Page 29 of Don’t Let Him In

“Please.”

Quietly, she whispers, “I’m trying. I swear.”

The doorknob grinds beneath her frantic grip, metal rasping against metal, her nervousness palpable, even through the door.

Heaving out a breath, Dax lets go of the knob, but the rattling persists, and the door remains closed. Whatever patience he has left wears thin.

He lunges for the knob again, ramming his shoulder into it hard enough to make me flinch. “What the fuck, Blair? Is this a joke to you?”

“No, I’m trying. I swear,” she quickly says, trying to placate him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s stuck.”

Dax’s voice thunders through the air, colliding with Blair’s tearful apologies as she continues to work the doorknob more vigorously.

Beside me, Manson trails his hands up my arm, stirring the fine hairs there before he cups my jaw, angling my face so it’s close enough to whisper into. “Don’t be scared. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

A shard of fear whistles through me. It lodges deep inside, splintering wider until the throbbing gives way to numbness, leaving my arms and legs boneless.

He cocks my head, trying to capture my gaze, but I dodge his inquisitive stare, looking straight past him into the empty air, my eyes misting over.

“I thought you’d be happy.”

My jaw drops, but no words come out. Only a small, garbled sound, tight with fear. Frigid water engulfs every inch of me until I’m drowning.

He fuses our foreheads together, and I tense. “Please, don’t.”

I swallow against the swollen lump in my throat.

“Don’t what?”

A tendon flexes in his neck when he pulls back enough to look at me, and I can practically see the gears turning behind his eyes, darkening them into tar. “Don’t act like this isn’t what you wanted.”

“It’s not,” I respond with a wheeze.

“They hurt you.”

I brace myself against another assault on the door, each impact sending a low groan through the walls as Dax bellows only a few feet away. “Don’t you dare fucking leave, Blair.” The muscles along his neck pull taut, veins bulging. “I’m fucking warning you right now, if you don’t get back here right this goddamn second. I’m not messing around.”

Flicking my gaze back to Manson, I catch him still staring at me, his eyes searing into my skin. I swallow hard. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be here.”

Dax doubles over, hands on his knees. Every breath leaves his mouth in a pale ring despite the sweat pooling at his temples. Beside me, Manson says nothing. His eyes rake over me with quiet scrutiny, lingering long enough to make my skin crawl.

For the length of a drumbeat, time slows to a dragging pace.

Then, a deafening crash erupts somewhere beyond the door.

Blair cries.

Dax snaps straight, jumping toward the door in a frantic rush that has him stumbling over his feet. “Blair? Blair⁠—”

A sickening knot tugs in my stomach as I watch, helplessly, wanting more than anything for all this to end. Dax reaches for the knob, jiggling it aggressively, but it doesn’t give. Blair moans on the other side. Each ragged breath scrapes louder as she drags herself closer.

“Step back, Dax,” she groans, her voice slightly muffled.

Canting his head, a low, mirthless laugh escapes him. Blair’s words dissolve into the silence between them.

“I know you want to get out.” A guttural groan steals the rest of her breath. “I’ll get us both out of here. Just step back and wait, okay?”

Gnashing his teeth, he ignores her, wrenching the doorknob one final time, and to his utter surprise, it turns. The mechanical whirl clicks, ricocheting around the empty room before he yanks it open with fervor.