Page 92 of Jayson
I miss her, and she hasn’t even left the bed.
Bloody hell, Jayson. Since when does forever sound less like a threat and more like a promise?
I tuck the sheet higher over her shoulder, then lean in, lips barely brushing the shell of her ear.
“Sleep while you can, Keira,” I whisper, my voice rough, bordering on devotion. “Morning’s coming—and I’m not done ruining you yet.”
She doesn’t wake, but her mouth curves—just enough to gut me where I lay on my side beside her.
And I realize with a jolt of pure, unholy clarity: I’m the ruin now. And she’s the only salvation I’ll ever beg for.
37
KEIRA
Iwake to darkness—and the afterglow of a body wrecked in the best way. Muscles sore, skin still tingling where he kissed, bit, claimed. The sheets are twisted around my legs, damp with heat and sex, and they still smell like him: cedar, sweat, danger. My body hums like an instrument finely tuned by his hands, and for a heartbeat, I remember what it means to feel wanted. To be safe.
I must’ve drifted off between his last whispered “mine” and the heavy lull of his hand trailing down my spine. I don’t remember when. Only that I slept harder than I have in months. Maybe years.
But safety never stays. Not in my world.
It shatters with a scream.
Myscream.
High-pitched and feral, yanked from my throat like it’s trying to rip my soul out on the way up. I jolt upright, chest heaving, drenched in sweat. My lungs can’t draw in air fast enough. My fingers claw the sheets like they might rip the nightmare off me. But it’s still there. It never left.
The images hit in jagged, strobe-lit bursts.
Riley in the hallway. Not just sobbing—screaming.
Her mouth wide, eyes swollen shut. Her knees bruised from crawling, her panties torn and twisted halfway down her thighs. Her voice gone from crying for help no one gave her.
A red leather couch.
Cracked with age. Slick with things I don’t want to name.
I can feel it under me—icy cold and sticky, clinging to the backs of my thighs. A camera clicks behind my left shoulder. I turn to run and?—
There’s a blue door.
Always that damn blue door.
Chipped paint. Blood beneath the handle.
Then the voice.
“She’s a problem.”
A low rasp, like gravel dragged across concrete. Measured. Male. I know it. I hate that I know it. It coils around my throat, and just like that—I’m back there. In the dark. In the silence. In that cellar that reeked of mildew and bleach and something far worse.
“Riley, come back,” I whisper, her name a curse on my tongue.
My breath comes in ragged gasps. Where am I? Where was I?
The walls spin. Shadows crawl. The sheets don’t feel safe anymore. They feel like restraints. My nails dig into my own thighs just to stay tethered to now.
Then the mattress shifts.
