Page 44 of The Madness Within

Just… still.

His jaw flexed, the tiniest twitch betraying something deeper. “You saw them?”

“Saw them. Collected them. Connected the dots.”

“You’ve been collecting trophies?”

“No,” I said, watching him carefully. “I’ve been collecting evidence.”

He didn’t answer right away.

His eyes darkened, not with rage, but wonder. The kind of stunned reverence people have when they see a ghost they thought only they could haunt.

“You shouldn’t be able to see them,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

“What?”

He blinked once, slow. “Those scales… they’re veiled. Warded. Hidden from human perception.” Something in his voice dipped, equal parts curiosity and something colder. “Only those touched by the other side can even sense them, let alone see them.”

A chill danced down my spine.

“You think that makes you brave?” he asked, tone shifting, deeper now, more deliberate.

“No,” I said, pulse stuttering. “But it makes me right.”

His stare turned surgical. “It makes you something else entirely.”

A heavy silence fell between us.

He looked at me like I was something ancient that he couldn’t name. “You’re lucky,” he said finally.

“Am I?”

He stepped close. Too close. “I should kill you.”

I tilted my head up, defiant. “You should kiss me.”

The second those words left my mouth, time snapped.

His pupils dilated. His breath hitched. His lips hovered close enough to tempt hell. “You don’t want that,” he said, voice unsteady for the first time.

“I want answers.”

“Then stop tempting the devil, Ember Carr.”

We were toe-to-toe, fire between our lungs, unspoken things pressing hard against restraint.

“You abducted me,” I whispered.

“I protected you.”

A single, infinite second passed.

Then I sat back down, slowly, deliberately. “Go screw yourself.”

He turned. “Already did,” he said over his shoulder. “Wasn’t nearly as fun.”

The door clicked shut.

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