Page 179 of Devil Mine

Intrinsically, I know.

Marco laughs and drops the gun.

No.

“Thiago…” a soft voice calls out for me.

NO.

Dread reaches out to me with lethally cold fingers and squeezes my heart in its deadly grip. It claws at my organs, cutting me up from the inside and already killing me as slowly as Marco predicted.

When I turn around, a broken moan rattles up my throat as I come face to face with my worst fear come true.

Tess.

Tess, with her cheeks still flushed from having just burst into the room.

Tess, with a surprised look on her face as her wide eyes stare at me in shock.

Tess, as she stumbles back a step, confused, her face slowly tilting down to look at her stomach.

In the flutter of a heartbeat, everything stops.

All the air rushes from the room like it’s been sucked out. Time slows until it comes to a quiet, devastating end.

She’s not supposed to be here. She was supposed to hide, to not come out, to wait for me to come find her.

Shepromised.

But then her hand comes slowly away from her stomach and it’s covered in blood. Red blooms from her pink top, spreading like a watercolor painting of a gory horror scene. Her eyes widen and lift back up to mine and they’re so white.

So white and scared.

“Thiago,” she murmurs again, reaching out for me.

The spell of horror is broken with one disbelieving word, the air rushing suddenly back in, bringing with it stark reality on its wings.

“Tess!” I roar.

She falters down to her knees, clutching at the rapidly expanding stain of red on her stomach.

And then she falls forward, her body hitting the ground.

“NO!”

A cacophony of tortured, anguished screams hit my ears. I realize with detached incredulity that they’re coming from me. That I’m howling my terror with full-throated wails.

Raw, unadulteratedpainunlike anything I’ve ever felt punches through me. I lunge for her but my legs give out and I stumble to the ground.

Distantly, I hear another gunshot. Arturo finally appears and rushes past me, likely to make sure Marco is dead.

But all I can see is Tess’s face pressed against the floor, her scared eyes brimming with tears and searching desperately for mine.

And red.

Red everywhere.

Red where there should be pink.

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