Page 3 of Black Hearts

2

Celeste

I was awake.

My head was pounding and my legs and arms seemed to be paralyzed. My mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, and pain and nausea crashed through my system like a train from the depths of hell. For a few seconds, I couldn’t remember what happened, how I got here, or when I went to sleep. Or even how I went to sleep.

Then the fog subsided, and it all came back to me in a cold rush of horror. I tightened my trembling hands into fists and moaned softly through my nostrils at the chilling memories, wishing in vain for them to get out of my head.

With great effort, I finally peeled my dry, sticky eyes open and lifted my head. Such a small movement, and yet it caused an explosion of agony in my neck. No wonder—the left side of my neck was where Dwyer had jabbed me with a giant needle last night, after about an hour on the dark roads.

Wincing, I lifted my head some more, and panic flooded my veins as I realized exactly why I felt so weak and paralyzed. It wasn’t just from whatever drugs Dwyer gave me. I was lying on a hard gray surface, restrained with metal cuffs so small and tight that my circulation was at risk of being cut off.

My clothes were still on, except for my thick jacket and shoes, and I didn’t feel any aching down below that might suggest I’d been raped. A small mercy.

I parted my dry lips and panted, gulping down deep breaths as I twisted my sore neck and looked around, checking out my surroundings. I was in a small, dank room with dark gray walls and a concrete floor. No windows. A small, cracked yellow bulb to light the space. I couldn’t hear anything. No voices, music, traffic, chirping birds outside. Nothing.

Déjà vu crashed through me. This was all too familiar, waking up after being drugged and kidnapped, only to find myself trapped in a silent gray cell. Only this was ten times more terrifying, because my new cell was right in the belly of the beast.

I tried to pull my hands out of the cuffs, hoping they weren’t as strong as they looked, but they refused to budge despite my best efforts. I tried with my feet as well, but it was more of the same. I was stuck. I had no idea why I’d clung to any hope that I might not be; of course I was. These guys didn’t mess around.

A tear slipped down the side of my face as I lay my head back on the uncomfortable surface, resting my sore neck. My mind was whirling with regret, reminding me how stupid I’d been to not trust Alex.

A fist squeezed my heart at the mere thought of his name.

For so long, I thought he’d lied to me and betrayed me, but it turned out that I was the betrayer. I left, walked right out the door and away from a life with him, and now I had no hope left at all. The Circle had me, and they were nothing like him. There would be no sympathy or compassion for me at their hands.

Even though Alex liked to inflict pain, it was never in an evil sense. He might whip or spank me, but it was only because he knew I liked it deep down. He wanted me to want the pain, and I did.

Despite my previous misgivings and distrust, I now knew—albeit too late—that there was never actually any threat of death there. The worst Alex would ever do to me was give me the sort of pain I craved and wanted anyway.

In regard to other people that weren’t me: he was a killer, yes, but he killed for a reason I could understand. The oldest reason in history. Retribution. The men he hunted, tortured, and maimed deserved it by virtue of their previous terrible actions against humankind. They were depraved, and they brought every ounce of agony upon themselves. If anything, they deserved more than what Alex did to them. More pain, more suffering, more crippling defeat.

They weren’t like him at all. There were no justifications for their actions, no ways to spin it and twist it. They were nothing but pure evil. They tortured, raped and killed innocents for pleasure.

And now I was their target, caged and waiting for whatever hellish torment they had in store for me.

I felt goosebumps cropping up beneath my clothes as a door opened, sending fresh dread ricocheting through me. Dwyer entered a moment later, pushing a loud stainless steel instrument trolley toward me with one hand, a gun in his other one.

“You’re finally awake. About fucking time,” he said, drawing closer. He grabbed a bottle of water from the trolley’s top tray and forced me to gulp some down.

My stomach lurched as I caught sight of what else was on the tray. Knives, pincers, some sort of power saw or grinder, thick metal rods, a Taser, a blowtorch. Terror made my throat close for a few seconds, so I couldn’t even scream as my new captor finally pulled the water bottle away.

“Good girl. Already keeping quiet,” he said. “Although you won’t be soon. Not that it matters.” He shrugged and glanced around us. “This whole house is soundproofed.”

“You… you guys soundproofed an entire mansion?” I said, finally finding my tongue.

He looked confused for a second, and then he laughed indulgently. “Oh, I see. You thought you were there.” He shook his head. “I didn’t take you to the mansion.”

“Then where am I?”

“You don’t need to know that. All you need to know is that I’m going to love having you here as my guest.” A nasty gleam entered his eyes as he spoke. I’d looked into those same eyes so many times before at the field office, and all I’d seen was a warm, familiar guy.

How could I not see how vile and toxic he really was? How could I be so blind?

“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Why am I doing this?” Dwyer cocked his head to the side, then scoffed. “You already know why. Your serial killer buddy told you the truth when he said we were after you. We’ve been looking for you ever since you revealed to your therapist that you’d started to remember things about us. Even though it was just the very beginnings of a memory, and you didn’t even know what you knew yet… we knew it was only a matter of time before it all came back. Before you threatened our existence.”

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