Page 65 of Ballad of Nightmares

“Sam…” She tried his name one more time, though quieter this time. She cursed the shake in her tone, her eyes darting from cell to cell. She didn’t dare move that column of light from the center where she had it pointed right then.

“Who is it?” someone asked.

“Do we get to play?”

Her heart skipped, and she dared a step back.

Someone was running.

Running.

Flat-footed and uncoordinated. The steps bounced out of puddles. Echoed off the stone. The flame whooshed out with its passing. Ana’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She dug into her fighting stance, not daring to move that light no matter the temptation—

Three fingers tickled her shoulder.

“Hello, pretty.”

Ana jumped so quickly that she fell. The flashlight flew out of her hand. Those running steps hushed, but she scrambled across the ground to grab the light.

And made the mistake of pointing it down the corridor.

Bulging eyes and the broad smile of a man met her.

Ana screamed.

She bolted to the stairs again and ran down them.

A ghost—no—a ghost didn’t have a form like that. That was… she didn’t know what it was. Ghost. Demon. Hybrid?

Whatever it was, she knew there were more.

Her feet hit the ground floor, and just as she thought of sprinting to the exit, she heard the iron doors roll shut.

Locked.

Where the fuck was Sam?

More cages rolled shut, their bars clanking and clanking like someone were running by all of them and pulling them closed.

“Ana.”

It was Sam whispering her name this time. Startling her so that she tripped over a broken stone. She fell flat to the ground, cold hands wrapping her ankles, and she screamed—screamed—as she was dragged backwards into the darkness. Her nails clawed the floor. She kicked. Screeched. Grabbed. Grabbed to anything and everything.

She caught a loose stone in the floor and whipped over to her back. The brick launched out of her hands and hit the being dragging her. She scrambled to her feet, only to run into some other being. Her flashlight lay in the middle of the room, flickering on and off. An arm wrapped around her shoulders.

“Pretty, pretty toy come to play,” it hissed in her ear.

Ana grabbed its arm and bent, whipping the thing over her head. It slammed into the ground, and she pulled the small knife from inside her bra.

The flashlight whirled on her as she slammed that blade into the creature’s throat. It was a man, or at least it had once been. A maniacal smile lit up his bleak face even with the knife in his neck. Black ooze trickled down her arm, and she kicked the creature into a heap before darting backward.

And as the rush of adrenaline caught her… As it warped and seeded itself deep within her bones, she felt her lips curling into a smile. She’d only gone a few more steps, now standing directly over the flashlight in the middle of the room—

She laughed.

She pressed her hands to her knees and shelaughed, her head shaking as she tried and failed to contain the bit of chaos seeping out of her. She held that rush so close and let it fill her to the point that arousal peaked her core. Fuck, she had missed running.Trulyrunning. Every part of her lit on fire as that familiar surge filled her body. Her head threw back as her cackle echoed and bounced, and even the water stopped dripping from the walls.

Silence, all except for Deianira’s true self, filled the void of that prison, and her lungs swelled at the fear of all those demons that she now felt around her.