Page 180 of Sin Like the Devil

Taking one last look around the office and its deceased inhabitant, I duck into the corridor. Emergency lighting flashes on repeat, reminiscent of an epileptic fit. Still, the silence is eerie.

I almost startle when my phone begins to buzz.

“Raine?” I answer hastily.

“What’s that alarm, Xan?” His voice is high pitch.

“Everyone’s going into lockdown. Hold tight.”

“I can hear shouting. Sounds like patients.”

“I’m coming now.”

Hanging up the call, I keep the blood-slick blade poised in my hand as I enter the spookily empty corridor. Not many staff are around on weekends anyway, but it’s deserted now the guards have been directed outside.

As I near the reception, doors are flung open. Chairs upturned. Brochures scattered. The sounds of screaming and yelling emanate from outside where the witching hour has fallen.

A quick peek outside reveals the growing commotion. With the majority of Davis’s men sent to protect the institute’s perimeter, few remain to hold the tension at bay. And damn, has it exploded.

All hell has broken loose. At first glance, it looks like Harrowdean’s patient population has turned on itself. There are dozens of scraps taking place, fists flying into faces and blood spraying in all directions.

As I squint through the darkness, I can see the true reality. Beyond a few random fights, they’re actually targeting the guards. Patients rally together, taking down black-clad brutes and stealing their weapons.

Guards are being tasered and cuffed. Pummelled with fists at every available opportunity. The mob is growing as sides are drawn. In the gloom, violence rules. And it’s growing by the second.

This is an uprising.

A fucking riot.

CHAPTER 29

RIPLEY

SINNER – OF VIRTUE

“Please!” I beg at the top of my lungs. “Stop!”

Arms shackled to a thick metal ring built into the wall above my head, I strain my shoulders each time I attempt to break free. Hours of agony and I’m still no closer to escaping. Every muscle feels like it’s been pumped full of lead and torn to shreds.

It doesn’t compare to the pain I’ve been forced to witness, though. There was a time when I would’ve enjoyed seeing Lennox scream himself hoarse and pass out. If I could go back to that mental place right now, I would. Anything to escape this.

“The suffering of others is a particularly interesting motivator.” Craven’s tone is conversational. “Most can have empathy for a stranger. But empathy for a peer? That’s far more powerful.”

His mouth frozen in an eternal yell that his vocal cords have long since stopped supplying, Lennox strains against his own shackles. He’s bound in a similar fashion, but unlike me, the spotlight is all his.

“Again,” Craven orders.

His partner in crime, the guard with a cap covering his closely cropped hair, flicks a switch on the battery-like machine placed a few inches from Lennox. It’s connected to several wires, each one secured to his bare chest by an adhesive pad.

The moment the lever is pulled, his body jerks. An intense electrical current is being fed into his torso, over and over, the shock far more powerful than a mere stun gun blast. This is brutal, repeated electrocution.

“What do you want from us?” I sob violently.

The professor deigns to look at me, his expression completely void of emotion. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Then stop! Don’t hurt him!”

“Believe me, I’m being paid a significant sum to hurt him.”

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