Page 82 of Kept

He takes a step away from the thing he’s working on, a step closer to me.

When I back up, my heels hitting a concrete step, he pauses.

“Oh, little prey,” he breathes. “Why did you have to come down here?”

The air is locked inside my chest, my head swimming. When he takes another step, I shake my head frantically, my eyes darting between him and the table.

“W-why?” I choke out. Instead of answering me, he moves closer, and a terrified noise erupts from my throat. “Stay away!”

He tilts his head. “I can’t do that.”

His voice is low, intimate, as he takes steps that eat up the distance between us. I can’t not look at him, my hands gripping the rail desperately as I try to back up before he reaches me.

His hand shoots out, gripping my wrist and pulling me closer. When I thrash, pulling my other hand up to try and push him away, he grabs that too, yanking me closer to him and dragging me down the steps, carrying me into the dungeon with calm efficiency.

“Look at him,” he snarls, and I shake my head desperately. I don’t want to look at the piece of meat that used to be human, the way its head turns slowly from side to side, with desperate, gurgling sounds coming from its throat.

“I can’t,” I sob. “I don’t want to.”

“But you wanted to know,” Enzo breathes in my ear. “You wanted to see, little prey. You didn’t do as you were told, and now you’re here. What do I do with you now?”

“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “Let me go. I’ll go back upstairs—,” He buries his face in my neck, inhaling, and I flinch. He rips himself away with a snarl, and I lose my balance. My hands shoot out to stop me tipping onto the table, and I moan in horror at the wetness under my hands.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask him, my voice shaking as I stare down. “What did he ever do to you?”

What could any human do to deserve this?

All of Ethan’s warnings run through my mind.

The world is full of evil, Zella.

And I walked straight into it. Ran to it, my arms wide open.

Enzo is silent behind me, and I suck in a rasping breath, steeling myself to turn around.

“Am I next?” I ask, waving my hand at the scene behind me. My voice shakes, but I refuse to let myself cry. “Was this all a game to you? Will you carve me up like this, Enzo?”

His fists clench. “So quick to judge, little prey,” he snaps out. The tendons on his neck stand up in harsh lines under the bulb overhead. “When you have no idea.”

I have nowhere to go when he stalks me, pushing me until my hips are pressed into the hard metal of the trolley behind us.

“You have no idea,” he murmurs, his eyes a bare inch from mine. “You think this is evil? This is what hedeserves. He deserves everything he is feeling and more.”

He. I feel sick, and I swallow it down. “I don’t understand.”

He grabs me, spinning me around and sliding his hand around my neck in that familiar way, pushing me down so I’m facing the man on the table.

His breathing is warm against my ear. “John Millers. Fifty-seven years old. Mechanic. Every day, he gets up and goes to work. He’s a hard worker, this one. Works long days, comes home, has a beer in front of the telly. A real stand-up guy. Quiet, keeps to himself, but nice enough. Everyone knows John.”

My eyes feel wet as I stare down, looking into the clouded brown eyes of the thing that used to be John Millers.

Enzo rubs his hands up and down my arms. “Breathe, prey.”

I take a gasping breath, my stomach roiling. “Why, then?”

Enzo presses against me. “Angelina Burrows,” he murmurs. “Seventeen. She was hitchhiking when John picked her up one night. It was an icy December. He was so worried she’d be cold, he wrapped her up in an old duvet when he was finished with her. She was snug as a bug when he buried her a few hundred yards from the highway.”

He presses his lips to my shoulder. “Sherileen Jacobs.” I shake my head, but he doesn’t stop. “Fourteen years old,” he whispers. “She was looking for her dog when he called her over. Told her he’d help her look, and then heburiedher, prey. He buried her so deep, her family never had a chance at finding her.”

---