Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

I kept driving but kept glancing behind me, watching her.

Her glasses made her eyes hard to see, but she had them buried in her phone anyway.

Damon was in there two hours ago. Was she? How long had she been in there tonight?

I thought she was Jewish. If not, I was going to feel stupid for the Yom Kippur gift I left in her locker.

I continued driving, watching her disappear in my rearview mirror, and I wanted to go back to find her, but I knew she wouldn’t take a ride from me.

She wouldn’t take anything from me.

I was nothing, and she knew it, and in ten years, she’d be amazing, and I’d be nothing.

She would never need me.

Within minutes, I was descending the steps of the catacombs, hearing whispers below and knowing which room Damon liked best.

I leaned on the door frame, seeing him toss his shirt onto the floor before lifting his mouth off the girl he had laid on the table.

His eyes met mine, the other chick still in her clothes and straddling a stool in the corner.

Damon smiled, standing up straight. “Get your ass in here.”

Emory

Present

I popped my head up, my eyelids heavy with sleep and my head pounding.

White filled my gaze as I jerked my head left and right, realization settling in.

It wasn’t a dream. I was at Blackchurch.

Checking the door across the room, I saw it closed and the chair still fixed underneath the knob. I exhaled, pushing myself up from where I’d crouched in the corner to keep all angles in view.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I looked around for a clock, but there was nothing.

How long had I slept? I rubbed my eyes, pulling open a curtain and seeing that it was still dark outside. The forest laid beyond the tree line, the great expanse nearly pitch black under the cloud-covered moon.

Would I still be alive if I were out there now?

Releasing the curtain, I eyed the two-way mirror to my right, wondering if they were watching me. Did all the rooms have those?

And why?

The floor above me creaked, and I shot my eyes up to the ceiling, the floorboards whining with someone’s weight.

Where the hell were we? Think, think. The foliage outside, the trees, the moss on the rocks, and the air, heavy with moisture… Maybe Canada?

And we couldn’t be as secluded as they thought. Checking out the fancy woodwork, ornate doors and fixtures, and the chandeliers I’d noticed in the house, I knew one thing for certain. Blackchurch wasn’t always a prison. It wasn’t functional as one.

Someone built it as a home, and a home this size was built for more than a family. It was built for entertaining. A place this size didn’t run without support from a local population—servants, craftsmen, farmers…

My stomach ached with hunger as I looked at the pasta Aydin Khadir had left me on the bench at the bottom of his bed. The sauce had settled, and the noodles had yellowed, less opaque, but my mouth still watered looking at it.

I’d refused to eat it on the chance it was drugged—which was an entirely reasonable concern, since I must’ve been drugged when I was first brought here, but… I’d also slept without incident, so they clearly weren’t waiting for me to be less on guard to attack.

This was his room, he’d said. He would’ve come back here to sleep if it was that time of night. Where was he?