Page 124 of Hellbent

“Hold the fuck still,” a voice snarls in my ear—low, coarse, and familiar.

Silas.

And then another shape moves out of the dark. Shock hits me afresh when I see him. Clean-cut, dress shirt. It’s the man from Dewy’s, the one who knew my name. He looks out of place, as if Silas brought his accountant with him to kidnap me.

“Got her?”

“Yeah. She’s fucking fighting.”

“She’s gonna fight harder in a minute.”

Silas drags me forward to the front of the house, where a van sits parked in the driveway, back doors wide open. I try again to scream into the hand, feet kicking, body twisting, but Silas has me held so tightly my efforts barely produce any movement.

The other man leaps up into the van, reaching down to haul me up when I hear Ryder’s voice—a shout.

“MAX!”

Silas turns, swinging me with him, and Ryder’s there, flying down the steps toward us like a shot fired from a gun.

Silas moves his hand from my mouth and I start to struggle again with only his arm around my waist. I’m so close to being free.

“RYDER!” I scream, my voice splitting wide with panic and hope.

His eyes lock on mine.

His mouth moves like he’s about to say my name again. And then it all happens in a single, frozen second.

Silas lifts his arm.

Time splinters. Cold realization washes over me.

He has a gun.

No. No.No.

The shot detonates, splicing through the air like the bullet is cleaving it in two.

Ryder jerks hard, shoulder thrown back—and drops.

A scream rips from my throat, otherworldly and inhuman. I barely realize I’m being grabbed from behind and hauled away until my back hits the floor of the van. I scramble upwards, but the doors slam shut before I can reach them.

“RYDER!”

I’m screaming without even realizing I’m doing it, pounding on the door, searching everywhere for purchase. A handle, anything. Through the small window I can see that Ryder’s down on the gravel, a shadow spreading out around him.

But there is no shadow. Not in the pitch dark night. It’s blood, blossoming black beneath him.

There’s a scramble of boots outside, doors banging. The van lurches forward and I slam into the wall, my palms skidding, knees bruising. I claw for the window, screaming his name, sobbing so hard I can’t breathe. Through the glass, all I see is the place where he fell. Gravel. Blood. No movement. Nothing.

The van fishtails onto the road. Through the window the house vanishes, swallowed by trees and distance, and thenthere’s nothing out the window but the long asphalt road unspooling behind us, tossing out a line I’m rapidly dropping to the end of. I clutch a grip in the door, forehead pressed to the small plastic window, and wail.

I cry until it’s just noise, not even words. Just grief in the shape of a sound.

Ryder.

The ripping away is agony. Ryder is in the dirt and I’m being torn from him like flesh from bone.

Without him, there’s nothing. Withoutthem, there’s nothing.

My screaming gets quieter, smaller, until it’s gone. Until all that’s left is the monotony of the van bouncing over the road.

The dread of where I’m going.

The ruin of what I’ve lost.

And the creeping, airless hopelessness of what comes next.