Page 43 of Dead By Dusk

I can do nothing but follow in her steps, guided only by my desire to ensure she knows there is nowhere she could go that I wouldn’t follow.

Watching as she throws the library doors open and slips inside, I quicken my steps, trying to lessen the distance she created between us, but something holds me back. Something makes me hesitate as I take the last few steps. A veiled voice speaking into my mind that everything will change once I open these doors. Life itself may never be the same once I’m inside,but that’s a risk I will always take when I know it’s one I’m not taking alone.

But when I open the door, I wasn’t expecting the sight in front of me to suffocate me.

Besides Silene, there are fourteen others in the room. Twelve, I noticed, are extra security that stand watch at Mr. Delgado’s estate. They don’t go out for missions and do the dirty work as we do; instead, they remain here to protect him while we’re gone. Their numbers have risen in the past week or so, something that makes sense with the increased paranoia I’ve witnessed, though it doesn’t make sense for them to all be in the same place at once.

Or it wouldn’t make sense if it weren’t for the two other bodies in the room. One, seated and bound to a chair. Tears are streaming down her face as muffled sobs fill the air. The second person stands behind her, pressing the barrel of a gun into the side of her head. I don’t know if it’s to keep Silene from going on a murderous rampage or if it’s to steady myself, but I find myself tightly gripping her waist.

Every man in here stands up straighter at my presence due to the reputation I’ve built here. It’s impossible not to know who I am and what I’m capable of; however, it’s an insult and miscalculation that will only result in their deaths if they think I’m the deadliest one in this room. Any smart individual would realize the woman in front of me is the creature that goes bump in the night. They just need to open their eyes to see it.

A deep voice thunders, filling the gaps between the small cries, causing Silene to tense.

“Ronan! I’m glad you could make it. We wouldn’t have been ready to start this little meeting here without the person who brought awareness to this uh… situation that we have here.” As he speaks, my grip on Silene becomes tighter and tighter, andin any other situation, I might have felt bad for the bruising hold I have on her if I didn’t fear what might happen next.

I had fallen in love with a runner. Someone accustomed to a life of chaos and violence, and the first person to show her delicacy and kindness was sitting across the room bracing for death. She had just been told the second person was the reason all of this was happening. I knew what she was going to do next, but I couldn’t let her get herself killed without knowing the truth. Even if I wasn’t entirely sure what the truth was.

What I did know was that Carmen did not deserve to be in that chair. The next sob she releases comes from so deep within her, it mirrored the betrayal I’m sure is woven onto Silene’s face. Even though I can’t see it, I can feel it beneath my fingertips just as much as I can feel it on my face when she sends her elbow as hard as she can into my jaw.

I taste the blood from my lips more than I feel the pain, but I know she wasn’t trying to hurt me as much as she was trying to remove my hold, something I hate to admit she succeeded in. Even if I knew she was going to escape me regardless of my efforts to keep her back.

Her body dances through the room in a chorus of spilled blood and final cries. For a moment, I’m mesmerized by the sight of her in a fight to defend the only friend she has ever truly known. Then, I’m thrust into action, fighting to make sure that her rage doesn’t blind her so much that she inadvertently lets someone slip past her defense through any one of her blind spots.

I’m doing my best to gain back some of the space that separates us when someone does to me exactly what I was worried would happen to her and kicks the back of my knees in. I try to regain my footing, try to turn myself around, but more men have surrounded me and hold back my arms. My focusdoesn’t stray from her though, as I keep my gaze fixed on my destination. I won’t stop fighting to get to her.

I never could, even as heavy boots kick my abdomen, stealing my breath so much that stars flit in and out of my vision. But I still see her. No matter how much my vision blurs and threatens to disappear completely, I see her through it all. It’s the only thing that keeps me grounded. Having no other choice but to grind my teeth, I think of another plan—a reckless plan, but one that might get us out alive. Instead of trying to fight away from them, I change tactics and grip their arms, pulling them toward me. Their footing falters as they trip over themselves at the unexpected defense maneuver, and I use that surprise to regain my footing. I don’t make it far, as the man closest to me hits my head with what I can only assume is the butt of a gun before kicking my back so hard that I have no choice but to use my hands to catch myself on the hard marble floor of the library.

My sight is hazy, worse than it had previously been, and I try so hard to just focus. Focus for her, but I see it too late.

“Si—” I try to force out, but she’s already on the ground, and as I watch her unmoving body stay down, I force myself to crawl to her. The effort that it takes to just keep my eyes open is monumental as shadows threaten to take over. My wrists and head scream in pain, begging to just give in, but I can’t do that before I reach her. I refuse to fail her more than I already have.

But it seems what I want doesn’t matter as a boot slams into the side of my head and sleep overcomes me. No more than a foot away from where her body fell, I fall and drift to a world where she and I never walked into this room.

* * *

I wake alone in what looks suspiciously like a cell, bombarded by the smell of piss and blood. I’m still in the clothes I had been wearing, but my limbs ache and feel as if I had just moved them for the first time in what had to have been hours. My head is pounding so hard that everytime that I move, pain shoots through the length of my back. It’s a struggle to keep my eyes open, but I force myself to keep blinking, adjusting to the dim fluorescent lighting.

“You’re awake.” His cold dark voice fills the entirety of the space as a door slams open. Slow steps get closer and closer, the sound increasing menacingly as I await the man who had brought me here. “I was wondering how long you would be out. I’ll be quite honest, it took longer than I anticipated. Though—” He stops talking as he halts in front of me. His greedy dark brown eyes scan the length of me with a mix of disgust and intrigue hiding behind them. “That woman of yours, she had some fight in her.”

Had.

That singular word plays in my mind like a broken record before rage tunnels my vision, and I shoot forward, slamming my hands into the bars of my enclosure.

Red is all I see at the thought of what could have been done to her while I’ve been out. The way he speaks is as if she’s been awake long enough to give him hell, which would fill me with satisfaction if I didn’t already know he could do much worse to her under the wrong circumstances.

His laughter echoes off the walls and fills my ears, a mocking rumble that tells me he knows what I’m thinking, and he isn’t willing to confirm nor deny a single thing.

Torture, I realize. This is torture in the only way he knows would be effective on me.

“It’s funny, you know. You two thought you could hide from me all this time. You thought you could run from me. Youthought you couldkillme. Maybe you could have…” He stops his ramblings for a moment and begins pacing the area in front of me, back and forth in a punishingly slow cadence as he returns to his speech.

“I do have you to thank for the fact that I’m alive, though. You’ve helped me more than you know.”

“I didn’t tell you shit,” I grit out through clenched teeth as I track his every movement, biding my time to obtain as much information from him as possible. I know it will be an impossibly difficult task. But if he wanted me dead, I would be, so I need to do my best to find out why. What is his end game?

“Possibly. But what if you did? You know every corner of the estate, Callaghan. Every camera placement, every worker. Are you sure you were able to properly avoid saying the wrong thing in front of anyone and everything?” His eyes glimmer as I turn over every conversation I’ve had in the past two weeks. His smile becomes alarmingly wide as he watches doubt settle within me, because I don’t know for sure. As careful as I had been, was it enough?

“Do you really believe that no one can be bought?” I flick my gaze to him, curiosity looming over my head like a dark cloud. An admission of betrayal that isn’t my own, even if he didn’t say it outright. He’s been like this as long as I’ve known him, speaking half truths and asking enough questions to throw you off course. Belief being brought into question typically points in the direction you should follow when ensnared in his web of deceit. “I never believed I would find myself with this issue given how handsomely I pay everyone for their discretion. Admittedly, that may have been foolish on my part. Especially with women. They get so emotional.”

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