I don’t find her tonight. But I swear on every sin carved into my skin: he’ll wish I had. He’ll wish I’d killed him before he ever touched her.
Chapter 22
RAVEN
It’s cold.
That is the first anchor my consciousness finds. Not the blinding, suffocating dark. Not the thick, industrial stench of damp concrete and oxidised rust that clings to the back of my throat. Not even the rhythmic throb at the base of my skull where something cracked against stone.
It’s the cold. The kind of predatory chill that doesn’t just sit on your skin; it creeps into the marrow, whispering that no one is coming. That you are already a ghost.
I try to move, and every nerve ending screams in protest. My wrists are bound in front of me—tight, but not with the clinical cruelty of steel. It’s rope. Fibrous and coarse. It feels deliberate, as if whoever did this wanted me to feel the friction, wanted me trapped but not entirely helpless.
He wants me to struggle.
There is a hood over my head. The fabric is thick, smelling of gasoline and old ash. My breath echoes inside it, sharp and panicked, bouncing back against my lips until the air feelsrecycled and thin. I flinch at the sound of my own terror. It’s too loud. Too much.
I’m not dead. Not yet.
My mouth is a desert. My pulse sounds like distant gunfire. But I am alive, and in this room, that feels like a threat. Because I don’t know what he wants. Not Damien. This He. I want to scream Damien’s name, to call him into the dark, but the thought dies.
What if he’s listening?
What if he’s already here?
What if it was Damien all along?
No. My heart rejects the thought before it can take root. I know the way Damien touches me—the jagged edges of his devotion, the way he sees me even when I’m trying to hide. Even at his most brutal, Damien never wore a mask.
This man did.
My head rolls to the side, sluggish and heavy. I can’t tell if I’m sitting or slumped against a wall. My body feels distant, like a radio station losing its signal, leaving only the static of pain.
Then, I hear it.
The drag. Boots on concrete. Slow. Methodical. Steady.
The silence thickens until it has a physical weight. A door creaks—metal groaning against metal.
Then a voice—warped through a modulator, low and inhuman—wraps around me like spilled oil.
“Do you remember me, Raven?”
My heart stops. That voice doesn’t belong to Damien. Not even close. My breathing turns frantic, a ragged scratching sound against the fabric of the hood.
“No? That’s okay,” the voice purrs, dropping to a softer, more intimate register. “I remember you.”
The hood stays on, but I feel his presence like a cold front. He’s kneeling. I can hear his breath now—steady. Too steady. He is enjoying the geography of my fear.
“You wore white that night. Do you remember that, Raven?”
My stomach turns over. A memory surges—not a face, just flashes. Moths. The smell of ozone. An open window. The prickly, localised heat of eyes watching me when I believed I was alone in the world.
“You were the first girl I ever wanted to break.”
I flinch, my bindings biting into my wrists as I jerk away from the sound. He laughs—a soft, delighted sound that makes my skin crawl.
“We’re going to have fun this time.”
