Page 4 of Beautiful Ruins
I checked my phone.There was no signal.Of course there wasn’t.
The screen’s glow felt too bright, too fragile, so I shoved it back into my pocket and swallowed hard.What was I even thinking—coming to a place like this in the dead of night, alone, chasing a suspicion which was just that?
I called his name anyway.
“Nathan?”
My voice vanished the moment it left my mouth, swallowed whole by the space.There was no echo and no answer.Not even the courtesy of movement.
The silence pressed in until it rang in my ears.So complete that I convinced myself I could hear a pin drop—if there had been one to fall.
I kept walking.
Annoyance began to edge out fear, irritation flaring with every empty room I passed.Hehadto be here.I’d watched him come inside.I’d seen the car parked out front, engine ticking as it cooled.
I hadn’t imagined this.
I tried as hard as I could to convince myself that I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there, even as the building seemed to close in around me, every step pulling me further from common sense—and closer to the unknown.
A stairwell waited at the end of the corridor, yawning open like a throat.
Dark.Narrow.Uninviting.
I stopped at the top, fingers curling once at my sides.Every sensible part of me whispered to turn around, to leave the building and take my pride with me.Whatever was down there didn’t want company.
I went down anyway.
The air changed immediately.Colder.Heavier.Damp enough to cling to my skin.The concrete beneath my shoes was slick, forcing me to slow, one hand dragging along the wall to keep my balance as I descended.
The basement opened wide and wrong.
Crates were stacked everywhere—too many, too tall, piled unevenly like someone had abandoned them in a hurry.Strange symbols were stenciled across their sides, sharp lines and markings I didn’t recognize but instinctively disliked.
That was when I heard voices.
Men.
Several of them.
Low.Not arguing—deciding.
My stomach dropped hard enough to make me dizzy.
I took a step back, pulse crashing in my ears, and my heel clipped the edge of something metal.It tipped, scraped, and fell with a soft clatter that sounded deafening in the stillness.
I sucked in a breath that tore at my throat.
The voices stopped.
The silence that followed was instant and absolute—thick with attention, heavy with intent.
It was a silence that meant I’d just been noticed.
Before I could run, a fist closed in my collar and yanked me forward so hard my feet left the ground.
Air ripped from my lungs.
I gasped—and slammed straight into his space.
