I started to search the rooms running the length of that hall, but the second I saw the desolated set of stairs that led to the second floor, I knew that was where she would have been drawn.
I bounded up them, taking them two at a time, my pulse a hammer that slammed at my chest and thundered through my veins.
At the landing, I started to take a right down the hall, but I stumbled.
Awareness crawled up my spine.
I angled my attention back over my shoulder.
Drawn.
Caught.
Hooked.
Could feel the terror ricocheting through the air. Trembling and shivering and cloying in my mind.
It was struck with the grave, dire need to protect.
The purpose I’d originally striven for was no longer certain.
Reason no longer real.
Mind-wrecker.
Spinning around, I rushed in the direction of her call, a fetter leashing me, pulling me closer and closer. I didn’t even have to start searching the umpteen rooms.
I knew.
I grabbed the knob of the double doors to the right.
The knob rattled, the door locked.
Rage bristled beneath my skin, and I banged at the door, something between a shout and scream ripping from my throat. “Emily! Emily!”
Glass crashed behind the door, a scuffle, and then a bang on the floor.
I moved back a foot and rammed the door with my shoulder.
It shook but didn’t give.
I did it again and again.
Ramming the wood.
Frantic.
Frenzied.
Shouting her name. Screams seeped through the walls.
I promised her I wasn’t going to let this happen. That he would never touch her again. And I’d let it. Put her in the line of fire in order to fulfill my purpose.
Guilt and regret squeezed all the air from my lungs.
I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t let this happen.
Pain speared through my shoulder when I slammed the door again, but I felt the wood give. I moved all the way across the hall and threw myself at it.
Momentum splitting the wood at the lock.
The door banged against the inside of the wall.
Emily was on her stomach, fingernails scratching the wood floors as she tried to crawl away from the monster who was gripping one of her ankles. That shoe missing.
Blood was smeared across his face, his claws sinking into her flesh. Emily shifted around and kicked him in the face.
He roared and climbed over her, pinning her to the floor as he backhanded her.
It was the moment my hatred finally took over.
Stole my sanity and turned my sight black.Twenty-NineEmilyA clatter of wood sounded from somewhere behind me, my heart racing in terror and hope.
Oh god. Someone was here.
But I was fearing they might already be too late when Cory climbed over me, his hand smacking across my face.
Pain fragmented across my cheek, sending my head rocking back.
I cried out beneath the fury that Cory succumbed to.
Perversion taking over.
He wrapped both hands around my throat and squeezed.
My fear was so thick it was blinding. Lungs failing in my chest.
I squirmed and flailed, the blood running off his chin dripping onto my face.
I’d gotten him good with a swing of a glass lamp that had nailed him. It’d stunned him, blood bursting from a gash on his cheek, sending him toppling to the floor. I’d tried to jump over him so I could get to the door, but he’d snagged me by the ankle.
Yanked me to the floor where he had me now.
“You fucking bitch. I’m going to end you. You think I’m going to let you get away with this?” Cory’s words were a slur, hinged on his ragged breaths.
A blur flew into the room.
A wraith.
A shadow.
My dark, vengeful stranger.
He knocked Cory from me faster than I could process I was free. I choked and gasped for air while the two of them tumbled. They crashed into an end table. Wood splintered beneath their weight.
They tumbled, fighting to gain the upper hand. Bodies banging.
Royce pinned Cory. “You piece of shit. You disgusting motherfucker.”
Cory spit blood in his face. “Fuck you . . . just like I fucked your sister and your wife.”
I saw it snap.
Royce’s sanity.
Violence spilled out in a barrage of fists that pummeled against Cory’s broken face.
Splitting.
Cracking.
Different than the night that he’d been protecting me from Nile.
This was vengeance.
Retaliation.
The man an avenger who was sent to destroy.
His hands flew. Unrelenting fury. Blood splattering across the floor.
I staggered to my feet, shuffling with one heel in their direction.
Shocked.
Lost to the stupor of what was happening.
Cory laughed a maniacal sound, his teeth white against the blood covering his face. And I saw it, his hand wrapping around a jagged piece of wood. He lifted it and smashed it against the side of Royce’s head.
Royce toppled over, dazed, and Cory was on him in a flash, lifting the jagged part of the wood, pointed like a spear, over his head.
Horror slammed me. The realization of what he was going to do.