Her eyes soften. “I’d like that.”
She takes a half-step forward, closing the last of the space between us. My hand lifts without thinking, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. Her lips part, breath catching, and everything inside me pulls toward her like gravity itself shifts.
We lean in at the same time—her hand reaches for my chest, my fingers slide to her jaw, her breath trembles against my mouth—
Then chaos explodes behind us. Footsteps. Fast, and wrong.
Before I can turn, something slams into the side of my head. Pain detonates across my vision. Ella gasps, a sound that slices me in half, and I feel her grip on my shirt tighten before another blow hits her.
“Cole!” she cries, voice cracking.
I reach for her blindly, but hands grab my arms, twisting them back. A rough sack drops over my head, thick fabric choking off light and air.
“Get the girl!” someone barks.
Ella screams, high, terrified. “Stop! Let me go—!”
Another thud, and her scream cuts off.
“No!” I shout, thrashing, useless against the restraints. “Ella! ELLA—!”
Tape or rope binds my wrists. The ground tilts as I’m hauled backward, shoved into something metal. Ella’s body hits the space beside me a second later, limp but breathing. I hear the ragged edge of it before a second sack muffles the sound completely.
The last thing I register before the world goes black is her hand fumbling blindly toward mine… and me grabbing it like it’s the only thing keeping me alive.
27
ELLA
The first thing I register is the sound—a steady beep that pierces the dark like a cruel metronome. It hammers against my skull and makes my teeth ache. My mouth tastes like metal, my tongue is thick and foreign. When I blink, the world resolves itself in pieces: the curve of a frozen moon, the silhouette of half-built studs against the sky, the smell of dust, diesel, and something bitter and acrid I can’t name.
I try to move but fail miserably. My wrists bite with a rope so tight I can feel the fibers bruise my skin. My shoulders protest when I shift, pain blooming along my ribs where a band of something heavy presses against my chest. The beeping gets louder. A digital display flashes in my peripheral vision.
Numbers: 00:34:56, counting down.
Panic climbs my throat hot and fast, but there’s another sensation underneath it that steadies me—a solid, human heat pressed to my back. The scent hits me immediately. Cole. His shoulders, breath ragged and shallow, against the base of my neck. He’s here. He’s alive.
That fact alone steadies my hands enough to whisper, “Cole?”
A soft, damned-raspy sound comes from behind me, the kind of sound a man makes when he’s swallowing back pain and something else—fear, maybe.
“Yeah,” he answers. “I’m here.”
We are tied back-to-back. My cheek is inches from the rough fabric of his shirt; his body anchored to mine like a broken sentinel. The taste of copper floods my mouth as I move my head and see the smear of dark on his temple. A brown stitch of dried blood. He must have taken a hit. My hand shakes even though it’s bound.
We don’t have the luxury of time to be shocked for long. Footsteps crunch on gravel. Flashlight beams slice across the skeleton of the construction site, and the rays settle on us with perfect, humiliating certainty. Faces appear out of the light like actors stepping onto a stage.
Toby and Calista. Both of them are smiling like we’re at the part of the story where they finally win.
“Well, well, well, look who’s awake.”
Toby steps into the moonlight, holding the flashlight under his chin like he’s telling a ghost story. His eyes look wild, manic, pupils blown wide. He’s sweating even though it’s cold, looking like a man who’s finally snapped in the way everyone saw coming.
Calista floats in behind him, blonde hair messy, lipstick smeared, mascara streaked from crying or sweating, or both. She looks unhinged, her hands shaking as she tucks her hair behind her ear, then immediately shakes it loose again.
“Oh, precious,” she coos, stepping closer. “You’re alive.”
Her sweetness is a knife.
