Page 201 of Sage Haven

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It had always been there.

I didn’t want to fight anymore.

I was done. I was ready to let go. To surrender. To die.

And I prayed for it.

I begged for it.

For an end. For release.

For something, anything, that would pull me under and hold me there.

Let me slip away before he comes back. Let me die before I have to endure it again.

But prayers were nothing more than whispers into the void.

And the universe didn’t care.

It never had.

The lid creaked open.

That sound…it was too sharp. Too real.

Like metal screaming against metal.

The frozen air peeled back with it, stealing what little warmth I had left.

I braced myself.

For the hands.

Except—there was something different this time.

A flash of silver, followed by a wet, choking gurgle.

And then—warmth.

Not the kind that brought comfort.

But the kind that sprayed across my skin, hot and slick and wrong.

I flinched, my eyes squeezing shut as something wet splattered against my cheek, sliding down in what I knew were crimson trails that I was too numb to wipe away.

I forced my eyes open.

I had to know.

Even if it was the last thing I saw.

But it wasn’t Klay’s face that loomed over me.

It wasn’t the monster I had braced for. It wasn’t the nightmare I had begged to avoid.

It was someone else.

A man.

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