Page 37 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

I hated her.

I wrenched my eyes from the mirror and jumped in the shower, hurrying through the process just in case Paxton decided to make another appearance. I’d put a chair under his doorknob so that I’d at least have a warning before the door flew open, but I knew it wouldn’t stop him if he really wanted inside. Just another thing they’d ruined for me.

When I was able to shower without anyone coming in, I started to get suspicious. I would’ve thought one of them would be lurking around, wanting to gloat about what happened this morning.

But the place was completely silent. I haven’t even heard anyone walking down the hallway. It was weird. I didn’t want any of them to bother me, but it also made me uneasy being alone in the place. I still hadn’t seen most of the building. And it was a secret society. Who knew what things they got up to here?

I checked every nook and cranny in the room...just in case.

Satisfied that no one was hiding in the room, I slipped under the covers, making sure that the light was on in my closet before I did so. I was hoping to get a good night’s rest after my run, and sure enough, I soon found myself slipping into dreamland.

Which was never a good thing.

I was cowering in the corner, trying to keep my gaze on anything but what was happening on the table in the middle of the room. Bach was blaring from the speakers, so loud that my eardrums were about to explode. It was Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D Minor tonight. I knew the music would be embedded in my brain for the next month after this, which was not a good thing, since the piece was the stuff of nightmares. Of course that was why The Demon liked it so much. He could play it as loud as he wanted down here. We were so deep underground, with so much soundproofing around us, that there wasn’t a chance of being overheard.

A woman’s tortured cry cut through the music, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking over to the table where The Demon was working. I wasn’t sure where he’d picked this one up. All I knew was that she was a prostitute who’d made the mistake of getting into his car. He’d injected her with something that paralyzed her, and now she was laying there on the metal table, trapped in her body as she stared at him pleadingly.

He’d just started with the scalpel. He’d drag it down her chest, just deep enough that he could pull away the skin, but he wouldn’t hit any major organs. The Demon considered himself an artist, and his victims were his canvases, his beautiful sacrifices to the devil he worshiped…. himself.

I wanted to look away from the scene, but I felt paralyzed as I watched the scalpel move down her chest, and her stomach, stopping right on top of her pubic bone. He made two perpendicular lines on each side and began to peel away the skin, showcasing the muscle and fat underneath.

Tears ran unbidden down my face...and hers as he worked, her cries coming out in garbled, tortured gasps since he’d cut out her tongue to start the process.

"Aurora," a voice seeped into my subconscious, crowding away the dream that held me captive.

"Aurora," the voice called again. It sounded so familiar, but my nightmare was holding on fast; blood was starting to pour off the sides of the metal table in a way that I knew somehow was impossible yet seemed so realistic in my dream.

The room started to shake suddenly, and then I felt hands on my body as I was lurched out of the dream. I sat up with a gasp, my forehead hitting something hard. Not something, I realized. Someone.

"Fuck," a gravelly voice said, and it took me a second to realize that it was Paxton. He’d just woke me from my nightmare.

A mix of shame and embarrassment cycled through me. The last thing I wanted was one ofthemto see me at my weakest, and that's what had just happened.

Something wet hit my hand, and I looked down only to realize that I had tears streaming down my face from the horror of the dream. I frantically wiped at my face, as if he hadn't seen them already. t I hated that I was afraid of the dark. With the light coming in from the closet, you could see everything. He’d probably gotten a perfect view of me thrashing on my sheets.

"Why are you in here?" I asked, my voice coming out hoarse and broken.

Paxton shifted on the bed, but I realized he looked uncomfortable. “I heard you screaming,” he said roughly. “Even with all the doors closed, I could hear you."

That comment had my head jerking towards my now open bedroom door that led into the bathroom that I knew I had locked. The door didn't look broken either, confirming that I couldn’t count on it to keep anything out at all.

Belatedly I realized that Paxton's thumb was softly caressing my leg, and I involuntarily shivered from the sensation. He didn't seem to realize that he was doing it though. He was staring at the wall above my head, lost in some deep thought. Or maybe it wasn’t something deep, maybe it was something dark. There was something in his gaze, something tragic, like he’d seen some horror for himself and was still trying to escape it.

But of course, that couldn’t be it. That was just me romanticizing something, trying to find the silver lining in an embarrassing situation.

“I have nightmares too,” he suddenly admitted, still staring at the wall. His gaze flicked to me, and he stared at me like he was really seeing me for the first time. "What do you dream about?"

I opened my mouth immediately to tell him to fuck off, to tell him he was crazy to think I would bare my soul to him. And then I closed it. In the dim light, he didn't look as fierce as he did during the day. In the shadows, he looked almost… Haunted.

"Truth for truth?" I whispered, and he held my gaze, his amber eyes burning into me like he could see straight to my soul.

"Okay," he said after what felt like the longest minute of my life.

He got up from the bed abruptly and walked over to the closet, shutting off the light before closing the doors.

"I need that," I told him sharply as I watched his shadow walk back to the bed.

Paxton didn't ask why I needed it, and I guess the answer would've been obvious to anyone. He simply crawled into the bed and pulled me against his body.

---