Page 215 of Sins of the Hidden

"They're still there, you know," she continued. "Still saving lost girls. Don’t know how many there are, haven’t done business with them in over a year." She leaned closer, her lips brushing my ear, teeth scraping the sensitive shell. "But that just changed."

She began to laugh, the sound high and broken, her body trembling with it. Suddenly, her hand flew to her own stomach,clawing at it through her blouse as if trying to tear something out. "You want to know why I hate him?" she screamed, spittle flying from her lips. "I was sixteen. My daddy's friend—fifty-three years old—pinned me down in our pool house." Her words came faster now, her breathing erratic. "Thirty seconds. That's how long it took him to rape me and destroy my life. I still remember the chlorine smell in my hair, the way the concrete scraped my back raw, how he grunted like a pig." Her face contorted with remembered anguish and rage. "I never knew who the father was. Could have been him, could have been any of the men my mother's friends brought around. They all had their turn. When they found out I was pregnant, my parents didn't believe me. Said I was lying to cover my sin. Sent me to Divine Diligence to be cleansed."

She suddenly straddled me, pinning me down, her face inches from mine, eyes wide and unblinking. "Do you know what it's like to push something out of you that was forced into you? To look into the face of the thing that destroyed your life? He had those same black eyes even then, staring at me like he knew what he'd done. Like he enjoyed it. I begged God for death, and instead, he gave me something worse—him.”

Her eyes refocused on me with terrible clarity. "He thinks he suffered? He has no idea what hell is. But I'm going to show both of you."

Take care of him for us, Oakley.

I knew some extent of V's trauma. He'd shared the horrific details with me in fragments over time—nightmares that woke him gasping, memories triggered by seemingly innocuous things. The scars that mapped his body told only part of the story. And now, faced with the source of his suffering, I understood how miraculous it was that he had survived at all, that he could still reach for connection despite everything.

The pocket watch pressed against my palm, another reminder of what was at stake. If I died here—if I let Daphne win—V would face this alone. Would face her alone. Would be dragged back into the nightmare she'd tried to instill in him at Divine Diligence, with no one to remind him that he was more than what she'd tried to make him.

I would survive this. Not just for myself, but for V. For Chet’s son. I would find Rurik and give him Chet’s pocket watch.

I met Daphne's gaze, something new hardening behind my eyes. She must have seen it—the shift from prey to opponent—because her smile faltered, just for a moment, before stretching wider to compensate.

"There she is," Daphne whispered, almost admiring. "I was wondering when you'd stop being so pathetic." She tilted her head, studying me with renewed interest. "Maybe you're worthy of him after all. My son always did like pretty things."

I said nothing, conserving my strength, my thoughts, my breath. I would wait. I would watch. I would survive.

For V. For the future neither of us had dared to name but that I now clung to like a lifeline in the darkness his mother had created.

"A mother knows her son." Her hand wrapped around my throat, fingers digging into the soft flesh with practiced ease. Her other hand slipped into her pocket, pulling out something that caught the light—a sewing needle threaded with blue embroidery floss. She held it inches from my eye, the point gleaming. "You've kissed his scars, haven't you? Traced them with your fingers, telling him they're beautiful." Her thumb pressed against my lips, forcing them together. "I wonder if he'll find you just as beautiful when I'm done. I still remember how to do the stitches—nice and tight so the words can't escape."

In that moment, survival instinct surged through me. I twisted violently, my knee connecting with her stomach.She grunted, momentarily loosening her grip. I seized the opportunity, shoving her sideways with strength I didn't know I possessed. Her body crashed against the overturned coffee table as I scrambled to my feet, my only thought to reach the door.

"You little bitch," she snarled, recovering faster than should have been humanly possible.

I made it three steps before her hand caught my ankle, sending me sprawling across the hardwood. My chin slammed against the floor. I kicked frantically, trying to free myself from her grasp.

Daphne's face contorted with rage as she lunged toward me. I rolled, narrowly avoiding her grasp, inching closer to the hallway and freedom. But she was too fast, too determined. With inhuman strength, she grabbed Chet's lifeless body by the shoulders and heaved it toward me. His massive frame crashed into mine, pinning me beneath frigid, dead weight.

"Now," she panted, straddling both me and Chet's corpse, "let's make you pretty for my son."

I thrashed beneath the crushing weight, but Chet's body held me in place more effectively than any restraints. My face pressed awkwardly against the floor, one cheek exposed as Daphne leaned down, needle gleaming between her fingers.

"This is going to hurt," she whispered, almost tenderly. "But anguish makes such beautiful art."

Before I could struggle, the needle punched through my bottom lip. White-hot agony exploded through my face as she pulled the thread tight, blue fiber slick with what flowed from the wound. I screamed, the sound warped and strangled as she pinched my lips together for the next stitch.

"Shh, hold still now," she cooed, as if soothing a child. The needle pierced my top lip, then through the bottom again. The frigid, unyielding weight of Chet's body made it impossible to escape as her knees dug into my sides. Tears streamed downmy temples as she knotted the second stitch. "My son cried too. Begged with his eyes when he couldn't use his mouth anymore."

She pushed the needle through a third time, but her hand slipped in the wetness now coating my chin and neck. The thread pulled crooked, tearing slightly at the fresh puncture.

"That's enough for now," she decided, snipping the thread with small scissors that appeared from nowhere. “They’re waiting.”

She grunted as she pushed off Chet's body but left it crushing me, her hand returning to my throat. I gasped around the partial stitches, iron filling my mouth, the metallic taste making me gag. Chet's dead weight pressed me into the floor, his cooling body a grotesque reminder of what awaited me if I couldn't escape.

My last thought was of V—wondering if he would ever know the truth of who had taken me, wondering if he would blame himself when he found Chet's body, wondering if I would ever see him again.

Daphne's laughter merged with the ringing in my ears—a symphony of horror drowning out everything but one final, terrible certainty.

She wasn't just going to kill me.

She was going to use me to destroy him.

The floor was hard underneath my skin, cold seeping into my bones. Something wet and sticky matted my hair to the splintered wooden planks. I blinked, taking in my surroundings through a haze of pain.

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