They’d be wrong.
Tip-toeing down them, Eden half-prayed the key wouldn’t be there. She gazed at the brick wall before her, her fingers shaking as they grazed the abraded stone. It was the third brick in from the left, six bricks down, she reminded herself. Her fingers grappled with the grooves and finally found purchase. With her strength, pulling the brick was like sliding a puzzle piece out of place. Behind the brick was a circular, iron lock. Old fashioned. Ryan liked it that way. A small key lay flat, where the rock had sat upon it.
Eden’s chest tightened and she felt the hunger stretch.
This is such a bad idea.
You need to know. You have to test yourself.
Taking the calming breaths Celine had taught her, Eden reached in, picked the key up and gently placed it in the lock. It took a lot of strength to the turn the key. A human would have serious problems with it. But it was easy for Eden. She winced at the grating sounds of the bricks sliding across the concrete floor, inwards to the basement. Dashing inside, with a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure the goon hadn’t followed, Eden hit the tiny switch on the wall that only worked when the brick door had been opened. The door wheezed against the stone and screeched shut.
Eden exhaled.
The lights had come on automatically, the basement hall cold and clinical and depressing. Her sad eyes fell on the iron door and she chanted the code that would open it, over in her head. There was a security pad on the wall next to the iron door and every week Ryan changed the access code. Only Teagan knew what it was. And idiot that he was, Eden had months ago discovered that he kept the code on his cell under Papa’s Pizzeria. She’d swiped his phone that morning and got the code, subconsciously knowing that she would end up down here. She felt worn out, broken even, as she slowly typed in the code. The lock popped and the door whined a little as it broke away from the latch.
Closing her eyes, she tried to prepare herself.
If I’m lucky there’ll be no one here.
Coward.
Her lips trembled as she berated herself. With a disgusted sigh, Eden gripped the door handle and yanked it open, pulling it shut behind her.
“Oh Jeez…” she breathed, her eyes taking in the room. The walls were painted the colour of blood, and art work, grotesque and morbid, lined the walls in gold-plated baroque frames. Ghouls attacked young men and women, ripping at skin and clothes. Horrified victims lay chained to floors and walls, while their wicked captors smiled out at the viewer. Eden’s eyes fell on the easel and blank canvas in the corner. There were more unwrapped canvasses, art supplies littered about.
Teagan.
He used the basement for the talent he had twisted to his purpose. She shuddered.
The whimper made her freeze on the spot. Not wanting to, but needing to, Eden slowly turned around. At the other end of the room was a large bed in blood red sheets. There were things there, tools, devices, things… things she couldn’t bear to think about, laid out on the bed. And on either side of the bed were chains screwed into the wall. On the right side, a brunette girl, perhaps fifteen, sixteen, was beaten and bruised, imprisoned in the chains. Her left eye was swollen shut, her upper lip cut. Her wrists were raw and bloody from pulling on the metal chains. Her jeans and t-shirt were dirty, her shirt ripped at the collar.
Ryan and Teagan weren’t finished with this one. By the looks of it, they had barely begun.
Morbidly, Eden thought to wonder how they disposed of their victim’s bodies.
This isn’t my life.
The girl looked up at her and her right eye widened. Eden expected hope. But the girl seemed to take one look at Eden and know she wasn’t her rescuer.
“Do what you want,” the girl hissed, her head lolling back. “You can’t touch me. Not really.”
She wanted to cry but the tears… it was like they were gone. Her whole body was seized with horror. It was so vile, so surreal. And the hunger? No hunger. Even with this human temptation before her. Not a temptation, Eden shook her head. Only abhorrence and revulsion that her father and cousin were capable of such evil. That this girl…this brave girl with the hatred in her eyes, thought Eden just like them.
Because she knows you won’t save her.
You are just like them.
“I wish I could save you,” Eden whispered, the words slipping past her lips without thought.
The girl’s mouth trembled, and her eyes watered with terrified and furious tears. “Save yourself first.”
Like a hurricane wind, those words sent Eden sweeping back to the door. Her fingers felt numb as she clumsily tried to get out, falling into the hallway, her foot slamming the iron door shut behind her. Her heart had frozen in her chest. She hurried up the stairwell, not really seeing where she was going, the girl’s eyes branding on her brain. The door at the top of the stairwell opened from this end, and Eden had enough mind to lock it at the back of her. There was no one around. She followed her body to the foyer, to the staircase, to the second floor, to her bedroom.
And then she ran. Slamming the bathroom door behind her, Eden flung herself at the toilet seat and emptied the contents of her stomach down it.
The horror and unease wouldn’t stop. She retched and retched, waiting for it to subside. By the time it did, she was pale and drenched in a cold sweat, her whole body shuddering. Collapsing against the toilet seat, Eden finally felt the tears come.
I’m not a murderer.
I’m a monster.
But not a murderer.
“I can’t do it.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
“You have to, Paradise.”
Eden flinched, her head jerking up to find Stellan standing in the doorway to her bathroom, his eyes sympathetic but resolved. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough,” he sighed.
The tears splashed down her cheeks. “I can’t, Stel. I can’t.”
He dropped to his knees before her, smoothing her hair back, his pale grey eyes fastened on hers. “You’ll die, Eden. If you don’t, you’ll die.” His eyes shone bright with unshed tears. “And I can’t live without you.”
Her whole body began to shake with broken sobs. “I don’t want to be like them.”
“I know,” Stellan whispered, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into his chest; he was comfort, he was safe and warm. “You won’t be. We’ll take care of each other. We’ll make sure we never become like them.”
“Promise?” She clenched her fingers into his shirt, the hunger already making itself known after only minutes cowed by her disgust at what she’d found in the basement. It was no use.
Stellan sighed and kissed her forehead softly. “I promise, Paradise.”
They held each other tighter. These two unusual Blessed. One another’s safest harbour.
Chapter Sixteen. A Winslow Massacre
The drug was taking it’s time to leave his system. Noah yanked at the chains cuffed around his wrists and clamped into the floor of the dining room. The marble flooring was destroyed. Guess they didn’t care anymore.
Noah growled and yanked again, frustrated by the weakness in his limbs. An Ankh, when injected with what would be a lethal poison to a human, was rendered weak and pretty much useless until the drug had left his system.