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“What was tha—” I start, my voice barely audible, but Onyx shoves his hand over my mouth, silencing me.
With one hand pressed against my lips, he wraps his other hand around the back of my neck, bringing my body closer to his as his face drops down to my ears. “Don’t make a fucking sound. Make yourself invisible and wait until I get back.” His tone is low and harsh.
I swallow hard, not liking the way that Onyx has shifted. It’s as if he thinks that I’m not capable of taking care of myself, but we both know that isn’t true. I’m Selene fucking Hayes. Onyx knows how I was raised; he knows that I don’t need him. But he also knows there isn’t anyone out there like us, with the connection that we have.
Onyx and I were designed for each other, and the last thing he’d ever let happen would be something coming between us—something that would tear us apart from each other.
He feels as though it’s his duty to keep me safe, to keep me alive. What he doesn’t realize is that we keep each other alive. It’s a mutual feeling, and if he thinks that I’m going to just stand by and let him handle shit like the fucking alpha here, he has another thing coming for him.
I nod and Onyx pulls his hand away from my mouth, taking a step away from me. He brushes past me, his feet quiet, but his stride long and purposeful. I watch him as he slips out of the room and let out the breath I’ve been holding. A few moments pass and I wait, listening as he gets further away.
This asylum is too big for him to cover all the ground before whoever else is here disappears into the night. It’s like a fucking maze, and even though we know the layout like the backs ofour hands, there are many places for someone to just slip away without another warning.
Adrenaline courses through my body, my senses heightened as I head out into the abandoned hallway. It sounded like Onyx went to the right, heading toward the main corridor. My eyes strain against the darkness as I search for him, but when I don’t see or hear him, I head in the opposite direction.
I do a sweep of the entire left wing of the asylum and find nothing. It leaves a restless, unsettling feeling in my bones as I head back to the room where there are now two bodies. As I round the corner, I stop short when I find Onyx standing in the middle of the hallway. He slowly brings his arms up, crossing them over his chest.
“I told you to stay in the fucking room,” he growls as he looms in the shadows.
Rolling my eyes, I walk over to him, grabbing his arm as I walk past. “Don’t act like I’m your submissive, Onyx. Plus, there’s no way that you would have been able to cover the entire building yourself and find someone.”
Onyx grunts in response, reluctantly turning with me. His footsteps are heavy as he pulls his arm from my grasp. It’s unexpected when he slips his hand into mine, his palm warming the sticky, viscous liquid that coats my hand. Instead of pulling me along with him, he falls in step and walks beside me.
“So, did you find anyone?” he asks, his voice low as we step back into the crimson-colored room.
I stop, shaking my head as I look up at him. “I’m guessing you didn’t either?”
“No.” He pauses, his eyes scanning the room for anything out of place, but the bodies are right where we left them. “It didn’t look like there was anyone here.”
“Maybe it was just the wind?” I suggest, shrugging. “Or a rat or something? I think if someone were here and left in a panic, we would have found something.”
Onyx's jaw tightens as his blue eyes burn holes through mine. “Maybe,” he muses, entertaining my idea, but his expression gives more than his words. He thinks that there was someone out there and they got away.
“Let’s get rid of the bodies before our luck runs out and the cops show up.”
Stepping closer to him, I reach out, my hand resting along the side of his neck. “There was no one here, Onyx. We’re careful, so we have nothing to worry about. We’re untouchable, remember?”
“Just like your father was too, right?”
My jaw ticks and I narrow my eyes as I slide my hand around the front of his throat, tightening my grip. “What are you getting at?”
Onyx tilts his head to the side as he wraps his hand around my wrist, pulling it away from his neck. “We’re only untouchable until we’re not.”
His words don’t bring me any comfort as they creep into the darkest corners of my mind. My father taught me his ways of how to kill and get away with it. He fucked up when my brother literally ratted him out.
Unlike most barns, ours had a basement. My father kept his victims down there, until they met their untimely death. They were all predators, like him, but he was always at the top of the food chain. Their bodies were always disposed of in the woods, where he had a large burn pile. No one had ever suspected it, especially with our two hundred acres of land that we lived on.
One night, my brother followed my father into the basement of the barn. We still don’t know how he actually got down there because my father was always diligent about keeping the doors locked to make sure that no one would find him and his extracurricular activities.
My brother watched him take another man’s life that night. I should have been there. I should have taken care of him right then and there to protect my father and his legacy. Instead, I was locked away in my room. I pulled a knife on some asshole at school and was grounded. My father was pissed about my stupidity and how I could have gotten in a lot more trouble than that.
Either way, I wasn’t there. My brother saw what he did and like a coward, he ran and called the fucking cops. He didn’t even bother to tell our mother, who honestly probably would have had the same reaction. They weren’t like my father and me. They would never understand it.
The cops showed up before my father had the chance to get the body into the woods. They scoured our entire property and ripped apart our fucking house. Of course, they found his workshop underneath the barn, along with the ashes in the woods, which they were able to test for DNA. And they found his trophies.
With every victim, my father removed the pinky finger from their left hand. After removing the flesh and bleaching the bone, he kept the middle bone from their fingers. The cops found the small tin that he kept them in, which helped them to identify his victims and sentence him to death.
I never went to see him. It was always part of our agreement. If I were to get caught, he would take the fall if he could, or I would plead insanity. If he was ever locked up, I was never to see him again. After his arrest, our family lived under constant scrutiny. We were looked at like we were fucking specimens.
