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The screams of an agonised mother only grew, so loud that my ears hurt and pressure built in my chest. I wanted to scream at the phantom woman that her son was a monster, that he blackmailed me, threatened me, until something in me snapped.

I wanted to scream that her son deserved what he got, that I wished I’d spent longer bludgeoning his head until there was nothing left of his skull.

But my hands finally broke over the swell of my chest, my wrists bruised and throbbing, and I slammed my hands over my ears, screwing my eyes shut.

I could still hear the screams but her words were muffled.

It took long, long minutes, but eventually the screams quietened, and I tentatively lowered my hands, blinking my eyes open.

I could see nothing but the coffin opposite mine, the bodies strung across the walls, rotten and disgusting.

No Cruelty. But she had to be in here, tormenting me with the screams of my victim’s mother.

And I hadn’t heard the door grate again.

“Pain?” I whispered after another long moment of silence.

I needed to hear his voice, needed any hint of comfort even if his was a voice I wasn’t very familiar with.

He’d been there for me at the masquerades, and he’d jumped in front of me to defend me to Cruelty.

And there was no forgetting that she’d called him my bonded one.

He was mine. “Pain?” I repeated when he was silent.

I jumped hard, my heart knocking into my ribs, when another voice blasted into the dark room.

Unfamiliar, but male, deep, and writhing with fury.

A voice that would make me run in the other direction if I ever heard it.

A voice that invoked blood and flinching and fear that sat so deep there was no escaping it.

“You sick, pathetic boy,” he snapped, making me jump.

“You can’t even get to your feet to face me like a man?

No son of mine will cower on the floor.” There was a noise, dull and soft.

My stomach knotted. This was Cruelty messing with us, but …

my bastard blackmailer’s mother’s screams were real.

I heard them when she found the body. This snarling, menacing man must be real too.

And if he wasn’t from my past, he was from Pain’s.

“Enough,” I said, my voice sticking in my throat.

“Anyone can look at you and see your sorry excuse for a mother in you,” the man spat. “But you’re a weakling. Look at you, snivelling, cowering in the corner like a coward. Be a man and get on your feet. Throw a punch, you—”

“Enough!” I snapped, a sharp coil of anger in my chest. My nostrils flared, words landing like punches even on me.

My parents had always been a little absent, a little distracted, but they were good parents.

Good people. Not like this bastard. And yet, the words found a weakness, found the part of me that wished I’d fought instead of cowering.

If I’d fought Cruelty from day one instead of trying to trick her, would all this be over now?

Maybe I’d be dead, or maybe we’d be free.

“Enough,” I snarled again—and saw it, the slow curl of darkness in the corner of my eye.

Barely visible in the gloom of my iron coffin, but there.

Hope rose like a buoy inside me, and my stomach fluttered.

“You shut the fuck up,” I shouted, the shadows getting clearer, darker.

I could almost see the swirling shape of them, and I might not have known how the hell to use them, but I felt better for their existence.

“Cat,” Pain rasped. A warning I ignored.

“Hey!” I banged the side of my fists against the cold iron. “Pick on someone your own size, you prick. You call him a coward, but where are you, huh? Hiding where we can’t see you. Come out where we can see. Face me.” I bared my teeth, nothing remotely similar to a smile. “If you dare.”

It was a gamble. I knew Cruelty was twisted and fucked in the head, but she was a woman of staunch pride. The insult to that pride should provoke her.

But the man’s voice fell to silence instead of coming closer to me. Silence fell, thick enough to choke me, and I waited, waited for Cruelty to laugh, for her blue eyes to appear right in front of my coffin, waited for—

“Who are you?” a wary, feminine voice demanded, and my whole body jerked. My fists, my elbows slammed into the cold iron. Honey. That was Honey’s voice. “How did you get in my room?”

“Oh god,” I choked out. I shouldn’t have provoked Cruelty, or whoever the hell was inside this room with us.

“What do you want?” Honey breathed, weaker, her voice shaking. “If it’s money, take my jewellery box. Or my purse is right there.”

A familiar voice replied, sly and amused. Cruelty. I covered my ears but I couldn’t shut it out. Tears stung and flowed from my eyes, and it became hard to breathe.

“I don’t want money,” Cruelty laughed. “I want your face, your voice, your mannerisms. I want to become you.”

I pressed my hands harder to my ears, but there was no escaping it.

I was trapped, encased in icy iron, and I had no choice but to listen to my best friend as she was murdered.