Page 9
A small smile touches my lips, the first one that feels real in days. I pull out the screwdriver hidden behind my bookcase and unscrew the vent, just like when I was a kid and he’d pass me candy I wasn’t allowed to have. Back when this felt like a game.
The metal creaks as it comes loose.
Asher’s hand reaches through the space. A raised scar marks his wrist, its shape barely visible in the light from his room. A triangle?
“Where did you get that cut?” I ask.
“It’s nothing.” Then he places his gift in my hand. “Take this.”
Moonlight glints over the shiny surface of a medallion hanging from a chain. One side has a snake coiled around an hourglass with the words Slither in Shadow below it. The other side has a skull and the words Strike with Venom.
“What is it?”
“It’ll keep you safe,” he says. “Keep it on you. I’ll get you out of here. I promise.”
His insistence adds weight to the metal. There’s something strange about it. More than a simple coin.
“How—”
Our parents’ bedroom door opens down the hall and we both go silent. Footsteps come towards my room.
My hands shake as I secure the vent, tightening it into place before rushing back to bed. I slip beneath the covers and fall into stillness right as the key turns.
The door opens.
The scent of Mother’s expensive shampoo arrives before she does. She stands there too long, and though I keep my eyes closed, I can feel her watching me, measuring whether I’m asleep, whether I’ll cause her trouble again.
She doesn’t say a word.
Then the door clicks shut. The lock slides into place.
The silence returns.
I lie in the dark, clutching the medallion to my chest. Its cool weight presses against my skin, a promise I don’t quite believe in. Asher means well and his will is strong. But men make promises easily when they don’t have to feel the consequences.
I loop the chain around my neck anyway, tucking it beneath my nightgown. It feels good to imagine I’m wearing armor, even if it’s only covering my heart.
CHAPTER 2
ZAIYA
My eyes fly open out of a dreamless sleep, pulled from a place I got too comfortable in.
Footsteps climb the stairs outside my door, slow and deliberate. I lie still, heart thudding, listening the way I’ve always had to, cataloging every sound. I know the impatient tap of Mother’s heels, the powerful weight of my father’s stride. These steps belong to someone else. Heavier. Slower. There are two sets. Men.
The key slides into the lock, and that small click makes me sit upright before I can think, breath catching in my throat.
The door opens.
Black swallows the hallway beyond, broken only by the moonlight from my window, enough to paint the edges of the two figures that fill my doorway. Their shapes are almost cut from my imagination, and I can’t tell if I’m still dreaming.
They cross the room without a word, no explanation given. My dress swishes as someone kicks it off his foot when it gets in the way. The simplicity of it makes me shudder.
This is real.
I open my mouth to scream, and an unrecognizable sound claws out of me. It’s raw and jagged. Pure terror.
Hands seize me and the smell of their leather gloves floods my nose.
