PETRA
Present Day
“Ahh,” I mutter groggily as I turn on my back. Coldness seeps into my skin. My eyes snap open, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
There is nothing but darkness around me.
I am . . . not in my room.
Trying to regulate my breathing so that I don’t devolve into a panicky mess, I slowly rise to my feet and feel around my surroundings.
The smell of damp stone and mold immediately hits me like a punch to the gut.
“Hello? Anyone here?” I call out, tone wavering slightly.
My voice reverberates in an echo.
All right, so this is a big space, likely the underground tunnel.
But how the hell did I get here?
The last thing I remember is reading Sister Agatha’s journal. I was so close to getting more clues into the murders, too.
Sister Agatha made a deal with Valerion to meet her beloved again in a future life in exchange for five evil souls.
Five . . . like the five paintings depicting the murders. Could they be connected? Could Sister Agatha be the one responsible for them?
But how? She lived more than two hundred years ago. It’s unlikely she’s still around. Unless . . . she’s like Sin, immortal. I frown as I think on it.
Although this could be the case, I feel that something is missing—that I am missing something. Surely in over two hundred years she would have had plenty of time to kill five people instead of waiting around for some angsty high schoolers.
What is clear, however, is that these murders are different than the ones committed by Sin, and they are not part of his deal.
So he was telling the truth.
That somehow makes me feel a little better; at least Sin is not going around killing high school kids.
But does that mean that the entity Sister Agatha made a deal with is the same as the one Sin did?
He’s never mentioned a name in conjunction with the entity before, but the details of the contract are too eerily similar not to think they might be the same: kill evil souls to get one their beloved.
Five evil souls. But there’s only been three murders so far.
Unless . . .
Fear accumulates in my gut.
What if I am next?
I somehow ended up in the tunnels without any recollection of how I got here. It’s dark. I don’t have my phone or any means to contact Sin.
I am helpless.
But I’m not evil!
The deal was for Agatha to deliver five evil souls. Although I don’t know what Edwin or Harry did, it’s clear Francois did have some skeletons in his closet. It makes sense why he was chosen.
But me?
I’ve never done anything bad in my life—or at least nothing I would categorize as evil.
Maybe it’s something I did in my past life? Is that it? Perhaps because I did kill Snowden in the past. That technically makes me a murderer, but is it enough to brand my soul as evil?
Anxiety spears through me until I find it hard to breathe.
Oh God, I’m going to die, aren’t I? I’m going to die in these goddamn tunnels, and I never even told Sin that I forgive him, that I love him regardless of everything he’s done—perhaps I love him in spite of it.
Because no matter what happened, he always put me first. He made sacrifice after sacrifice to get to me, to be with me. He killed people to get me back.
And what have I done?
Nothing.
I’ve just been on the receiving end of everything.
Guilt slams into me as I realize how unfair I’ve been to him. Not only with my harsh words but also in my thoughts.
My last words to him were that I needed time. Seeing how I am now trapped in these dark, dank tunnels, time is exactly what I may not have.
“Sin, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, though I know he cannot hear me. Hopefully, he will disregard my request for space and will try to see me anyway. Then, when he notices I’m missing, he will look for me.
Oh, the irony. Just the day before, I was complaining that he was crossing my boundaries, and now I’m praying he does.
Until he comes for me, though, I can at least try to save myself.
A little wary of the darkness surrounding me, I place one foot in front of the other, feeling my way forward slowly.
So far, so good. But not for long.
“Fuck!” I curse aloud as I trip over something and fall. Immediately, I place my hands over my belly to protect it.
Yet instead of falling onto the cold ground, something breaks my fall. Still cold, but soft, and a little wet.
“What . . .” I mutter.
I move my hands around, trying to make sense of what I’m sitting on top of. But oh, how I wish I didn’t know.
At first I feel some soft material, silky and cool to the touch. But as I move my hands upward, the material becomes soaked in a sticky liquid.
“Ew!”
But that is the least disgusting thing. Already, a thought is starting to form in my mind that perhaps the thing I fell on—the thing I’m sitting on—might be a human body. That idea solidifies when I feel the shoulders of the body.
Moving my hands up, I note the tapering of the neck and then the jaw and . . .
My hands are now pressed into what is supposed to be the cheeks, but there’s a deep gap in between. The tips of my fingers dip inside until they’re covered fully in this viscous liquid—blood. And it’s still lukewarm.
“Dear God . . .”
It’s a dead body. I’m sitting on a goddamn corpse. And it has no face.
There’s brittle bone and blood, sticky, gooey blood.
Fucking hell. Whoever this is has had their face bashed in.
I scurry away from the body, though the blood follows. I plop down onto the ground and feel the way my pajama bottoms are getting soaked. I squeeze my eyes shut and instinctively start reciting a prayer, though I’ve never been religious in this life.
Nausea rolls in my stomach, and bitter bile makes its way up my throat. I lean forward and retch, emptying the contents of my stomach. Still, the sickness won’t leave me.
I may not be able to see the dead body, but I can imagine it has been disfigured—just like the others.
And it hasn’t been too long since this person has been killed.
There is no smell of death or decomposition.
The body is cool to the touch, but the head area still retained some warmth.
It’s likely only been here for a few hours.
Another murder. The fourth one.
And me being here means I am next.
If before the idea had terrified me, now, being confronted with what is going to happen to me makes me lose my goddamn mind.
“Why me?” I call out. “I never did anything wrong.”
Tears stream down my cheeks, my throat clogging with a myriad of emotions.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I continue on a hiccup.
No one answers me. Only the echo of my own voice.
With how big these tunnels are and how they feed throughout the city, there’s no way of knowing where exactly I am. The idea of trying to save myself goes out the window because no matter how much I’d like to try to do it, I simply cannot.
And there’s the other fact to consider. I’m pregnant.
This isn’t just about me being the potential next victim of this deranged killer, who most likely than not is Sister Agatha in some form or another, but there’s also my baby to consider.
He’s innocent. He never did anything wrong.
“Agatha . . . If you can hear me,” I start, fighting against my sobs. “I’m pregnant. I’ll have a baby soon. I know you understand what that’s like. You had your own little one, and you lost him. Please . . . I beg you . . .” I gulp down. “Spare us.”
No answer—not that I expected one.
“If you must kill me. Please do it in four more months after the baby is born. You can take me then, and I promise I will not fight you. Just let my baby have a chance at life. Please.”
This time, I expect there to be no answer, too. But a sudden noise startles me.
A loud thud followed by footsteps against the damp floor.
I draw my knees to my chest and sway from side to side, knowing my end is near. And if I am marked to die, perhaps I do deserve it for some unknown sin. But my son . . . he’s innocent. He’s the only innocent one.
Sin . . . if only you could hear my voice. I don’t even want you to save me. But our child . . . he deserves to be born, to live.
If there’s any god out there, any deity at all, please spare my child.
The sound of the steps intensifies. Whoever is out there is getting closer.
My heart rams against my rib cage, my breath out of control. I press my hands to my stomach, holding onto my baby tightly.
Someone is definitely coming.
Each second feels like an eternity until a small beacon of light appears somewhere in the distance.
I squint my eyes. The light intensifies, blinding me. I shield my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Who’s there?” I demand.
More steps. The light has now enveloped the entire area. The person carrying the light is close to me, perhaps a few feet away.
A gasp echoes in the tunnel.
It takes me a few moments to acclimate to the change in lighting. But as I do, a few things start to take shape around me.
First is the space I—we’re—in. It’s a round vestibule at the junction of two narrow passageways. The walls are damp and moldy, with water dripping from somewhere above. A water source nearby?
The second thing I see, however, is the body.
The dead body.
My mouth opens and closes, and no sound comes out.
“Daphne . . .” I whisper in shock.
I only recognize her from her blond hair and the D pendant around her neck. Her face has been so completely disfigured that no one would be able to tell her identity.
There’s blood everywhere. All over her clothes. All over my clothes. On my hands.
I stare down at my palms, my eyes wide with horror.
But there’s a third thing that catches my eye: a medium-sized boulder, not too far from Daphne’s body, covered in blood. The murder weapon?
“Hands where I can see them!” a familiar voice rings out.
I blink. It’s Detective Fiona. She’s flashing a light toward me, toward Daphne’s body. But what is she doing here? How would she know to come to the tunnels?
That question can wait, though, because this looks bad.
I’m in a tunnel, alone with a dead body. I’m covered in blood, and the potential murder weapon is right there.
“Detective Bedford. This is not what it looks like,” I stammer.
“Do not move, Miss Valentine. Hands where I can see them.”
She takes a few steps forward, and I note she has a gun next to her flashlight, aimed straight at me.
Oh, no.
She must think I killed Daphne. And to be honest, I don’t blame her. It does look like I did it. And the fact that I woke up next to Daphne’s body right before the detective showed up makes everything even more suspicious.
Is someone trying to frame me? But why? And how would that fit into Sister Agatha’s murderous plan?
Unless . . .
My eyes widen in slow realization.
“It’s you,” I whisper.
“You’re coming with me, Miss Valentine. Get up. Slowly.”
The barrel of the gun is now just inches away from my face as she orders me to my feet.
I rise up on trembling legs. She has a look of disgust on her face as she gazes down at my blood-covered self.
“Hands behind your back,” she commands as she jiggles a pair of handcuffs.
I don’t move. I cannot. If she cuffs me, I will not have any way to get out of this situation. It will be akin to signing my death warrant.
Adrenaline rushes through me, and in a moment of pure madness, I butt her in the head. The hit momentarily stuns her, and it gives me enough time to snatch the flashlight from her and sprint down the passageway.
I’m barely a few feet away when a gunshot rings out.