Page 67 of Whispers of the Dead

He lets out a low chuckle and shakes his head like he’s talking to a child. “I think you’ve already proven why the keys are kept separate.”

Then, without warning, he unlocks my cell and shoves me inside. I stumble and catch myself against the far wall, my heart slamming against my ribcage like my palm slams against the cold, familiar stone. I turn back to look at him with fire in my veins.

“You’ll stay here for now, since you’ve shown you can’tbe trusted to honor your side of our deal.” His lips curl into something twisted, a mockery of a smirk. “Besides, I need to finish preparing things upstairs. Once it’s ready, I’ll come back for you.”

Upstairs. The room. Our room. A cold shudder runs down my spine.

His gaze sweeps over the contents of my cell, and his frown deepens. Disgust sets a deep frown on his face. His eyes take in the queen-sized bed, the soft blankets, and the food neatly placed along the wall. His face morphs into something gruesome. “What the hell is this?”

I don’t answer, not that I even need to.

His jaw tightens, and his eyes flick between the mattress, the pillows, the boxes of food, and the bottles of water. “This wasn’t me.”

“No, of course not, because you don’t know how to take care of your prisoners,” Cole says in a deathly voice that surprises us all. “You want her to worship you, but you can’t even feed her.”

Eugene takes out his taser and I run to the front bars of my cell. “Wait, you can’t. Remember our deal? You can’t hurt them anymore.”

With his back still turned to me, he turns his head to the side and I see the smirk. “You also remember my part of the deal?”

“What’s all this talk about a deal?” Benji asks.

Eugene ignores him, but he hooks the taser back onto his belt and looks at my cell with fury in his eyes again. “Avery. Figures he’d pull a stunt like this.”

His fingers twitch like he’s itching to tear the bed apart with his own bare hands.

For a moment, I think he might, but then he steps back with a sharp exhale. “No matter. I’ll deal with him later. For now, I need to get things ready for your arrival.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, a fury-filled snarl erupts from Cole’s cell.

“You’re not taking her anywhere,” Benji says matter-of-factly.

Cole shifts near the bars. “If you so much as touch her?—”

Eugene laughs. It’s a cold, cutting sound. “Spare me the theatrics. This was her decision. She made her choice. In fact, I don’t need to explain myself to the likes of you.”

“You didn’t give me a choice.”

He turns his gaze back to me and his smirk twists into something cruel, something victorious. “And yet, you still chose me.”

A dark chuckle echoes from the shadows. “Yeah. If by ‘choose’ you mean she was coerced at knifepoint.”

I recognize the voice as one of the dregs from the rooftop, but I was so focused on Damon that I can’t tell which one it is.

Eugene’s head snaps toward the dreg so fast, I swear I hear his neck crack. His eyes burn with fury, and it’s strange to see that look directed at someone other than me. “Shut it, or I’ll do it for you.”

Then he steps toward me and reaches his hand through the bars as if to brush my cheek. I flinch back before I can stop myself, and his expression shifts.

For a moment, there’s something almost like hurt in his eyes, but then it’s quickly replaced by an icy anger. “That reaction will change. Sooner than you think.”

I swallow hard, my mouth too dry to give a response. I’m pretty sure that reaction will never change.

Eugene finally steps back and his eyes linger on me for a beat too long before turning toward the corridor with a promise, “I’ll be back.”

Then the door slams shut behind him and I let out a shaky exhale, my knees threatening to give out.

“What the hell happened out there?” Benji demands, his voice cutting through the thick silence.

I don’t answer right away. First, I sink down onto the edge of my bed and pull my soft white fleece jacket tighter around me, and then twist my trembling fingers together until I find my voice. “He gave me a choice. The same choice as always, but this time, there was only one option.”

---