Page 3 of Gravehouse

She left me there to bleed out. Cried. Said she was fucking sorry.I trusted you.

Laughter crawls out of me, but it dies faster than I do.

Unfortunately.

I tilt my head to hear better, but a sharp frequency pierces my ears while the air vents pulse overhead, coating my lungs in a sweet scent with every inhale.

Motherfucker.I know that scent, recognize the sugary toxin that takes weeks to leave your throat.

I need to get the fuck out of here.

A white dome catches my eye in the corner, hiding a state-of-the-art camera.

Yeah, bet they’re fucking watching.

I grin at it, flashing my teeth.

Gonna have to start praying too if I get out of here.

A speaker crackles overhead. “I’m so glad you’re still alive, Asher. Now, have you learned your lesson, or should we continue?”

Lessons are for children.

“Continue,” I rasp, throat aching from however long I was out.

Blood drips to the floor while the speaker box gives me nothing.

“Are you compromised, Delacroix?” she finally asks, her voice as sweet as the gas pumping into the room.

I pause, the corner of my lip curling. “Nah. Just…dying.”

I ain’t mad about it. I should kill her just for saving me. She should have left me there to rot.

“Hmm,” she mutters, and I can almost see her smug face. “Love would do that to you.”

My jaw snaps closed. “Who said anything about love?”

I’m a fucking liar. She doesn’t need to say it.

My wrists throb, fingers going numb, and I’d have taken death before waking here.Fuck you, Venom. Couldn’t even kill me properly.

“I’d suggest you not lie to me, Crow,” she says through the speaker.

I test the cuff, but there’s no give. Whoever set this up either knows restraints or knows me.

Ivy has been my safe space for longer than I care to admit, yet when I picture her green eyes now, all I feel is pain.

I hate her for it.

I need her for it.

The woman’s silence stretches until I want to claw through the speaker and drag her out by her throat.

“You’re three levels underground, surrounded by steel-reinforced walls and twenty-four-hour surveillance. Your fans think you’re recovering from a snowboarding accident.” Her laugh cuts through the static. “You’re not getting out, Asher. Not until I say so.”

My vision blurs red.

This is the psychiatric facility where people disappear into paperwork, where rich families bury their embarrassments.