“Look at them, so at peace.” Judson jams his hands into his pockets as he gazes at the quilt-covered double bed. “My apologies for not giving you a chance to say goodbye. I may have been a little impatient to get the job done.”

It takes my mind a while to absorb the picture in front of me. Adrian and Hanna are lying in bed, next to each other, Adrian’s arm draped over his wife in a protective gesture. No signs of struggle, no rumpled sheets, not a drop of blood. If I didn’t know better I’d think they were sleeping. But I don’t need to see the blood to know it’s there, hidden beneath the sheets. Judson doesn’t have to tell me they’re dead. The chill on my spine confirms it.

Judson Devereux has murdered two innocent people. Three people dead at his hands in less than twenty-four hours.

How did he kill them so quietly that I didn’t notice despite being in a room across the hall?

“I thought it would be nice to have them die together in each other’s arms. Doesn’t get any more romantic than that. Neither one will have to experience the pain of losing the other.” He moves close enough to whisper in my ear. “Don’t worry. They didn’t suffer much. They were good people. Even though they had always preferred my brother. A few drops of a silent poison in the glasses of wine they enjoy before bed did the job.”

As the horror of it all sinks into my mind, my legs lose every ounce of strength. I sink toward the floor but he stops me before I reach it, holding me upright with his strong grip. He keeps my face directed to the bed. He refuses to let his moment of victory end just yet.

“Not so fast. Hang in there. It’s not too late for you to say goodbye. You could give them a proper send off with a kiss on the cheeks. They did risk their lives for you. Don’t be ungrateful. Show your last respects.” He pushes me forward. “Take all the time you need. I’ll wait.”

Aware that if I make a wrong move he’d not blink before sending me to join Damien, Adrian and Hanna on the other side, I obey him. I move further into the room, taking one small step after the other toward the death bed until I’m standing over them, watching them in their endless sleep.

Both their eyes are closed and Adrian’s head rests on Hanna’s hair that’s spread out across her pillow like a fan. The same hair that had hung on her shoulders only hours ago.

The stillness in the room confirms their death, as though the essence of life has been sucked out of the air. That and the unnatural coloring of their skins.

“I said give them a kiss.” Impatience sharpens his voice despite him telling me to take my time.

Swallowing the rock inside my throat, I bend and kiss Hanna’s cool cheek first before doing the same for Adrian. Without words I apologize to them for bringing bad luck into their lives and thank them for their efforts to save mine.

At the back of my mind I can’t help wondering what Judson will do to me after murdering me. Will he tuck my body into bed and burn the house to the ground with our corpses still inside? Will we end up at the bottom of the ocean?

My chest tightens at the thought of letting him win. I can’t give up yet. Not when my heart is still beating.

The moment I spot a potential weapon within reach, I don’t waste time thinking. Thinking in Judson’s presence is a dangerous game. I’d be foolish to give him time to read my mind.

Before I straighten up, my fingers are clutching the wooden African statue on Adrian’s side of the bed. What used to be his side of the bed.

Before fear recaptures me, I send the statue flying toward Judson’s head. Instead of striking him, it catches his shoulder. The gun slips from his grasp and lands on the carpet between us.

Our eyes lock from across the room before we both lunge for it. I never expected to be the first one to touch it, never expected to be faster than him, but my fingers are the ones that meet the deadly weapon. At the same time, our heads collide.

The explosive pain is a sharp dagger jammed into my brain, blinding me, weakening me. My fingers have no strength as he snatches the gun from me. I fall to the ground, my free hands cradling my head as though holding a broken piece of china together.

The bullets hit the floorboard inches from my feet, the gunpowder assaulting my nostrils. I ignore the pain and run from death, crawling away before I’m hit. He continues to shoot around me but not meeting my body. I doubt he’s a lousy shot. He wants to toy with me before ending it.

“You want to run?” His laughter bounces off the walls before hitting my ears. “Go ahead. Run, Ivy. See how far you’ll get. Make this more fun than it already is.” He continues to shoot and I continue to crawl as fast as I can, dodging the bullets.

Out of breath, I scramble to my feet. As bullets whisper past my ears, I stumble over furniture. Pictures slide off the walls, vases crash to the floor after being hit by bullets or knocked over by my body. I slip on the carpet and fall back to the floor, my bruised cheek taking the impact. I don’t feel pain as I scramble back to my feet. The gush of fear coursing through my veins is strong enough to numb me.

“When will you quit thinking you can outrun me? Do you seriously think you’ll make it out of this room alive?” Judson doesn’t move away from the door.

My lungs are burning up and my head is spinning, but I keep moving. I don’t even pause to communicate with him because it won’t get me anywhere. Hopefully he’ll run out of bullets and I’ll have the opportunity to take another swing at him. This time I won’t miss.

The bullets keep coming, and I keep running and falling, and screaming. Maybe someone will hear my screams mixed in with the sound of gunshots, and call the cops. But if anyone was going to help me, wouldn’t they have done it by now?

From what little I saw when Adrian brought me over, the house is pretty isolated.

While Judson is still determined on scaring the crap out of me, I run out of fuel and sink to the floor in one corner of the room, covering my head with my arms and making myself as small as possible. My eyes are closed so tight my eyeballs ache.

I hope any second now he’ll realize he’s won and quit the game with a bullet to my head. My disappointment burns hot in my eyes when he doesn’t shoot me. He grabs me at the back of the neck and pulls me to my feet, when I refuse to walk, he drops me to the floor and grabs one of my feet, dragging me across the room. On our way to the door, something sharp cuts my shoulder. What’s another wound to what I’ve already suffered?

Like someone who no longer gives a damn about her fate, I fix my gaze to the white ceiling, black spots in front of my eyes, tears spilling down the sides of my face. Some sprinkle the floor and others dry on my skin. Thinking of what he’s done to Hanna and Adrian brings on fresh, hot tears I’m unable to blink away.

Our destination is the room I slept in. I recognize the pink birdcage light fixture on the ceiling.

The fear of what he has in mind niggles at the back of my throat, but I don’t let it show on my face. At least I hope I don’t.

He’s won but he doesn’t have to know it.

The door slams and he drags me across the room, past the bed and other furniture. We enter the small en-suite bathroom.

When he drops me on the cool tiled floor, I fold myself into the smallest ball. “Why don’t you do it?” I say, staring at a piece of dried gum on the underbelly of the basin. “Why drag it on? Kill me already. I don’t care.” His torture is more unbearable than death. It reminds me of being inside the coffin and wanting to die fast instead of entertaining a slow death.

He stands over me, feet planted on both sides of my body, hands in pockets. “Not yet, ma chérie. We have unfinished business, remember? We need to bring to an end what we started and never got to finish at Damien’s place.” His gun is still trained on me as he moves away and turns on the shower. “But Damien’s smell on your skin disgusts me. We have to do something about that.”

A jagged scream cuts through my throat as he picks me up by the hair and throws me into the shower with my clothes still on. My skin tightens from the shock of cold water but I recover fast. I shoot him a glare.

The gun is gone and a sharp knife has taken its place. My body starts to tremble when he joins me in the shower. He doesn’t slit my throat with it but uses it to cut the clothes from my body, getting too close to my skin. Too exhausted and afraid to fight him, I let him.

I’m crying again, loud broken sobs that hurt my chest. I hate myself for being right where he wants me. He will rape me and if I try to stop him, I could end up with the knife jammed into my chest. My sobs make my chest hurt as he takes a sponge, squeezes vanilla-scented shower gel onto it and scrubs my face. I press my teeth together when he attempts to push the soapy sponge into my mouth. He moves on down my throat, to my shoulders, and over my breasts and stomach. Whistling a tune, he squeezes more gel onto the sponge and scrubs my thighs, knees, and calves, as though his aim is to scrub the skin right off my flesh.

“You pretended to be so innocent. So pure. I never imagined you to be just another dirty whore. I’ll show you what dirty whores deserve.” He moves to the area I dread the most. I put up a fight as he spreads my legs and shoves the sponge between them. I fail. The scrubbing there is even more violent. Then he tosses the sponge to the floor. He straightens up and pins me to the wall, a hand around my neck. I bite my lip as I wait for him to pull out his dick. He doesn’t.

He gives me a hard slap across the face with his free hand, then moves it to between my legs, pushes a finger into me, then another, and another. I scream out with pain and anger. He shuts me up with a kiss. In a moment of insanity, I bite into his bottom lip hard enough, tasting his blood. He withdraws his fingers out of me but only to give me another skin-slicing slap that makes my head spin.

“There’s a price to pay for that.” He turns off the water, wraps my hair around his hand and throws me out of the shower. I land on the floor. The gun is back and it’s pressed against the side of my head. I hope he’s changed his mind about killing me later. I’d rather die than have his dick inside me again.