Page 31 of Don’t Let Him In

Leaning forward, she pats down his spasming legs. My eyes shamefully snag on the bulge in his pants. Horrified to have noticed something so intimate in a moment like this, I wrench my gaze upward instead, only to catch a line of snot trailing from Blair’s nose. She tries to wipe it away with her shoulder, smudging it farther across her upper lip.

Her brows knot as her hand skims along the pocket of Dax’s scuffed jeans until her fingers catch on something rectangular tucked inside. Almost imperceptibly, the strain cinching her features loosens. She yanks his phone free, thumbing frantically at the screen before going still, her grip tightening around it.

For a moment, the room grows chillingly quiet except for Dax’s ragged rasps, his arms jerking weakly beside him. She doesn’t look up from the screen.

“Who’s Tatum?” she asks.

I tense.

“There’s a girl on your phone, Dax. Who is she?”

He tries to answer but manages only a wet, garbled sound before it dissolves into labored wheezing. A violent buck jolts him. His remaining eye pleads with her to help him, but she just stares, the panic gone from her expression.

Gritting her teeth, she barks out a fitful, almost maniacal laugh that lodges in my throat, making each swallow painful. She doesn’t stop, her knuckles blanched, tremors coursing through her, until she reaches for his collar, twisting the bloodied fabric in her other hand. “Answer me!”

Her eyes widen as disbelief hardens into something feral. She shoves the phone in front of his ruined face. “Who is she, Dax? Fucking answer me!”

Terror zips through my chest as I watch her nearly straddle him while he rasps and writhes across the floor.

She wouldn’t.

She couldn’t⁠—

I swallow hard around a lump in my throat.

No.

She wouldn’t hurt him. But each passing second chips away at that certainty.

Seething, she jabs her thumb against the screen, her shoulders jerking, her chest heaving. A guttural roar erupts from her. “Why won’t your fucking phone open? You’ve changed the lock, haven’t you? Haven’t you?!”

Just as I take a solid step backward, my gaze lifts to the staircase above them. Manson descends one measured step at a time, his eyes raking over the devastation without the slightest shift in expression before settling on me, holding me in my place.

An unrecognizable gleam flickers across his face, the slight crease quirking his brows. “Don’t freak out.”

My shoulders lock. I retreat another step, my head shaking, my voice failing me. The gnawing pressure in my gut wants out, out, out.

Get out.

My fight or flight finally kicks in. I jerk around to run, but my foot catches on a jutting plank, sending me crashing to the ground.

Fear seizes me, a broken cry slipping from my throat as I drag myself forward with my hands, even though I know it’s futile.

A blink later, he’s at my back, crouching over me before forcing me onto my back to face him. “Please, don’t do this,” he pleads. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

“You did this,” I accuse, my voice pitching. “All of this happened because of you.”

The darkening glare he fixes on me sends pure terror coursing through my spine, driving me to wrench myself free of his grasp even as darkness swarms my vision. Blair’s wailing dwindles into a quiet, chilling weep, but I don’t look at her, my eyes still held hostage by Manson.

His grip tightens, fingers clamping deeper into my wrists where he’s pinned them above my head. My stomach quakes. “I’m not the one who swung that axe,” he grits, tension finding its way into his tone. “I didn’t push anyone down the stairs. But it doesn’t matter, does it?” His voice breaks, deep lines etching into his forehead. “You’ll always blame me.”

Melancholy flickers into his eyes as he lowers himself toward me, hesitating just long enough for dread to tighten across my chest before closing the remaining distance. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wrench my head aside, my neck straining as his cold lips brush my jawline. One hand slips from my wrists, his thumb settling against my jaw, angling my face back toward him.

I keep my eyes closed. Hysteria claws higher.

My hips thrust upward as I buck wildly beneath him, twisting and flailing, but his larger frame overwhelms mine, one leg still wedged between my parted thighs, holding me captive despite my frantic attempts to break free. He doesn’t make another move.

The last of my strength bleeds away, despair rushing to fill its place.