Page 54 of Cole: Bloodlines
Lowering the gun with a satisfied smirk, Daniel nodded, his pale eyes gleaming like polished ice in the dim light. “Good. Now, again. Go slow, don't cut too deep. You don't want them to pass out from blood loss before you're finished with them.” His voice was honeyed poison, each syllable dripping with perverse anticipation.
Henry's eyes glazed over with a haunting vacancy that Daniel had sought all those years ago—that telltale hollowness signaling the awakening of something primal. The emptiness Daniel recognized from his own reflection. It was there, inside all along, lurking beneath Henry's carefully crafted façade of humanity. He was right. And Byrne's theories about his brother crumbled like ash in the wind, scattered and forgotten.
Holstering his weapon with a soft click of metal against leather, Daniel moved closer to his son, nostrils flaring at the metallic tang hanging in the stale air. He stretched out his hand—fingers splayed like pale spiders—and rubbed his palm over his son-in-law's chest, savoring the slick warmth as crimson rivulets snaked between his fingers and collected in the creases of his palm. He presented his bloodied hand to Henry like a grotesqueoffering. “Look,” he murmured, his breath hot and fetid. “Smell.” He inhaled deeply, eyelids fluttering in ecstasy. “Intoxicating.” Daniel scraped his thumb across Henry's lower lip with deliberate slowness, leaving a wet smear of his husband's blood in its wake—a macabre lipstick on trembling flesh. “Tastehim.Experiencethe intimacy, son.”
Henry stared at him through half-lidded eyes, pupils blown wide like black holes swallowing the last flecks of gray iris. His tongue—pink and glistening—slid out with reptilian deliberation, tasting the iron tang of his husband's blood that painted his lower lip like a bizarre communion.
Daniel's lips curled into a razor-thin smile that never reached his cold eyes, the savage thrill of the moment sending electric pulses down his spine, making his fingertips tingle with a euphoria he hadn't felt since his last kill. After years of waiting, he was finally witnessing the uprooting of those poisonous seeds of doubt Byrne had planted in the fertile soil of his mind all those years ago.
“My son,” Daniel whispered, his voice a reverent hiss as he tenderly brushed his blood-slicked fingertips along the hollow of Henry's cheekbone, leaving crimson streaks like war paint across the ashen skin. “Myonlyson.” He gently cupped Henry's face with both hands, feeling the feverish heat radiating from his flesh. “Don't worry about your brother,” he murmured, his breath hot and rancid against Henry's face. “We will kill him together... the way I planned all those years ago. You're the only son I ever wanted—the only one worthy of my legacy.”
Henry's eyes brimmed with tears, his throat convulsing as he whispered, “You want me to kill? Will you be proud of me then, Father?”
“Yes.” Daniel's smile split his face like a wound. “I will be so proud of you.” Their gazes locked—predator recognizing predator—until something feral flashed behind Henry's eyes.Daniel's survival instinct screamed a millisecond too late. He lurched backward as Henry drove the knife toward his abdomen, the blade slicing through his side with a wet, meaty sound. Hot blood gushed between his fingers as he clawed for his weapon. Henry's fist smashed into his wrist, sending the gun skittering across the concrete with a metallic shriek.
Daniel lunged for the weapon, desperation surging through him. The impact came with a sickening crack—skull meeting metal—and his consciousness fractured. As his face slammed into the concrete, blood pooled beneath his cheek, the sudden darkness dragging him down toward an abyss that tasted like iron and rage… and smelled of his own despair and disappointment.
PART FIVE: GOOD & EVIL…AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
“When you’re in Hell,
Only a devil can point the way out.”
— Joe Abercrombie
CHAPTER 23: SHADOWS IN THE DARK
Maddy grabbed his underwearand bolted for the door, the heavy metal slamming shut behind him with a sound like a gunshot. His bare feet slapped against the filthy concrete as he sprinted down the pitch-black corridor, adrenaline drowning out everything but the pounding of his heart and the certainty that death was right behind him. His dick flopped uselessly against his thigh with each desperate stride—dignity be damned if that psychopath caught him.
The darkness swallowed him whole—no windows, no light, no fucking clue if it was day or night as he charged blindly forward—just the suffocating blackness and the rasp of his own terrified breathing. His foot caught something hard and unforgiving, sending him crashing face-first onto the concrete. His skin tore open as he skidded across the floor, and when he thrust his hand down to push himself up, white-hot agony exploded through his palm as a rusted nail punched through flesh and muscle.
“Fuck!” The scream ripped from his throat before he could strangle it. Blood pulsed hot between his fingers as he yanked his hand free with a wet, sucking sound. Maddy pressed his back against the wall, every nerve ending screaming, copper flooding his mouth where he'd bitten his tongue. In the sudden stillness, the man's words slithered back into his consciousness like poison.
You’re still gonna get fucked and filleted—just like your pretty little girlfriend.
Savannah. Fear and panic punched Maddy in the chest, a double-fisted blow that emptied his lungs and sent acid crawling up his throat. His ribs seemed to contract around his hammeringheart, squeezing it like a fist around raw meat, while cold sweat spread across his skin in a slick, nauseating wave.
Yeah, she’s here, too.
Was that the truth? Or him fucking with Maddy’s mind?
Pain twisted Maddy's face as he cradled his punctured hand against his chest, the cuffs biting painfully into his wrists. His lungs fought for air in shallow, desperate gulps while his pulse hammered in his ears. Each drop of blood that splattered onto the concrete echoed in the darkness, a metronome counting down to something he didn't want to face. The corridor reeked of rust and decay and something worse—the unmistakable stench of his own terror seeping from every pore. The iron tang of his own blood turned his stomach as it mingled with the damp, moldering air.
Maddy paused long enough to pull on his underwear, the elastic waistband snapping against his clammy skin. He pressed his back against the broken plaster, jagged edges digging into his shoulder blades, and held his breath until his lungs burned. His heart pounded in his ears like a war drum, each thunderous beat drowning out any sounds that might betray his pursuer's location in the suffocating darkness. Sweat trickled down his temples, salt stinging the raw scrape on his cheek as he strained to hear past his own terror.
Yeah, she’s here, too. My dad’s taken a real shine to her. When he gets through with her…
Maddy squeezed his eyes shut until starbursts of pressure bloomed behind his eyelids, trying to crush the man's terrifying words into dust. The thought that Savannah might be somewhere in this hellhole, locked in a cage and terrified, made bile rise in his throat. He peered up and down the corridor, the darkness so complete it felt like drowning in ink. Panic clawed up his spine with razor-sharp talons, leaving him paralyzed. The walls seemed to pulse inward with each frantic heartbeat, the airthick as syrup in his lungs. His wounded hand throbbed in time with his racing heart, each pulse sending fresh ribbons of pain up his arm.
The childlike fear from the apartment—the kind that made his bladder threaten to release and his knees turn to water—clawed at the edges of his mind. He fought it back with ragged breaths that scraped his raw throat. If that primal terror took hold, he'd curl into a ball and wait for death. “Please, God,” he whispered, the words barely audible even to himself, “please help me find her... please help us get out of here.”
He blinked back tears that burned like acid, tasting salt as one escaped down his cheek. With a shuddering breath that rattled in his chest like loose change, he forced his leaden feet forward into the suffocating darkness.
Cole was so intent on freeing Gabe from his restraints—fingers fumbling with the cold metal links that had left angry red welts on his wrists—that he didn't notice the Mangler had moved until the heavy steel door slammed shut with a thunderous boom that echoed through the dank air. The sound hit Cole like a physical blow.
“Fuck!” Cole sprinted across the concrete floor, boots slapping against the grime-slicked surface. He reached the door just in time to hear the rusty latch clank into place on the other side. His fingers wrapped around the ice-cold steel handle, yanking with enough force to make his shoulder muscles scream in protest, but the door remained as immovable as a tomb seal. “FUCK!” The word tore from his throat, echoing off the mildew-stained walls.
“What?” Gabe called, his voice strained. He was free from the chains, but his wrists were still cuffed, the metal braceletsglinting dully in the sickly yellow light from the single bulb overhead.
