Page 76 of The Beautiful Dead

Let her feel true isolation before I stepped into the dim moonlight.

“Do you understand now?” I asked softly.

She jerked at the sound of my voice, trying to scramble back, but Domino caught her ankle, dragging her back to us with slow, methodical ease.

“This isn’t real,” she whispered, voice breaking.

I crouched in front of her, tilting my head. “That’s the problem with people like you. You think your perception defines reality.”

Her lips trembled. Mascara painted black rivers down her pale cheeks.

Domino sighed, disappointed. Bored. His knife flashed, pressing just under her collarbone—enough to draw a slow, crimson bead of blood.

“You’re going to feel us everywhere,” I murmured.

Her pulse thundered beneath the steel. I licked my lips. Images of her body distorted and broken like a sculpture, blooddripping from the wound on her neck as she hung suspended, a pool spreading across the ground beneath her, filled my mind.

“You’re going to hear our footsteps even when we’re not there,” Domino continued. The blade traced up, teasing the edge of her jaw. “You’re going to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if we’re watching.” I leaned in, my breath ghosting over her ear. “Because we are.”

She let out a broken, choked sob.

I smiled, baring my teeth. “I know...”

Her confusion was fleeting—fear swallowed her whole, freezing her in place. Dirt smeared across her skin. Scratches bled red from where sticks and stones had cut into her flesh.

I pulled out my sketchbook. Pencil in hand. The need to draw what I saw flowed through my veins.

Domino watched, intrigued, as I began to draw. Quick, deliberate strokes, lines forming the outline of Brielle as she was now—fragile, terrified, crumbling.

She didn’t even notice at first.

Her breath hitched when she saw. “W-what are you doing?” she stammered, her voice shaking.

I didn’t look up. “Capturing something beautiful.”

Her whole body shook.

“You’re most beautiful when you don’t know death is watching,” I said softly.

My pencil glided over the page, sketching the curve of her trembling fingers, the way her lips parted in fear.

“I could kill you right now.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“But I won’t,” I murmured. “Not yet. Not as long as she’s alive.”

Domino wasn’t watching her anymore. He was watching me.

His smile was slow. Dark. Proud.

I snapped my sketchbook shut. “We should go.”

Domino tilted his head. “What about her?”

I turned, walking away. Then, just before I disappeared into the shadows, I glanced back at Brielle—sprawled on the ground, dirt streaking her skin, eyes wide with terror.

“She’ll find her way out.Eventually.”

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