Page 152 of Buried in Blood
I smile. “Don’t touch her. Don’t speak to her. Just tell me where she is.”
“And Lucien?”
I chuckle. “He’ll bleed before summer ends. That I promise you.”
Click.
I hang up.
The room is quiet again.
But the silence isn’t holy anymore.
It’s hungry.
And so am I.
I rise from the chair like a man resurrected.
But there is no god here. Only me.
And I am starving.
I pace the length of the room, barefoot, the cold concrete kissing my heels like penance. My mind fractures and refocuses with every step. Harmony’s face flashes behind my eyes—not the obedient version, not the one I sculpted with fear and reward, but the newer one. The liar. The Judas.
The ticking of the clock grows louder.
Louder.
Louder.
Until I can’t tell if it’s time passing or just the sound of my blood boiling behind my ears.
I throw the chair across the room.
It splinters against the far wall, collapsing into jagged limbs and a broken spine.
Like her.
That’s how I’ll find her. How I’ll leave her.
Bent.
Twisted.
Unrecognizable.
And still mine.
I stagger toward the desk, dragging my fingers through my hair until strands pull free. My reflection glints off the blade beside the monitor, and I stare into it like it might offer me an answer. It doesn’t.
It only grins.
A sliver of silver madness sharpened by betrayal.
She was my masterpiece.
And now she’s graffiti.
