I inhale deeply. The thrill spikes hard and fast through my chest as he starts crawling, palms smearing the floor in frantic streaks.
“You’re no fun, Noah,” I say, frustration soaking every word. “A goddamn disappointment.”
“Fuck, fuck, what the fuck,” he mutters, every word strangled by the pain ripping through him.
Dante steps in, calm as a surgeon, and drives his blade across Noah’s arm to keep him from dragging himself farther. The cut opens with a wet sound, and a harsher scream bursts out of him before his body collapses sideways.
His shoulder slams the glass floor with a dull crack. He groans, rolling onto his back, clutching his shredded armlike he’s trying to hold himself together. His eyes, wide and glossy with terror, dart around the labyrinth in frantic sweeps, searching for something to save him.
“What did you plan to do with her?” Dante asks, raising his voice to overpower the noise. Noah stares without comprehension, panting, so Dante jerks his chin in my direction. “What did you plan to do to my woman, Noah?”
A pathetic sob tears from him as he shakes his head. Dante’s palm cracks against his cheek, the slap swallowed quickly by the echoing chambers of glass.
“Don’t deflect. Say it. And we’ll end this quickly, I promise.”
“I swear—” he croaks, spit flicking from his lips. “I just wanted towatch.”
My attention locks on Dante. I see the muscle along his jaw tighten, a dark gleam flooding into his eyes, something feral and sharpened. It steals the air from the space between us.
A ripple slides up my spine, delicious and precise, and my thighs tighten as I drink in the sight of him.
I know what’s coming. I can feel it humming off him.
Dante nods once, reaches out, fists a hand in Noah’s short hair, and yanks him upward. Noah screams as he’s dragged to his knees, but Dante doesn’t pause. He pulls him across the glass floor, smearing a streak of blood behind them like a red comet tail, and slams his face toward the nearest mirror.
“Then watch this,” he says, lowering the blade to Noah’s throat and slicing it.
The cut opens clean. A crimson waterfall erupts across the mirror, dripping in thick, glossy rivulets down the warped reflection. I inhale, my eyes glowing as I watch the life drain from Noah. The gleam in Dante’s gaze shifts from raw jealousy to something more controlled, more aligned with mine.
The same gleam I carry. The same hunger. The same thrill.
Dante doesn’t blink. He watches the life flee Noah’s body with the calm of a man who no longer questions what he is. Blood pools beneath the corpse in wide, rippling sheets, staining the pristine glass with violent beauty.
The air grows thick, settling over the space like a fog of iron.
It feels like a long, stretched-out eternity before Dante lets go. Noah’s body drops with a resonant thud, a final punctuation to his pointless existence. I part my lips as Dante wipes the knife on Noah’s shirt, unhurried, composed, before he slowly turns toward me.
Our eyes meet, and for an instant, it feels like he drains the breath from my lungs. Something ancient, consuming, pulses from him to me.
Just before panic can bloom, I see it—the glint in his stare shifting, reforging from jealousy and blood-hunger into challenge.
“Run.”
My skin hums, a dangerous current of excitement heating my blood. My heart drops in my stomach as I sprint up the metal-grate stairs to the second floor. Each step rings out beneath my boots, sharp echoes rising with me.
At the top, the world shifts. The cold distortions below dissolve into hallucinated color. The space is almost empty—wide, open, the walls a seamless matte black. The air carries a faint trace of theater fog, mixing with the sugary fumes of my adrenaline. Hidden LED panels pulse along the ceiling beams, and every few seconds, the entire room erupts in violent light.
Ultra-violet purple flares into toxic lime, which fractures into electric scarlet, then melts into glacial blue. The beauty ofit drags my mouth open, stealing my breath—until a sudden blackout slams everything into absolute darkness.
My breath catches and freezes, and my heart surges to my throat. I take a few careful steps forward, squinting, straining to find an outline or shape.
Nothing answers me. The world is pure void.
A chill settles into my bones, turning my blood into splintered ice. Goosebumps shiver up my arms as I stand frozen, disoriented. The colors still burn behind my eyelids like afterimages—phantom stains ghosting in the dark.
“My little shadow,” he whispers, his voice splintering into thousands of shards, just like the broken reflections downstairs.
It comes from everywhere. Every corner. Every inch of the dark.
