Page 110 of Ballad of Nightmares

Anger seeped back into her eyes. A tear jerked down her cheek. Pain flickered across her features, her lips twitching toward the floor. Every tremble in Ana’s body vibrated his darkness. He felt her heart as it began thumping wildly.

“Sam…“

A shadow dove into her mouth and down her windpipe before she could say more. It threw her body back into an arch—her arms splayed wide and blood-covered chest exposed toward the sky like she were hanging by a rope from the ceiling. Ana coughed. Choked. Struggled—

Sam pulled his phone out and dialed Rolfe’s number.

“Yeah, boss?” Rolfe answered gruffly.

“Have the dungeon cleaned out and call on a ghosted legion—“ Sam glanced through his hair back to Ana, who was staring at him with a deadly glare that chilled even his dead heart.

“We have a guest,” Sam finished.

Rolfe was quiet a moment, and Sam recognized the silent pause as Rolfe took in the hollowness of his voice.

“Rolfe!” Sam snapped.

“Yeah, I’m on it, boss,” Rolfe said solemnly.

Sam started to hang up, but Rolfe called out for him.

“Hey, Cain—“

Sam swallowed emotion at the use of the name, knowing Rolfe would only call him that when he meant it.

“I’m sorry,” Rolfe continued.

Sam’s eyes flickered back to Ana. “So am I.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

ANA’S EYES FLUTTERED as she felt cold stone beneath her ass. A chill swept over her shoulder, and she realized someone had changed her clothes, now wearing one of her sweaters and a pair of leggings instead of the nightdress. Her throat was raw like she’d been screaming, feeling like something had been shoved inside it. And her hands… her hands were covered in dried blood.

As she looked around the dimly lit space, everything came crashing back to her in flashes of memory that throbbed in her temple.

The fight with Sam. Stabbing him. The blood spilling from him and his dying eyes—

Iron clanked with the roll of a cage, and Ana’s head jerked up.

She was in a dungeon.

A filthy, cold dungeon with nothing more than a small dingy paned window high above her back. Firelight flickered from the opposite walls.

And from within the shadows, Death stared at her.

His chin was dipped, hands in his pockets. He watched her with such stillness that had she not seen his silhouette, she wouldn’t have known he was there.

Ana began to shake.

“You…”

She was on her feet. Running. Jumping—her body slamming into the iron bars with a wild scream that seared her insides.

“YouBASTARD!”

Sam winced, but he didn’t move. He stared at her as she tugged and pulled and threw herself at those bars, her heart shattering onto the floor. Crashing against the iron like a stone into a window.

No amount of physical pain compared to this. Nothing wouldevercompare to this.