Page 26 of Don’t Let Him In

His gaze finally tears itself away from the ring before finding mine, the movement slow, reluctant, almost pained. The pulsing knot in my throat swells.

“I…” My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. “I found it downstairs.”

Mustiness saturates the air, the mold creeping from the corners of the walls until its damp, foul odor wraps around me, shrinking the room by imperceptible degrees.

He doesn’t respond right away. Doesn’t even move or blink.

Only stares.

His hardened gaze flicks back to the ring once more, the seconds stretching into minutes that fail to ease the pressure settling over me. A prickle crawls the length of my spine.

Stay calm.

Stay focused.

I swallow, but my throat refuses to cooperate. My tongue brushes the split in my lower lip, a bright burst of copper spreading across my mouth before I can stop myself from worrying it between my teeth. The persistent burn anchors my thoughts, offering a brief reprieve.

When I blink again, black flecks drift through my vision, writhing until they resemble dancing maggots. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the dizzy spell to break, only for the room to tip farther off its axis.

And then he moves. A subtle shift, then a full-blown step toward me, his crestfallen eyes remaining fixed on the ring as he closes the distance.

I stagger away, stumbling backward as my stomach drops at the abrupt change in him. That shred of hurt in his eyes curdles into a feverish fixation.

Colliding into the wall behind me, my fingers curl into fists, nails biting into my palms as I drag them out of view. His eyes snap up to mine, and the world tones down into an eerie hush that lacks the usual thudding of my heart.

My pulse.

Disturbingly silent.

“The ring,” he whispers so low that I would’ve almost missed the faint crack in his voice.

Carefully, I make sure to keep myself still enough that my knees don’t buckle, my nails digging harder into my tender skin to keep from trembling. His brows draw in, still silent as he takes in my words.

I wait for him to speak again.

Offer any form of explanation.

“Don’t do that,” he warns.

A pulse kicks in my throat. “What?”

My hand slides from my collar to my stomach, instinctively clutching it as my fingers shake harder. Bitter saliva floods my mouth, every nerve painfully aware of his pointed glare. Then it all snaps into place.

The ropes.

The blood.

The ring.

It’s all connected. Something terrible happened between him and whoever owned this ring. I don’t know how, but somehow, I’ve been caught in the middle of it.

Butterflies flood my stomach, but they aren’t the pleasant kind. They turn rabid, scraping and tearing through my insides until I can’t help but double over, clamping my hands over my mouth.

Please, please, please don’t freak out.

Not now.

Fatigue bears down on me all at once, weighing down my limbs until they threaten to give out beneath me. Refusing to let myself come apart, I pry my chin back up.