Page 25 of Don’t Let Him In

“Never said you were,” he blows out irritatedly, threading his fingers through his gel-stiffened hair, frustration yanking them forward. “You’re not used to being out in places like this after dark.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, it was a bad call.” He pivots toward her. “You’re clearly spooked⁠—”

Their words muffle in my ears as he presses the distance between them, fingers brushing a strand of hair from her face. Something twists low in my stomach as my gaze snaps back to Manson and finds him nudging the cigarette tray closer to the peeling wallpaper. My throat cinches, impossibly narrow.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

Pausing, he looks at me again. A wicked grin tugs at one corner of his mouth. “Helping you.” His tone is deceptively light. My body chills as I watch the smoking butt of the cigarette curl higher, its ember pulsing faintly in the dark, dangerously close to the peeled wallpaper.

Swallowing the grit in my throat, I open my mouth. “B-but you’ll set the place on fire doing that.”

A dark glint flashes in his eyes. Dread wells in my gut, foaming and frothing into something monstrous. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

The pressure returns to my chest, refusing to ebb until my knees threaten to buckle. I try to speak, but my voice emerges as a stifled crack, inaudible. He’s…he’s…

No.

He can’t be implying what I think he is. No, he can’t be.

The realization eats away at me, leaving behind a hollow shell of the person I was just seconds ago. Feeling faint, I shoot up a hand to clutch the front of my shirt, fisting the damp fabric as my arms tremble and my fingers dig tighter. I have to say something.

I need to say something.

But the dark pools of his eyes, swimming with ghosts of his own, steal all the words away. Right then, I hear Dax and Blair’s receding footsteps. The sound should bring me relief. But all it does is set panic loose behind my eyes, fogging my vision as I hold fast to their departure.

I can’t be left behind again. I don’t want to be.

I’m not ready. I’m not⁠—

The moment stretches taut between us before his attention glides downward, catching on the hand twisted in the front of my shirt. Only then do I feel it.

The silver band around my finger.

It’s tighter than I’d realized, the ornate silverwork biting into my skin. I resist the urge to tear it off and force myself to remain upright, my feet digging deeper into the floor with every passing second. Frozen, unable to move even if I wanted to.

The grim set of his mouth deepens, his spine pulling into a rigid stance. My stomach bottoms out.

A second slips by.

Then another.

When he finally speaks, his voice is stripped of its usual restraint, the question cleaving through the buzzing battering my ears. “Where did you find that ring?

Ribbons of fear unfurl in my stomach the longer he remains transfixed on the ring, his gaze growing haunted, distant, almost as though some unseen force had quietly stolen him away.

Somehow, this tiny silver band is of significance to him.

I can feel it.

See it.

It’s carved into the deepening pleats between his brows, his expression marked by something that lies far beyond my understanding. A frown creases his mouth, his complexion turning sallow before tears gather along his lash line, lending a liquid sheen to the pitch-black of his irises until the grief inside them becomes impossible to ignore.

It’s as gut-wrenching as it is unnerving.

“How did you get that?” he rasps.