Page 100 of Brutal Obsession

All I can focus on is the isolation hut, its outline almost invisible against the night.

“Doesn’t this seem strange to you?” Darren roars behind me.

I’m not listening. Harper’s terrified eyes stare at me in my mind. In my memory, her arms are still around my neck. I refuse to let her die.

Darren keeps going. “Why would they keep her here?” We’re only a hundred feet from the shack when Darren inhales, big and sharp. “Cian, wait! I think this?—”

My ankle tears through a barely perceptible, microscopic thread.

A trip wire.

A sonic, subterraneanboom.

Infernal heat. Splitting, splintering wood.

The force of the blast breaks the night. Stars watch from far above as Darren and I fly backward through the air.

We crash into the dirt, faces slick with sweat and smeared with earth.

Ears ringing. Head spinning. Ahead of me, the flames consuming the shack blaze up into the sky.

My world turns to silence and slow motion.

No!

Grief threatens to rip me in two.

Somehow, I stumble to my feet and half stagger, half sprint the rest of the way to the shack. I kick in the door and shoulder into the inferno beyond.

I’ll never believe Harper’s dead. Not unless I see her body, unless I find proof of?—

The inside of the shack is full of nothing but fire. The smoke’s too thick. I can’t see everything, but in this outhouse version of hell, I discern no human remains. I know what burning flesh smells like, and it isn’t this.

There’s nothing here.

Wait.There.

On the far wall. Nailed to the wood. It’s?—

Strong fingers stab into my back, grabbing a rough fistful of my shirt. Someone hauls me over the flaming threshold of the shack and back out into the night. I cough so hard, I retch a little. Didn’t realize how much oxygen I’d lost.

Rory shoves me farther away from the blazing structure, forcing me to run with what strength I have back toward the van.

Dead De Luca soldiers litter the path behind our vehicle.

Riley’s handiwork, I imagine. She’s helping Darren into the van, and once Rory and I climb inside, Finn yanks the vehicle into a U-turn. We tear toward the exit of the property like bats out of hell.

Riley and Rory kneel in front of me, bright neon concern painted on their faces, while I sit panting and dazed on the seat.

Rory gives me a once over. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just a little shaken up.”

“Good.” Without another word, he lifts his hand and smacks me upside the head. “What the hell did you think you were doing, running in there after the explosion before we cleared it, you dumbass?”

“Darren was right. It was a trap, but I had to know for sure,” I wheeze, still coughing out smoke. “Harper wasn’t there, but she’s…she’s not dead.”

Riley heaves a relieved breath, her eyes falling closed.

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