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The scent of leather, malice, and sandalwood surrounds me.
My eyes finally manage to force themselves open, and instantly I’m staring into a nightmare as the monster leers down into my face.
“Well, well, well,” he growls in a savage, metallic, rasping snarl. “Whatam I going to do withyou…”
2
FREYA
Fear explodes through my system.Reality itself feels glitchy, like this isn’t truly happening. Like I can’tactuallybe in this situation.
The last rebellious part of me that refuses to go down without a fight tries to squirm and push away from him. But it’s like pushing against a cement wall.
I shudder as his grip tightens with the kind of precision that tells me he’s done this before. Many times. He’s not closing off my air—at least, not yet—but the way his hand is wrapped around my throat unquestionably says thatheis in charge.Hedecides whether I breathe or not.
Whether I live or not.
It’s control. Total, unnerving control.
The cold glass of the window behind me presses against my back, the crack biting against the small of my back where my shirt and jacket have ridden up. I barely notice it, though. Every fiber of my being is fixated on the man in the mask standing in front of me.
Looming over me.
Twisting a knife into my very soul and psyche.
The terrifying mask covers his face completely, but even so, it’s like I canfeelhis eyes on me. Like I can sense the way his pupils trace over my face, down my neck, and then over the rest of me, moving slowly as if he’s memorizing every inch.
I can’t see those eyes. But I can fucking feel them, dark and intense, with a cold, graveyard iciness. A piercing stare that pins me to the glass as effectively as his hand on my throat.
I’m not going to survive this.
The thought slices into my mind as I stare into his blank, monstrous face. The office around us feels too small, the walls too close. My chest constricts, and I’m struggling to breathe, not from the pressure on my throat but from the pure, unadulterated fear that tightens its grip on my lungs.
“Please,” I whisper, the sound pitifully small in the vast emptiness of the office. “I didn’t see anything.”
For a moment, when his non-answer drags on forever, I wonder if I reallyamin the hands of an actual monster. Something from a horror movie, like that creepy thing fromPan’s Labyrinthwith its eyes in its palms. I imagine somehow getting a hold of the mask and ripping it off only to find empty blackness behind the mask, because he has no face.
Finally, a low, dark chuckle escapes him, but there’s no humor in it. His fingers flex slightly on my throat, just enough to remind me that I’m completely at his mercy.
My mind searches frantically for an escape, a way out. But there’s nothing. No one. Just me and the monster who feels like death himself.
He tilts his head slightly, considering me, trying to decide whether or not I’m worth the effort of keeping alive.
“ID,” he growls, his voice low and rough, the single word cutting through the silence like a knife.
For a second, I don’t move. I’m too shocked by the sudden command. But then his fingers tighten around my throat.
I fumble in my jacket pocket, my hands shaking as I pull out my ID. It’s fake, of course—one of several names I use when I’m going into situations like these, or looking for another layer of anonymity online.
It’s notjusta fake ID, either. I’ve worked hard to craft these “personas”. Each of them, including this one, will bring up a whole person if investigated.
But none of them trace back to the real me.
The monster with a hand around my throat snatches it from me with a speed that makes me flinch. I shudder as he holds it up to the dim neon light filtering in from outside.
“Karen Vanderschmit,” he reads, rolling the name over his tongue. He sounds almost... amused.
I swallow hard, trying to hold onto the few shreds of composure I have left. “I’m just a temp!” I stammer. “Working for Orlov Financial Solutions!”
