Page 65 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

As I pulled the knife loose, blood flowed over my fingers. Blood made the hilt slippery, but I clung to the knife, my survival.

He crumbled in front of me, and I didn't hesitate in throwing him aside and sprinting away.

But I didn't make it far. Something slammed into my head from behind and red stars burst across my vision.

I slammed to my knees as the world started to go black at the edges.

I’ll never try to run again. I’ll always fight.

That was the last thing I thought before the cement was rushing up toward me and the world was fading.

19

Aurora

Iwoke up with my throat burning as if I’d been screaming. My head ached sharply when I turned my face, and I blinked sleep from my eyes only to realize that I was in total darkness. But the space around me felt close, confined.

My arms slammed out to the sides, but not far. My fingers crashed into wood. More carefully, I felt for the confines around me. There was a ceiling three inches above my face.

Casket.I was in a casket.

Was I buried alive?

Frantically, I racked my brain, trying to figure out how much air I might have, but I didn’t know how long I’d been here. I pinched my hand, desperately trying to channel some calm, because the rasp of my breathing in the dark was edging my panic higher.

“Are you still scared of the dark?” The Demon’s voice rose out of my memories. “You’re not going to go back to being weak little Gabriela with her little girl fears, are you? I thought you were my Delilah now.”

He’d told me he would help me. I’d taken his hand when he smiled at me and let him lead me into the darkness he said would cure my nightmares.

And he’d left me there, in the dark root cellar with the quicklime that burned my knees, that left scars on my legs. It wasn’t until I grew a little older, a little more familiar with The Demon’s ways, that I understood the quicklime. That I understood I hadn’t been alone down there like I’d thought.

The bodies had been keeping me company.

Why had those guys taken me and put me in a casket? My analytical brain finally kicked on. No one on the internet forum had ever brought up such an idea. The Demon would never have been so hands-off with his victims. Could The Demon have already escaped, could this be where his friends had stashed me until The Demon dug me out?

A distant sound, the faintest whine, reached my ear, and I froze, holding my breath.An engine.

Something fast and expensive, from the sounds of it.

I wasn’t buried.

My lips parted in surprise. Was I near the garage beneath the secret society house?

Had Stellan done this to me? Was this torture round two?

I ran my fingertips over the faint seam along the edge of the coffin, then drew my legs up, trying to wiggle until I could brace my knees against the lid and try to kick it up. Pain exploded through my feet and ankles at the force of my kick, but it was my best chance. I gritted my teeth, preparing to try again and again until the coffin broke or I did.

Was there someone out there, watching me and laughing?

“Aurora? Aurora, are you in here?” The voice sounded muffled through the coffin, but even so, she sounded terrified. And familiar.

I slammed my legs into the coffin again, doubting anyone was actually going to help me. Then reluctantly, afraid to be disappointed, I called, “I’m in here!”

There was a straining noise, then athud.Something heavy must have been rolled off the coffin. Then it was being flung open.

Jenna’s wide eyes stared down at me in the dim light of her flashlight. She looked terrified.

I pulled myself out of the coffin and jumped out before I could be trapped in there again. My running shoes hit the stone floor beneath us and I stared around. The further reaches of the room were lost to the darkness, but Jenna’s flashlight illuminated a long stone table where my coffin rested, the stone wall, and more cobwebs than I wanted to examine too closely. We were in some kind of crypt.

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