Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
A heartbeat later, I land hard on my side. The impact drives the air from my lungs, sending agony through my hip and shoulder. I stumble to my feet in the dark. What the hell was that? A trap door?
I stretch out my arms, feeling around for something—anything. Above me, Rochester’s silhouette fills a square opening, backlit by moonlight. Even from down here, his grin is all teeth and malice.
“Eager to die, Miss Burlington?” he calls down, his voice echoing off the walls.
“You sick bastard!” I scream back, my voice cracking.
I can’t stop thinking about that movie where the psycho kept a woman in a pit, feeding her with items he lowered down in a bucket. My skin crawls, and my throat fills with bile. What the hell is this place?
“Isn’t this the time you scream at me to let you out?” he says, his voice lilting with amusement.
My teeth clamp shut. I’m not playing his sick games.
“I’ll even give you the key.” He tosses something small at me, which hits the floor with a metallic clink.
Disgust ripples through my insides, making me want to scream. What use is the bloody key when the door is twenty feet above, completely out of reach? Despite thinking this, I bend down to pick it up. Maybe it will be useful.
“Make yourself at home,” he says.
Something falls on my head with a gentle clunk and drops to the floor.
Sparks fly from its tip. I draw back and pick up what looks like a lighter.
My gaze flicks back up to the opening, where he gazes down at me, his pale features sharpening.
Straightening, I flick the metal lever, and a small flame springs to life.
“What is this place?” I ask. “Where you keep your victims before they die?”
His lips quirk. “Not quite.”
It’s probably a trap. Didn’t Rowland say Rochester liked to watch animals struggle for freedom before their deaths?
I hold the flame out like a torch, searching for a weapon, an escape route, anything that might keep me alive. But as I move deeper into what feels like a cellar, my foot bumps into something soft. It feels like a sack of grain.
“Take your time,” Rochester says, his voice breathy with arousal.
I shouldn’t play a game he’s rigged, but if there’s a chance I can turn this around on him, I need to take it. Shivering, I lower the flame. The light reveals hollow eye sockets staring back at me from a skull.
Shock punches me in the gut, drawing out a scream. I lurch backward so fast the lighter switches off. Cold sweat erupts across my skin. My stomach convulses, threatening to bring up my dinner. Oh, God. That was a corpse. One of his victims.
My back hits something solid. It’s a warm, breathing body.
“I see you’ve met Celine,” Rochester’s voice fills my ear.
I skitter away, my mind reeling. How the hell did he get down here without a sound? I spin around, flicking the lighter, its flame casting his face in hellish shadows. The twisted bastard grins down at me like a wolf who’s cornered his prey.
“She was a spicy one,” he croons. “Rowland used to watch me fuck that woman on her hands and knees. Worthless bastard used to come in his pants.”
Edging backward, I hold up the lighter like I’m fending off evil. “Stay the hell away from me.”
Rochester takes a step closer, his dark eyes reflecting the firelight. “Rowland always envied me. I’m the one who got the women while that simpleton could only drool and touch himself. But he finally got his dick wet.”
My lip curls.
“I suspect he made a mess of his first time. Did he cry in your arms? Did you have to reassure him that ten seconds was normal for a big boy?” He laughs, the sound grating on my nerves.
“You seem awfully obsessed with your brother’s sex life,” I say from between clenched teeth.
His smile turns predatory. “I plan on showing Rowland exactly how to please a woman.”
My heart leaps. “He’s alive?”
“Clinging onto survival as always. He’s looking forward to taking his front-row seat when I fuck you to death.”
“Shut up!” I yell, backing away until my shoulders hit cold stone.
“Don’t tell me you’ve actually fallen for that moron.” Rochester laughs, the sound mocking.
“Better than a sadist who has to rape to feel superior,” I spit.
“How precious. I’ll pluck out your heart and serve it to him on a platter.”
He lurches forward. I dash to the side, crashing into another pile of bones. They scatter across the floor with sickening thuds. My knee hits something hard. It’s a skull that rolls away into the darkness.
“Ah, you’ve found Bertha. She stopped being fun after she went mad.”
Rage flashes through my chest. Everything Rowland said about his brother was right. Rochester wasn’t satisfied with working women to death—he also had to break their minds. My fingers close around what feels like a large bone. It might be a femur. I tell myself it’s a club.
“You pathetic psychopath,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Sticks and stones, Miss Burlington. Now, crawl to your master.”
“Go to hell,” I snap.
Grinning, he unzips his fly. “I’ll take you there myself. On your knees. Mouth open.”
Nausea jerks my stomach tight. My gaze darts away from his exposed cock to a sliver of light from above, casting faint illumination on stone steps leading up to another door. An escape plan forms in my head, desperate. Stupid, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Why don’t you come here and make me,” I say, mustering every ounce of defiance.
He chuckles, low and deep. “With pleasure.”
Stroking his cock, he stalks forward, his hand reaching for my hair. Before he can so much as grab me, I swing the bone like a baseball bat. It connects with his temple and snaps. Sending a silent apology to Bertha, I lance the jagged edge into his throat.
Rochester staggers backward with a roar, “You wretched cunt!”
I don’t wait to see if the wound is fatal. I charge across the cellar and up the stairs. Rochester bellows like a wounded beast as I reach the door. It’s a heavy wood, reinforced with iron bands. I throw my weight against it, stagger through, and slam it shut.
On the other side, my fingers find a bolt. I slide it home just as Rochester slams into it from below.
“Open this fucking door!” he shouts, the wood shuddering with each impact.
I scan the space for inspiration. Another way out. Windows, floorboards—anything. There’s nothing. Just the same rotting walls and broken furniture as when he first dragged me here. The windows sit too high, glass caked in grime. They might as well be painted black.
Wait a minute.
Rochester gave me the fucking key!
“I’m going to make you wish for death. Your humiliation will make Rowland’s suffering look like a picnic!”
The door bangs again as he throws himself against it, the wood groaning under the impact.
I rush to the door, slide the key in the lock and pray that it’s not another one of his sick games. It opens with a creak, letting out a gust of apple-scented air. Just as I’m about to escape into the night, he screams loud enough to shake the shack.
“Let me out,” he yells, desperation creeping into his rage.
No. I can’t leave. Leaving will only continue this twisted charade. There’s only one way to make sure he never hurts Rowland, or another woman. And that means putting an end to his tyranny.
I need to silence this monster forever.
Turning back, I find a canister of kerosene glinting in the corner. I rush to pick it up and splash liquid around the rotted walls. I douse the door for good measure and pour the rest down the trap door.
Back at the overturned table, I search through the debris until I find a box of matches. Fingers trembling, I extract a matchstick and strike it against the rough wood. Its head flares to life, casting dancing shadows on the walls.
“I’ll make you wallow in your own filth until you forget you were ever human,” he screams. “You won’t die like the others. Your prison will keep you at my mercy until the end of your days.”
“Say hello to Brother Matthew in hell.”
I drop the match.
Flames catch the kerosene and race across the floorboards, sending waves of heat licking at my skin.
I rush outside into the cool night with the key and lock the door.
Inside, fire spreads up the walls, eating through decades of rot and decay.
Orange light flickers through the windows as smoke pours from the doorway.
Some monsters deserve to burn.
But as the fire roars behind me, one thought cuts through everything:
Where the hell is Rowland?