Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I sit up slowly.
The sheets slide down my body as I glance back at him once more.
He’s so beautiful in the brutal way that beautiful things sometimes are—like knives, like storms, graveyards.
I turn…and that’s when I see the ring.
It sits on the night table, matte black against the dark wood. I don’t remember him taking it off. In fact, I’ve never seen him without it on his right hand.
I pick it up. The weight surprises me. It’s heavier than it looks. Black platinum disguised as rusted iron.
I turn it slowly between my fingers.
The head forms that narrow, almost severe V-shape I noticed before. The shaft is smooth until the inner band gives way to those irregular notches, that strange key with those strange teeth that don’t seem symmetrical enough to be decorative. The same symbol I saw in so many different places at Vexley House.
I trace them with my thumb. Why this? Why this old-fashioned key that seems so—
Of course. The front door. It opens things.
I look over at Samson again. He’s still asleep. Still unaware.
He told me not to go near that door.
Not that one.
I tighten my fingers around the ring.
And then, because I am exactly the woman who would do this, I slide quietly out of bed.
I find one of his shirts on the chair and pull it on. The fabric swallows me, and it smells like him. I inhale, feeling like he’s holding me.
Then I get serious and grab my phone from the bedside table. Then the ring.
I move down the stairs slowly, barefoot, the ring curled in my fist.
I switch on my phone’s flashlight once I reach the lower level. The beam cuts a pale path ahead of me.
I stop in the middle of the corridor and slowly turn, sweeping the light around.
I was moving through Samson’s world, but I wasn’t really in it. Not the way I am now. Not the way I became the moment I chose him after learning the truth.
I continue down the hall, more slowly now.
The farther I go, the heavier the ring feels in my hand.
The door waits at the end, exactly where I remember it.
And the lock…
My breath catches before I even reach it.
From farther away it looks ordinary enough. An old-fashioned padlock. Rusted iron. Something that should be opened with a key inserted into a keyhole.
But as I get closer, I notice something different that I didn’t clock before.
The proportions are wrong.
The metal isn’t truly rusted. It’s finished to resemble rust. A deliberate antiquing over something more refined beneath. Like the ring. Like the house.
Like Samson himself.
The keyhole—or what wants to pass as a keyhole—isn’t shaped correctly either.
Too narrow in some places. Too wide in others.
My pulse quickens. I lift the beam of my phone and study it more closely.
Then I raise the ring.
Not toward the opening. Not yet.
Just beside it.
Comparing.
I stroke the notches on the inner band. Then I return to the asymmetrical shape of the lock’s mechanism.
Damn…
It isn’t exact, but it’s close enough to be deliberate. Notches. Angles. Uneven teeth.
The hem of Samson’s shirt brushes my bare thighs as I lean in. The lock smells faintly metallic. The ring is cool in my hand, almost cold.
I try the most obvious thing first. I angle the ring as if it might slide into the opening.
It doesn’t.
It isn’t that kind of key.
I draw back, frowning.
Then I look again.
This time I notice the shallow groove around the faceplate. Not a slot, exactly. More like a guided channel. Not for insertion. For alignment.
My heart begins to beat harder.
I bring the ring closer to the lock again. Rotate it. Test one edge. Then another.
Nothing.
I adjust. Try a different angle.
Still nothing.
But something about the resistance feels intentional. Like I haven’t found the answer, but if I were playing that child’s game, someone would tell me I’m getting warmer.
Do it, a dark little part of me whispers.
Find out.
You came here for truth.
I shift the ring again and press lightly against the groove.
This time there is the faintest sensation under my fingertips—not a click, not motion exactly, but the awareness of a mechanism that could respond if I knew how to ask it properly.
I freeze.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
This ring opens this lock. Or helps open it. Or it’s part of the system that does.
And Samson wears it every day like a piece of jewelry.
The realization moves through me slowly and all at once.
Samson is not only connected to this door. Samson is part of the lock. Or the key. Or both.
I lower my hand. Then lift it again.
I’m so tempted. So beyond curious. If I open this now, I might finally see the part of him he kept back. The forbidden chamber. The one closed room in the beast’s castle he said not to touch.
I hover there for several seconds, ring raised, my body taut.