He's out of the car before I can respond, the bag over his shoulder, moving toward a squat concrete building with boarded-up windows. I watch him disappear through a side door.
Then I wait.
The first scream comes twenty minutes later.
I don't recognize it at first. It's too high, too raw, more animal than human. It cuts through the silence of the car, muffled by distance and walls but still clear enough to make my skin crawl.
I grip the steering wheel. Count my breaths.In. Out. In. Out.
Things I can see… uhhh, snow… rust…
Things I can hear—
Another scream. Longer this time. It rises to a pitch that makes my teeth ache, then cuts off abruptly. The silence that follows is somehow worse.
He's doing this for me. He's hurting someone to keep me safe.
The thought should horrify me. It does horrify me. But underneath the horror, there's gratitude.
I hate myself for feeling it.
An hour passes. Then two.
The screams come and go, each one slightly different. Sometimes short and sharp, like a dog's yelp. Sometimes long and wavering, building to a crescendo before collapsing into sobs. Once, I hear words. Begging. "Please" and "stop" and "I'll tell you anything."
Jace's voice never carries. Whatever he's saying, whatever he's asking, it stays insidethose walls.
I think about running. Starting the car, driving away, disappearing into the grey morning. I could do it. He gave me the keys. He gave me permission.
But where would I go? Back to the Ministry? Back to Moore? Back to the auction block, waiting for another monster to claim me?
At least this monster is keeping me alive.
I stay in the car. I wait. I try not to count the screams.
When Jace finally emerges, the sun is coming up.
He walks toward the car with the same controlled stride as before, but there's something different about him now. A looseness in his shoulders. A satisfaction in his posture that wasn't there when he went in.
And blood. There's blood on his hands, his forearms, spatters across his shirt. It's dark, almost black in the early light, and it gleams wetly as he moves.
He opens the driver's door, slides behind the wheel. The smell hits me immediately: copper and salt and something organic and wrong.
I press myself against the passenger door. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Jace looks at me. His expression is calm, empty, utterly untroubled.
"I got what I needed," he says.
I can't speak. I can barely breathe.
He starts the car. Pulls out of the lot. Drives.
I don't ask about the man in the warehouse. I don't ask if he's still alive.
I already know the answer.
We stop at a rest area thirty miles outside the city.
