanks his phone free, thumbing frantically at the screen before going still, her grip tightening around it.
For a moment, the room grows chillingly quiet except for Dax’s ragged rasps, his arms jerking weakly beside him. She doesn’t look up from the screen.
“Who’s Tatum?” she asks.
I tense.
“There’s a girl on your phone, Dax. Who is she?”
He tries to answer but manages only a wet, garbled sound before it dissolves into labored wheezing. A violent buck jolts him. His remaining eye pleads with her to help him, but she just stares, the panic gone from her expression.
Gritting her teeth, she barks out a fitful, almost maniacal laugh that lodges in my throat, making each swallow painful. She doesn’t stop, her knuckles blanched, tremors coursing through her, until she reaches for his collar, twisting the bloodied fabric in her other hand. “Answer me!”
Her eyes widen as disbelief hardens into something feral. She shoves the phone in front of his ruined face. “Who is she, Dax? Fucking answer me!”
Terror zips through my chest as I watch her nearly straddle him while he rasps and writhes across the floor.
She wouldn’t.
She couldn’t—
I swallow hard around a lump in my throat.
No.
She wouldn’t hurt him. But each passing second chips away at that certainty.
Seething, she jabs her thumb against the screen, her shoulders jerking, her chest heaving. A guttural roar erupts from her. “Why won’t your fucking phone open? You’ve changed the lock, haven’t you? Haven’t you?!”
Just as I take a solid step backward, my gaze lifts to the staircase above them. Manson descends one measured step at a time, his eyes raking over the devastation without the slightest shift in expression before settling on me, holding me in my place.
An unrecognizable gleam flickers across his face, the slight crease quirking his brows. “Don’t freak out.”
My shoulders lock. I retreat another step, my head shaking, my voice failing me. The gnawing pressure in my gut wants out, out, out.
Get out.
My fight or flight finally kicks in. I jerk around to run, but my foot catches on a jutting plank, sending me crashing to the ground.
Fear seizes me, a broken cry slipping from my throat as I drag myself forward with my hands, even though I know it’s futile.
A blink later, he’s at my back, crouching over me before forcing me onto my back to face him. “Please, don’t do this,” he pleads. “You promised you wouldn’t.”
“You did this,” I accuse, my voice pitching. “All of this happened because of you.”
The darkening glare he fixes on me sends pure terror coursing through my spine, driving me to wrench myself free of his grasp even as darkness swarms my vision. Blair’s wailing dwindles into a quiet, chilling weep, but I don’t look at her, my eyes still held hostage by Manson.
His grip tightens, fingers clamping deeper into my wrists where he’s pinned them above my head.
My stomach quakes. “I’m not the one who swung that axe,” he grits, tension finding its way into his tone.
“I didn’t push anyone down the stairs. But it doesn’t matter, does it?
” His voice breaks, deep lines etching into his forehead. “You’ll always blame me.”
Melancholy flickers into his eyes as he lowers himself toward me, hesitating just long enough for dread to tighten across my chest before closing the remaining distance.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I wrench my head aside, my neck straining as his cold lips brush my jawline.
One hand slips from my wrists, his thumb settling against my jaw, angling my face back toward him.
I keep my eyes closed. Hysteria claws higher.
My hips thrust upward as I buck wildly beneath him, twisting and flailing, but his larger frame overwhelms mine, one leg still wedged between my parted thighs, holding me captive despite my frantic attempts to break free. He doesn’t make another move.
The last of my strength bleeds away, despair rushing to fill its place.
Only then does his grip relent. My arms collapse between us, and I throw my palms against the floor, skittering backward before stumbling to my feet.
“Fine,” he says quietly, rising to his feet. He doesn’t move any closer, only watches me, a trace of wistfulness dulling the hardness in his eyes. “We have time.”
A shudder rips through me.
“I won’t even have to tie you up this time.”
The din inside my ears wells. My head hammers.
None of his words make sense. Confusion fogs my thoughts until the abandoned bundle of rope beneath the table’s crossbars snags whatever scattered focus I have left. Unable to contain the tremors coursing through me, I grit my teeth, clinging to the desperate plea rising in the back of my mind.
Please. Please. Please.
This can’t be happening.