Page 113 of Shattered In Darkness

I try not to panic. Try not to cry. I think of Brody. I pray he survives, even if I don't. I curse Marcus. I curse my own weakness.

I promise myself: you don’t break. Not for them. Not for anyone.

Noise fades, swallowed by black. I count my breaths. One. Two. Three. Praying he’s alive. Swearing revenge.

Even as the world goes dark, I don’t let go of him.

36

BRODY

Darkness consumes me. No sound but whirring air vents somewhere behind my head. Then the bite of restraint, steel at my wrists, ankles. Industrial pipe cinched at my chest. Chair welded to the concrete.

My left eye is sticky, vision doubling, then clears. I flex my fingers, but they don’t move. Numb. Hands are splayed on my thighs, skin streaked with something dark.

A warehouse. I know the smell before I even open my eyes. Oil, metal, sawdust. Cold that enters through the skin. The whine of wind outside the loading dock, rattling thin windows. Industrial lights cut through snow-dusted glass, striping the shadows with lines of white and yellow.

I listen for footsteps, for voices. There’s nothing.

Plywood crates stenciled with serial numbers. Pallets stacked with cardboard, blue shrink wrap pulled so tight it looks like skin. Fluorescent ballast flickers overhead. Shadows of motion behind a mesh cage, too far to see clearly. Maybe guards. Maybe just ghosts in the grime.

My tongue probes a torn place in my cheek. I breathe and scan again. There’s a strip of dirty tape on the floor, three feet from my boots.

Outside the warehouse walls, snowfield. No real soundproofing. I track the howl of wind and the grit of melting slush in the tire ruts. If I really listen, there’s a distant metallic clang. Maybe a chain-link fence, maybe the gate out front. Not close enough for rescue.

None of this matters. Not unless I make it matter.

I keep flexing my fingers until the nerves start to burn. Warmth returns, pins and needles, like a thousand wasps gnawing at my knuckles. It wakes me up.

A door slams open on from above. Then, I hear footsteps. It’s not enough for Marcus to make an entrance. He needs every eye, every heartbeat, to freeze for him. He comes down the metal stairs. He doesn’t limp. Doesn’t wince from the cold.

He’s wearing a charcoal suit; expensive, tailored for intimidation. Overcoat slung across one arm. The overhead lights catch the grooves by his mouth, the line of his jaw, carved like he’s been hewn from something harder than flesh. Behind him, shadows. Two, maybe three bodies. One shuffles, heavy, favors his right knee. Muscle. The other’s just a presence, arms folded, head cocked for orders.

But all the oxygen in the warehouse bends toward Marcus. The rest of them are wallpaper.

He stops five feet from me, measures my face, studies the red on my lips. If I’m supposed to show fear, he’ll be waiting.

He smiles. Not a real smile. His eyes never move. “Evening, Brody.”

I stare at him. Let my pulse show, just for a second. Control, always. But not for his sake. He paces a circle, boots echoing off concrete. Palms the back of my chair, cool and measured. Like this is some gallery exhibit and I’m the fucked-up centerpiece.

“You broke into my world,” he says, voice level. “You took what’s mine. Now you pay.”

Shiver starts at my spine, but I clamp down on it. I won’t give him a show. Not when he’s hungry for one.

“What,” I manage. “You run out of little girls to terrorize? Had to drag me out here for fun?”

His hand clamps on my hair, wrenches my head back. No wasted motion. I feel the pull, the snap at my scalp, but I hold his stare. He leans down, his cologne expensive, but underneath is the sour sweat of someone who never doubts he’ll win.

“Don’t pretend you care about her,” Marcus says. “If you did, you wouldn’t have brought this down on her head. Lola is mine. She was always mine.”

The sound of her name elicits fire in my veins. It’s all I hear. I remember our last moments in the cabin. Her moans. Her body. Her shivering skin. Her vulnerable words in the dark. Her truth. She never willingly betrayed me.

I twist, but the restraints dig deeper, pipe scraping bone at my wrist. “If you touch her⁠—”

He laughs. Quiet, almost affectionate. “You’re in no position to make threats.”

I try. I really do. I line up the words. But there’s a swelling pressure at my throat.