“He hurt you too gently.” A pause. “Let me teach you how to break the right way.”
Something slithers from the vent.
I see flesh.
Bent. Wrong.
Limbs painted black with ink or rot—or both.
Eyes that don’t blink.
And in its hand?
A mask.
Damien’s face.
Worn. Torn.
Stretched like latex.
It places it on.
Tilts its head.
“Still want him now?”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
DAMIEN
She said my name.
Bloodied. Bruised. Wild-eyed.
And she said my name.
The screen crackles in front of me—grainy security footage, timestamped twenty minutes ago, streamed from a stolen feed I clawed out of the backup server hidden behind that bastard’s shrine.
I shouldn’t be able to see this.
But I do.
And I can’t look away.
Raven—stumbling through the corridor barefoot, wrapped in nothing but sweat and panic, her hands still shaking, her mouth red from fighting.
She found the camera.
Looked straight into it.
And said the one thing I can’t fucking breathe without.
“Damien. Find me.”
My hands curl into fists on the desk.
The screen jumps—static—then returns.
