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Fuck you. I’m not telling this crazy asshole a thing about Russ’s family. It’s probably a ploy to get me to talk. Threaten someone he thinks I know, in exchange for confessing who told me about his sister.

“Who are they to you?”

A thrum of fear crawls beneath my skin with every step he takes toward me. The fight, or flight, rush is something I’ve grown very familiar with over the years, but somehow, it’s more potent now. This man is going to kill me. That much is clear in those dark eyes that remind me of a wolf’s as he prowls closer.

“Talk.”

“I don’t know them.”

“Lies!” Teeth bared, he lurches toward me, and before I can reach for the blade, he swipes up both my wrists, holding me captive against the bed. “You’re going to tell me everything. Who you really are, and how the fuck you know these people.”

I kick and flail and buck, but all my fight is useless against this man, who wrangles himself on top of me, straddling me like a steel rock. “Get off! Fucking get off!”

Circling his hips against me, he buries his face in my neck, fingers damn near pinching off the circulation to my hands. “I am getting off, mon chaton. And if you don’t fucking talk, I’m going to get off even more on your screams of pain.”

“I don’t know who those people are! I found the picture!”

“You’re fucking lying to me! You’ve been fucking lying to me this whole time. And I’m going to carve the truth out of you, fille. Piece by piece.”

“You’re crazy. A crazy fucking psychopath!”

“You don’t know the half of it. So I suggest you start talking. Where the fuck did you get that picture?”

Lips pressed to a firm line, I shallow breathe through my nose, my pulse racing, teeth grinding out my frustration. I will not give him Russ’s family. I will not.

I’ll die before I let this asshole stalk and kill them.

“Go to hell.” In the unnerving stillness that follows, I catch the flicker of shadows behind his eyes. The emptiness of a man with no soul. A man who will run a blade right through me without flinching.

Unless I fight back.

Eyes riveted on my lips, he seems to be momentarily enthralled, and perhaps he really is getting off on this.

I drive my knee upward, nailing his groin.

He grunts, letting loose one of my wrists to cup himself.

That’s when I reach under the pillow for the blade, and without so much as a blink in between, I swipe out at his face.

“Fuck!” He pushes off of me just enough for me to scramble onto the floor.

A hand reaches out for my foot, but I kick him away and push to my feet. Spying my bag as I pass his office, I make a split-second decision to leave it, when I hear him call out, “Céleste!”

I ignore him as I race through the boat, before slamming through the door and out to the dock, toward the woods.

A shroud of darkness looms over the surrounding trees. Branches scrape over my skin, and the forest slices across the soles of my feet. I run blindly, eyes scanning for somewhere to hide. The rush of blood pounds in my ear, my lungs burning for a sip of oxygen.

“Minou, minou …” a ghostly voice echoes around me.

On a gasp, I halt my steps and twist around, searching the dim silhouettes of trees for the source.

Oh, no. No.

“There is a box. Inside the box are marbles …” I whisper the riddle, stepping over piles of fallen branches and trees that crackle beneath my feet. “One is blue. One is red. One is green …”

“Minou, minou, I see you …”

The back of my neck prickles, and a chill spirals beneath my skin, in spite of the sticky, humid air. Memories come back to me in flashes.