I refused to ease my grip on the knife as he bashed my wrist against the wall again and again.
I won’t let go. Not ever!
His free hand dropped between us to the edge of my waistband and my heart nearly combusted. I needed a plan and one came to me as I called on my training with my dad, drawing on everything I’d ever learned and begging it to take over my actions.
I dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the ground and as his gaze shifted to it, I threw my knee up between his thighs, catching him right in the balls.
He roared in anger, backing up as he clutched his junk and howled in pain. I dropped down, grabbing the knife as I darted past him and his fingers yanked out a few strands of my hair as he tried to catch me.
I sped down the other passage, my breathing ragged as I raced on into the darkness at a furious pace.
The tunnel started to climb and I could have cried as a hint of moonlight called to me up ahead.
“Tatum!” Monroe’s voice reached me and a glow of light from his phone showed me how close he was.
My heart lifted with pure, desperate hope. He’d actually come for me. And somehow, he’d found me.
“I’m here!” I panted as I raced towards him.
He lifted his phone and I squinted against the brightness, suddenly crashing into a solid iron gate. A metal clang rang out, reverberating through the entire tunnel.
He was just on the other side of it, his face pinched with anxiety as he grabbed my hand through the bars.
Footsteps sounded behind me and panic laced my blood like poison.
“Who the fuck is that?” Monroe demanded then barrelled on. “Can you open the gate?”
“Yes,” I gasped, swearing again and again as I tucked the knife into my waistband and lifted the keys with shaking fingers. Monroe angled his phone light down towards them so I could see.
“Hurry,” he pressed and I wet my achingly dry mouth as I picked a key at random and stuffed it in the lock.
“Hey!” Monroe called out to the asshole heading my way. “Back the fuck up!”
I turned the key hard, but it didn’t work and I knew I’d cost myself everything as Merl snatched a fistful of my hair.
Fear clutched me in its grip and I screamed as he yanked me around to face him, tossing the keys at Monroe in desperation, hearing them jingling across the ground.
“Let her go!” Monroe bellowed, rage and fear colliding in his voice.
Merl pinned me against the wall, throwing a solid punch to my ribs. I wheezed as the air was knocked out of me and he shoved me to the ground, his weight following me, pressing me into the ice-cold concrete.
I jerked and fought but his eyes were wild, unforgiving. I fought to hook the knife from my waistband in determination, but he took my head in both hands and cracked it down against the ground before I could pull it free.
Light burst in front of my eyes and for a moment I saw Jessica calling my name, her hand reaching for me.
A haze washed through me and I tasted blood in the air as I drew in a ragged breath. All the light in the world seemed to extinguish as my thoughts started to slowly pull back together and I felt his hands on me. His fingers dragging down my skin, his rancid breath against my lips. The clink of him undoing his belt and the distinctive rolling down of a zipper.
My hand twitched as I heard Monroe calling my name and shouting at Merl with a thousand curses as the gate banged and rattled while he tried to break it down.
Suddenly more voices joined with his and for a moment I was sure that I could hear the Night Keepers calling my name too. But instead of fearing more monsters drawing close to me, the thought of them coming for me brought me a fierce kind of strength.
My throat was tight, my mind blurry, but I fixed on one thing. One rule I’d lived by my entire life. The gift my father had given me, stitched into my damn soul. Survive at all costs. Any cost.
I screamed in my assailant’s face, pouring my hate, my rage, my need to live into every note, then I yanked the hunting knife free of my pants and rammed the full length of it into his side. It sliced through flesh and bone, the impact of the blow echoing through my arm. My soul.
He jerked, grunting in shock as my thoughts snapped back together and I gazed at the man who looked over me as blood dripped from his mouth onto my face, making my limbs freeze in horror.
Merl was ripped off of me and I lost my grip on the knife as he was thrown to the ground. My lips parted as I stared up at Monroe to my right and the Night Keepers to my left with the dying man at their feet.
They looked like four demons, their dark expressions filled with a fury so pure I could taste it on the air. But there was more to them than that. Something that was equally as terrifying in the way they were looking at me. It took me a moment to realise it was fear. Real, pure fear for me. These brutal creatures had come running to my aid when I needed them most and despite all of the things that had passed between us, in that moment I felt truly safe with them surrounding me. Protecting me.
Blake moved forward, taking my hand and pulling me up. He was looking at me like the night we’d been together, back when he didn’t hate me, when I’d just been a girl whose flesh he’d worshipped.
My breathing was suddenly so loud against my ears. Everything was too quiet and I was horribly aware of what I’d done. I clawed my hands into my hair and felt the stickiness of my attacker’s blood on my skin. I could smell it, taste it. It was everywhere. And Merl groaned and cursed as more and more of it pooled out around him.
“No…no no no,” I spoke to myself, unable to look at anyone around me. “I stabbed him. My life is fucked. I am so fucked.” I started to shake from a new kind of fear. I couldn’t find it in me to regret it. He’d been attacking me. But I’d stabbed him bad. He was going to die. I could see it in his eyes, in the pool of blood that just kept growing and growing and-”
“Tatum,” Saint said my name in a powerful tone and my eyes snapped up to find him in the dark as the single word cut through the fog of my panic.
The dying man’s phone lay beside him, the flashlight on it smeared with blood so we were all lit in ominous red tones.
Saint leaned down, taking hold of the hilt of the knife in the man’s side and ripping it out in one clean pull, making him scream in pain. In a flash of movement so sudden it made me gasp, Saint drove the knife into Merl’s chest with a merciless blow.
Merl shuddered and passed out, still somehow clinging to life, but his body was growing stiller by the second.
“You didn’t kill him,” Saint growled in a tone flecked with warmth as he looked to me. “I did.”
A beat of silence stretched through the air for so long, it felt eternal. Then Blake snatched the blade, kicking Merl over and slamming it into his back. My throat thickened as he looked to me with his jaw tight.
“I did it,” Blake breathed and I shook my head, at a loss to understand what was happening.
Kyan prised the blade from Blake’s hand, grabbed a fistful of the guy’s hair and slashed the knife across his throat. More blood spilled and I winced, scrambling backwards until my spine hit Monroe’s legs.
“No, I did it,” Kyan growled and I looked up at him with my lower lip trembling, finding a swirling sea of darkness in his eyes. I felt that same darkness in me, like our beings were made of shadow. Like all of ours were.
Kyan lifted the bloody knife, holding it out to Monroe and I tilted my head back to look up at him, shaking my head in refusal. I had no idea what he was going to do. He’d just seen us all murder someone. He could run to the cops. He could give us all up. And why wouldn’t he? This was exactly what he’d need to take Saint down.