Page 57 of Hellebore

“Nowhere to go now,” he says, descending slowly, each step deliberate. “You’re here with me… forever.”

“Help!” I scream, bolting left through a towering archway into what appears to be a ballroom. The space is enormous, bathed in red-purple light that makes the black walls seem to bleed. In the center of the far wall looms a massive fireplace.

And above it⁠—

“Oh my God…”

A huge painting dominates the space.

It’s me.

Wearing a flowing black gown, my old blonde hair cascading down my shoulders. I’m smiling, soft, innocent, the girl I used to be. And beside me stands Drystan, chest torn open in a gaping, horrific wound. Blood pours down his torso in thick, glistening streams. In my hand, I hold his heart, raw, red, dripping.

The blood looks alive. The heart almost pulses on the canvas. The detail is grotesque. Terrifying. Beautiful in the most horrifying way.

His hands settle on my hips from behind, warm and possessive.

“You’ve owned my heart and soul since the moment I saw you ten years ago,” he breathes against my neck, breath hot on my skin. “Now you hold it in your hands, my love.”

I can’t move. The painting is too real. Too bloody. Too intimate.

“You’re insane—” I let out, voice trembling.

“I am,” he murmurs, lips brushing my ear, sending unwanted shivers down my spine. “For you, my love. Only ever for you.”

“You are going to kill me—” I rasp, my body shivering uncontrollably.

“Look at it carefully my love.” Drystan’s voice is silk and smoke, deep and confident. “It’s the other way around. You are the one that will end up killing me, Briar.”

Tears spill down my cheeks. “No, I’m not a killer. I’m nothing like you.”

“We are more alike than you think.”

He steps back, but I stay frozen, eyes glued to the horrific painting. The blood looks too real, too wet, ready to drip down the wall at any moment. My old blonde hair, the soft smile I no longer recognize on my own face, and Drystan’s chest torn open, his heart cradled in my hands.

“There is no one around,” he continues, voice low. “No neighbors. No towns. Nothing for miles. Stay inside the walls and you will be safe.”

He turns and walks away down the long hallway, boots echoing with the finality of a death knell.

“Safe from everyone but you,” I murmur, turning to face him.

He glances over his shoulder. Those forest-green eyes catch the low light, emerald-bright in the dark.

“Exactly.”

Then he’s gone, swallowed by the shadows of the corridor.

I stand alone in the massive ballroom, the enormous painting looming over me, a curse stretched across canvas. This mansion feels less than a home and more a castle left to rot into a beautiful dungeon with cold stone, endless shadows, and secrets carved into every wall.

He can’t keep me here forever. Lucille will notice I’m gone. She’ll call the cops. Someone will come looking.

I clench my sweater tightly over my chest, heart heavy with dread and something far more dangerous.

I can’t panic. Not now. I need to find a way out.

I walk slowly down where Drystan disappeared into. The place is all dark stone and oppressive silence, the paintings on the walls straight out of a nightmare, twisted bodies, blood-soaked earth, black flowers blooming from open wounds. He lives here completely alone?

And that painting… I haven’t looked like that innocent girl in five years. I have so many questions, but I’m terrified of the answers. If he’s been stalking me for ten years, why didn’t he stop those men? Were they sent by him?