Page 120 of Brutal
Thank God.
I go back and lock the door, scoffing at the deadbolt and chain. It’s useless. A child’s toy against wolves.
Then I go back to the bed and stand over her.
The beast in the tower.
The woman foolish enough to stay.
Except in this story, she doesn’t yet know the worst room in the castle. She has only pressed her hand to the door.
And I’m standing here with the key in my hand, knowing exactly what opens when I let her too close.
I look at my ring again. The key pressed into black platinum that looks like iron and worn like a birthright.
Samson.
The name has always felt less like a gift than a command. Strength. Violence. A man chosen for force and ruined by what he lets too near his heart.
I was taught to be the hand. Be the blow.
But Delaney makes something impossible rise in me, something my father would have broken out of me with both hands if he’d seen it young enough.
Rebellion.
The desire to choose one thing over the whole damned altar I was raised on.
She stirs.
Her lashes flutter. Her brow creases faintly before her eyes open.
For a second she says nothing. Just looks at me standing there in the dark like something out of a dream…
Until—
She squints at me. “What happened? Were you outside?”
I cross back to the bed and sit on the edge. “Someone was outside.”
She pushes up on one elbow. “Outside the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“I saw enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re done staying here alone.”
Something flares in her eyes, but she’s awake enough now to know the difference between command and fact.
I look at the marks on her throat, her shoulder. Then back at her mouth.
She is a weakness.
Too bad.
