Page 179 of Adam
I kneel on the couch, elbows pressed into the backrest.
“Do it,” I repeat.
Adam comes closer, looming over me, the knife still raised in his hand.
Grayson tries to speak again, his voice cutting through the room. “You don’t have to?—”
The blade comes down on my shoulder blade.
I scream as soon as it breaks the skin. The sound is loud, pulled straight out of me. Pain explodes across my back and knocks the air from my lungs. My vision blurs. The room starts to spin. My ears buzz so loud it drowns everything else out.
I can’t tell what’s happening around me. I don’t know if anyone is talking. I don’t know if Adam is moving the knife or holding it still. I can’t focus on anything except the pain tearing through me, swallowing every thought whole.
“Ah, it hurts!”
My head drops forward. I can’t hold it up anymore. My vision keeps blurring in and out, dark at the edges. The buzzing in my ears gets louder, swallowing the room.
Adam’s fingers press into my shoulder, and he adjusts his grip. “Hold still,” he says, calm enough to make my stomach turn. “This part is going to suck.”
Grayson is behind us, debating whether to step in. “Adam. That’s enough.”
Adam doesn’t look at him. “It’s not enough until it’s out.”
The knife moves again, and my breath catches and then breaks. I make a sound that doesn’t even feel human, and my hands claw at the couch.
Grayson’s voice cuts in again. “She’s going to pass out.”
His fingers close around something, and the second he grips it, my stomach drops. He pulls, and the pain spikes so hard it punches the air out of me.
Tears flood my face.
“Adam,” I blurt, voice breaking. “Did you …?”
“That motherfucker,” he says through clenched teeth.
I turn around, and the second I see the small piece of metal in his hand, everything inside me goes still. The pain in my back dulls.
It’s real. It was inside me. He did that to me.
Adam’s eyes turn dark and feral.
Everyone around us is still silent, waiting for him to explode.
His face goes blank, like something inside him has been switched off, and what settles in its place is darkness. Pure and immense darkness.
“I’m going to rip his fucking spine out.”
I’m still dizzy and weak, like the adrenaline drained out of me all at once, leaving me breathing heavily.
Grayson rushes to me, his hands gripping my arms before my knees give out. Adam is standing over us, staring down at me as if he still can’t process what just happened. I don’t blame him. His eyes are too calm and empty, stripped of anything human, and that terrifies me more than the blood or the pain ever could.
“She needs stitches,” Grayson says sharply.
“Do it,” Adam replies, almost indifferent. Then his gaze locks onto mine. “When you’re done, I need to talk to her.”
My heart starts racing fast and loud. I have no idea what he wants to tell me, and my thoughts spiral through a million different endings. None of them are good.
He turns and walks away without another glance. Cain hesitates only long enough to roll his eyes before following him.
