I frown. “How did you find me?”
Adam shakes his head. “I followed him when he said he was coming to check inventory. He’s been disappearing for hours lately, and I wanted to see what he was up to. I don’t know… something didn’t feel right.”
“We need to get out of here,” I insist, forcing my legs to cooperate as I stand. “Now. Before he comes back.”
“Of course. My car’s outside. I’ll take you straight to the hospital, and we can call the police from there. I don’t understand what’s happening, but—”
The door slams open with such force it bounces against the stone wall. Adam whirls around, pushing me slightly behind him in a protective gesture that’s as instinctive as it is futile.
Finn stands in the doorway, his face a mask of cold fury that transforms his familiar features into something alien and terrifying.
“I fucking warned you to stop following me,” he says, his voice unnervingly calm as he addresses his brother. There’s no emotion in it. No anger, no regret. Just a flat statement of fact.
Adam raises his hands, stepping forward. “Finn, what the hell are you doing? This is kidnapping. You can’t just—”
The gun appears in Finn’s hand like it was always there, an extension of his arm. “I warned you over and over,” he snarls. “But you never fucking listen to me.”
As soon as he says the last word, his finger pulls the trigger.
Pop!
Adam’s head snaps backward, a neat hole appearing in the center of his forehead. For a suspended moment, nothing happens. Adam remains standing, his expression frozen in surprise, a single drop of blood sliding down between his eyebrows like a grotesque third eye.
Then his knees buckle, and he crumples to the floor like a puppet with cut strings, the keys clattering beside him.
Warm wetness splatters across my face and chest—Adam’s blood, I realize with horror. My mind refuses to process what just happened, sticking like a broken record on the image of his body falling, falling, falling…
I don’t realize I’m screaming until I feel my vocal cords tear with the force of it, a primal sound that doesn’t even sound human to my own ears. The room tilts sideways, and my vision narrows to pinpricks of light surrounded by encroaching darkness.
Adam’s dead. Finn killed him. Shot him in the head right in front of me without a second of hesitation or a flicker of emotion.
His own brother.
Blood pools around Adam’s body, spreading across the concrete floor in a growing crimson circle that inches toward the table legs. The metallic smell fills the room, replacing the musty dampness with something far worse—the unmistakable stench of violent death.
I stare at Finn, unable to look away from the monster wearing a human face. His expression remains unchanged as he tucks thegun into his waistband, as casual as if he’s just completed some mundane task instead of murdering his own flesh and blood.
“You…” The word comes out as barely more than a breath. “You killed him.”
My stomach heaves, acid burning the back of my throat. This isn’t happening. This can’t be real. But the body on the floor tells a different story. The blood on my face is real. The monster standing before me with a gun and eyes like empty holes is real.
And I’m still here, trapped with him in this nightmare. As soon as that thought registers, I lunge toward the open door, adrenaline overriding everything else. For one heartbeat, one breath, freedom seems possible.
The narrow hallway visible beyond the doorframe, the sound of distant machinery offering proof of a world outside this blood-soaked room. Then Finn’s hands are on me, fingers digging into my arms with bruising force as he yanks me backward.
I fight, all nails and teeth and desperate strength, but it’s like struggling against a machine. There’s no give, no hesitation, just an implacable force dragging me back to that table.
“No! Let go of me!” I scream, twisting in his grip, my heel connecting with his shin. He doesn’t even flinch.
“Enough,” he says, the word sharp and cold as he shoves me back into the chair. My hip catches the metal edge of the table, pain blooming bright and hot along my side.
I watch in horror as he retrieves the handcuffs, heedless of the blood seeping toward his shoes. Adam’s blood. His brother’s blood. I keep seeing that neat hole appear in Adam’s forehead, the surprised look frozen on his face as he fell. I can’t stop shaking.
“You’re a monster,” I spit as Finn uses the handcuffs to secure me again. This time, he only cuffs one of my hands instead of both. But he tightens it further than before so the metal bites cruelly into my skin. “Your own brother—”
“He wasn’t my brother.” Finn fastens the second chain with brutal efficiency. “Not by blood.”
There’s something about the way he says it—flat and dismissive—that chills me more than his violence. Adam’s body lies just feet away, eyes still open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling while blood pools beneath his head like a grotesque halo.
