Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Who are you kidding, Scarletta? You told him you were a candidate. You practically begged him to strap your ankles into stirrups and fuck you blind.
If I want to run the maze, I have to deal with the monsters.
This is the truth of my sickness.
Helix kidnapped Lyra. He made her run the maze to prove she could survive it. Then he became the monster she could live with.
The darkness she could survive.
I look at Caleb. His eyes are still sad. "Are you OK?"
I don't answer, just look at Ryan. He's in full panic mode. He's been talking this whole time. Excuse after excuse. Lie after lie spewing from his mouth.
He was going to kill me.
He goes silent.
We lock eyes.
His change. Right in front of me.
And there he is.
The predator.
The killer.
The monster I never saw coming.
He lunges, and I don't even blink.
I pull the trigger and the next thing I know, he's meat.
Chapter 16
Caleb
The shotgun kicks against Scarletta's stomach.
Ryan's chest opens like a flower blooming in reverse—red petals spraying outward, wet and immediate. The force throws him backward, and what hits the concrete floor isn't a person anymore. Just meat and bone and the copper-bright smell of fresh death.
I watch Scarletta.
Not the body. Not the spreading pool beneath what used to be Ryan Adamson.
Her.
Blood mists her face in a fine spray. Droplets cling to her platinum hair like scattered rubies, catching the barn's dim light. Across her forearms, streaks of crimson where the blowback painted her skin. Her chest heaves, breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps that make her whole body shudder.
There's blood on her lip.
A single dark smear, almost black against the pink.
She's hyperventilating now, hands shaking so violently the shotgun rattles. She drops it—the clatter against concrete sounds distant, irrelevant. Her fingers come up to her face, swiping at the blood, but she's only smearing it. Spreading Ryan across her cheeks, her chin, her forehead. She spits, tries to clear her mouth, and the motion just transfers more of him onto her tongue.
She's panicking.
And I'm hard.
Fully, achingly erect. The kind that strains against fabric and demands attention.
I should be concerned about the body. The cleanup. The evidence. The fact that she just committed murder in my barn, and her fingerprints are all over the weapon, and this will require significant resources to make disappear.
Instead, I'm watching blood drip from her jawline onto her collarbone, and my cock throbs like it has its own heartbeat.
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I take a step toward her, and my hand moves without conscious decision—sliding down, between my waistband and my skin, wrapping around my cock.
Her gaze drops to my hand. To what I'm doing.
The horror in her expression should stop me.
It doesn't.
This is wrong. I understand that intellectually. A man lies dead three feet away, and I'm stroking myself while his blood dries on the face of the woman I love.
Gross. The word floats through my consciousness like a passing cloud. Acknowledged. Dismissed.
Every body that falls at my feet or by my hand triggers this same response. A surge of power over the absolute finality of things. Proof that I can end existence itself. It's not something I chose. Not something I can control.
Derek. Volkov. The tech billionaire. The boarding school headmistress. The missionary.
I came after every single one.
And I'm not going to stop.
Not for morality. Not for appearances. Not even for her, my perfect, filthy, dark, depraved Scarletta.
Because this is who I am. What I am. The monster she wrote forty-seven stories about without knowing she was describing someone real.
I pull my hand out of my pants, pop the button on my jeans, drag the zipper down, and release myself so she can watch properly.
"This is what it does to me," I say. My voice soft. Soothing. "Killing. It makes me hard. And looking at you right now… all I'm thinking about is… fucking you."
She looks down at herself. Really seeing it for the first time—the spray of blood across her body, the heavier splatter across her chest, the way it's soaked into the fabric of her shirt. Her hands tremble as they reach for the hem, and then she's ripping the shirt over her head in one jerky motion. Underneath, she's wearing a coral-colored sports bra, bright and incongruous against the carnage. Clean.
Then she's bending forward, hooking her thumbs into the waistband of her workout leggings, peeling them down her thighs. The fabric clings to her legs as she works it lower, revealing pale flesh beneath. Unmarked. Untouched by Ryan's blood. She kicks the leggings away, and they land in a crumpled heap next to her discarded shirt.
She straightens, and immediately her arms come up to cross over her chest. Like she's trying to cover herself. To hide. Her shoulders curl inward, making herself smaller, and she stands there in just her bra and panties—looking at me with eyes that are too wide, too bright.