Page 56 of Cole: Bloodlines
No… no… go away! GO AWAY!
Her broken nails ripped through her filthy skin, carving crimson half-moons that welled and dripped onto the concrete. She bit her knee to keep from screaming, teeth breaking skin, the taste of her own blood filling her mouth.Please go away… please… please…
Metal shrieked against concrete as the door inched wider, the rusted hinges wailing like souls being flayed. Savannah's entire body convulsed, her teeth chattering so violently she bit her tongue. Blood filled her mouth as she choked on her own pleas. “Please—no—please—” The words strangled in her throat, barely audible even to herself.
Her pulse hammered in her temples as she waited for that merciless bulb to expose her nakedness, but the darkness remained—somehow worse than light. Something was coming.Tap-tap-scratch. Tap-tap-scratch.Something skittered across the concrete floor—lighter than her captor's thunderous footfalls but somehow more terrifying in its alien rhythm.
Savannah's neck cracked as she jerked her head up, her vision swimming with black spots. A sliver of silver—moonlight or something colder—knifed through the gap in the door, casting nothing but deeper shadows. Whatever approached remained cloaked in darkness, but she could feel its gaze on her skin like ice water… feel its hunger radiating across the room like heat from an open furnace.
Her spine fused to the rear bars, rust flaking into her raw flesh like hot needles. Her ribs crushed her lungs as she contracted into herself, each breath a shallow gasp that sent black stars exploding behind her retinas.
A silhouette detached itself from the darkness, moving with the deliberate stealth of a predator toward the cage. Hands—human hands with dirt-crusted fingernails—curled around the corroded bars, knuckles whitening as they gripped. Then came the sound:sniff, sniff, sniff—wet and guttural, nostrils flaring visibly even in the gloom. Savannah's eyes widened as the figure pressed its face between the bars, inhaling her scent with primal hunger. One hand released its grip, the arm snaking between the rusty rods with unnatural flexibility. Fingers splayed toward her—not reaching but hunting—nails scraping across concrete with a sound like steel on slate, leaving pale grooves in their wake.
Savannah's muscles locked in primal terror, her body betraying her with violent tremors. A whimper escaped her throat—the sound of prey recognizing its end.
The visitor's head tilted at an unnatural angle, and its mouth stretched open in what could have been a smile on any normal human. Lips peeled away from the gums like curtains drawing back to reveal a grotesque theater: teeth filed to gleaming points that caught what little light was present, each one a tiny dagger ready to tear flesh.
Savannah screamed, the harrowing sound tearing through her throat like rusted barbed wire.
CHAPTER 24: MONSTERS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN
When Byrne could finallydraw air into his lungs again, he crawled to his feet, the concrete floor scraping his palms raw. He tucked his throbbing cock back inside his pants with trembling fingers, each brush of fabric sending fresh waves of nausea through his gut. The zipper's teeth caught, forcing him to wrench it upward. “Fucking littlecunt,” he rasped, spittle hanging from his lower lip. “I'm gonna fuck you a new hole when I catch you.”
He staggered into the shadows where he'd tossed the gun, boots squelching through puddles of stagnant water that reflected the pale light in oily rainbows. The cold metal of the weapon felt reassuring in his palm as he jammed it back into the leather holster and limped toward the exit.
The boy could be anywhere in this labyrinth of rust and decay. But the darkness was absolute, the kind that swallowed sound and hope alike, and the kid didn't know the layout of the factory with its maze of dead-end corridors and sudden drops into mechanical pits. And now that he knew the girl was here too, the boy would be like a moth circling a flame, predictable in his desperation.
Byrne thumbed on the flashlight, its beam cutting through the darkness like a scalpel, illuminating motes of dust that swirled in his wake. Each step sent jolts of pain from his groin up his spine, forcing him to walk with a pronounced limp, one hand occasionally dropping to cup himself protectively. The boy would pay in screams and blood when he caught him, but Byrne moved unhurried through the dank corridors. The factory was a sealed tomb, and he held the only key.
When Byrne approached the machinery room, rust flaked from the hinges of the massive steel door. The acrid stench ofold grease seeped through the hairline gaps in the frame. He pressed his ear against the cold metal, feeling its chill penetrate his feverish skin.
His father's gravelly voice, though muffled through the corroded barrier, slithered through like a venomous snake:“Don't worry about your brother. 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.”The words hung in the stale air like poison gas. Byrne's fingers tightened around his gun, the checkered grip biting into his palm as he listened to the sudden scuffle—grunts, the wet thud of fists on flesh, a strangled cry. Henry was turning on his father, again. He didn't flinch when he heard his dad's body hit the concrete with a meaty slap. The man had made his choice.
Byrne's breath fogged in the frigid air as he waited, weapon raised at eye level, safety off. He melted back into the inky shadows when the door suddenly wrenched open. But it wasn't Henry who stumbled out.
Daniel yanked the rusted door closed with a metallic shriek and slammed the corroded latch home, sealing the other men inside the machinery room. He collapsed against the cold steel, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he clutched his side where Henry's blade had cut through his flesh. Dark crimson blood bubbled between his weathered fingers, spreading across his once-white shirt like spilled wine. “Fuck...” he gasped again, his voice a sandpaper rasp. He braced one bloodstained palm against the door to push himself upright when Byrne materialized from the shadows, gun hanging loosely at his side. Byrne's dull, ice-chipped eyes fixed on his father's wound without a flicker of concern, his face a mask carved from marble.
“I told you,” he said, voice flat as stagnant water. “Mary's fiancé was telling the truth about everything.”
Daniel's leathery face twitched, a muscle jumping beneath his left eye. His watery, bloodshot eyes flashed with primal fury that melted into something more cutting: disappointment. Of course. Disappointment. His golden boy had finally revealed the tarnish beneath his shine.
Byrne's phone erupted in his pocket—three short, electronic beeps followed by two long ones, echoing in the cavernous corridor.
Daniel hunched further over his weeping wound, teeth bared in a grimace. “What's that?” he growled through clenched teeth, blood-flecked spittle clinging to his stubbled chin.
Withdrawing his phone with unhurried precision, Byrne's lips curved into a small, dry smile. “Just a little security system I installed when I moved in,” he murmured, thumb sliding across the screen to silence the alarm. The blue glow illuminated the hollows of his face as he slipped the device back into his pocket. “We have company.”
The pitch blackness reduced Maddy to a shuffling ghost. His cuffed hands—the skin torn and tacky with blood—traced the disintegrating cinderblock like a blind man reading braille. Each step became a calculated risk, his bare feet navigating an invisible minefield of rusted nails and jagged metal fragments. He'd already taken three bone-jarring spills, miraculously escaping with only superficial scrapes—except for the three-inch nail that had skewered his left palm, which still wept crimson as white-hot pain pulsed from his fingertips to his shoulder, rendering the limb as useless as deadwood.
With each ragged breath that scraped his parched throat, Maddy battled the quicksand pull of despair. How the fuck was he supposed to find Savannah in this maze of darkness? Theabandoned factory sprawled like a concrete cancer, its corridors twisting in unknowable patterns, each identical to the last in their emptiness.
If she's even here. Maybe that sadistic fuck was lying.
Maybe he wasn’t.
Maddy couldn’t take the chance. If he escaped alone, then discovered that she was still back in that hell, he would never forgive himself. She would step in front of a bullet for him, stop at nothing to protect him. He would do the same for her. But he needed some fuckinglightto see his way, to figure out where the hell he was inside the massive structure.
The handcuffs clanked in the dark, the sound echoing off the damp walls like tiny metal teeth snapping shut. Blood had dried between his fingers, making them stick together when he flexed them.
