I was stuck, trapped, without anyone or anything to help or give me peace of mind.
As the shock began to wear off, my hands started to tremble. My bottom lip wobbled, but I bit down on it to keep it in place. I’d seen some pretty fucked up things in my years of asset repossession, but this had to take the cake.
I’d been kidnapped by death himself, dragged into another realm altogether, and now I was chained up in a glamorous jail cell.
How did I fuck up this bad?
Everything I thought I knew had gone out the window, and I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. This all felt more like a fever dream than reality.
One thing was certain: I couldn’t lose my mind in this room if I was going to get out of here.
And I was going to escape, one way or another.
Chapter4
RAYVEN
The floor wascold and unforgiving, despite being covered in the thin rug, and it took every bit of energy I had left to drag myself up off it and cross to the bed. It was plush and perfectly dressed, but it was just as cold as the floor. Icy like the rest of the hauntingly beautiful castle. Harsh and unwelcoming.
I was exhausted, in need of a long, uninterrupted nap, but it was impossible to sleep.
At the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t dreaming. What else could this be? Not reality. Otherwise I’d have to acknowledge that Mark was dead.Gone.Pulled to pieces right before my eyes by a hulking creature of death and bone.
That I’d been dragged off to this other world, with a collar locked tight around my neck. The metal bit into my skin, making my throat ache. After what felt like an eternity, I finally settled for sitting on the edge of the mattress while my mind ran rampant.
No. This wasn’t a nightmare.
This was Hell.
Mark was really dead. Had he been getting on my nerves? Yeah, but there was no part of my brain cruel enough to invent the bloodshed I’d witnessed in the graveyard.
A sickly sensation slithered over my skin, making me shiver and wrap my arms tightly around myself. The gravity of my situation was starting to sink in. Mark had been alive one minute, then nothing but a puddle of blood and lifeless flesh the next.
Murdered by the same mysterious beast that had dragged me here. That strange, dark, callous creature…
The memory of him had my thoughts reeling, unanswered questions mounting.
Whatwashe? A devil? A god? A cursed deity in charge of guarding graveyards? If that was the case, how come I had never seen him before? I’d been in hundreds of graveyards, robbed countless graves. Why had the beast picked tonight of all nights to show up?
Perhaps the rumors about the Petherick family were true… Maybe the family really was descended from gods and this monster, the beast who’d kidnapped me, was connected to them somehow.
Honestly, it didn’t make a difference who or what he was. He was still an asshole. A cruel asshole who’d killed Mark, dragged me through a portal, and chained me up.
My temper flared, my cheeks heating. I refused to stay locked up like an animal, despite the creature’s threat to keep me here forever.
I might not have excelled at much, but if there was one thing I was really fucking good at, it was breaking into things. And if I was good at breaking in, breaking out would be a breeze.
Step one would be getting the stupid collar off, then I could see about breaking out of the room. After that… I’d have to wing it.
My fingers crawled their way around the collar, slowly studying the metal’s design. It was fairly simple, a thick steel circle with a single, tiny keyhole in the back. The chain he’d attached to it should have been able to clip on and off–how else would he have gotten it latched–but the metal was seamless. I squeezed, pulled, and prodded at the spot where the chain connected to the back of my neck, but it didn’t budge.
Son of a bitch.
This wasn’t going to work. I had to pick the lock if I wanted to detach myself from the bed, and if I wanted any chance at success, I couldn’t do it from this angle.
Experimentally, I tried to move the collar side to side. It was snug, hugging tightly to my skin, but I was slowly able to get it turned around completely, the keyhole now on my throat. Now I needed something to pick the lock with.
I’d picked dozens of locks over the years, but this was a whole new ball game. I’d always had my tools, a flashlight, and a rough idea at the inner workings of the lock at the very least. This contraption was totally foreign, and with it around my neck, it was at an angle I wasn’t used to.
