Page 64 of Endless Anger (Monsters Within #1)

LUCY

I wake up to screaming.

Not the distant kind you can tune out or celebratory shouts of excitement and festivities.

The kind that pierces your soul as it rips from a person’s throat, guttural and raw and animalistic. A last-ditch attempt at prolonging life.

My body registers it all before my brain has a chance to catch up, and the screams snake their way into my veins, rattling my bones to the marrow. An ache flares behind the right side of my skull, spreading across my temple, and as I slowly manage to work my eyes open, I’m met with darkness.

It takes a few seconds for me to comprehend anything outside the terror. The screaming doesn’t cease, as if it’s a recording being played on a loop, although it’s clearly happening mere feet away.

The volume doesn’t quite reach my ears, like I’m in some sort of foggy tunnel or underwater where sound is distorted.

I go to move my arms, but my wrists are stuck together behind my back. Tugging with as much strength as I can muster, I try to slide one from the bind—it feels like rope instead of chains or zip ties—but it’s too tight .

The screams finally stop, though they continue echoing around me.

What the hell happened?

Last thing I remember is Beckett asking me to go down on him. Bile teases the back of my throat as I realize things aren’t just fuzzy but completely blacked out, and I swallow over burning trepidation, trying to decide if I feel violated or not.

My mouth is dry, my esophagus stinging as saliva attempts to slide down it, but I don’t feel bruised or anything. Not there at least.

Slowly, I turn my head. Just enough to peek out when I feel light on the backs of my eyelids.

Dirt is in my direct line of vision, but as I start to adjust to the bright floodlight shining down, I see rock everywhere. Walls of it, curving upward to a low ceiling of more solid rock, smoothed away as if to make this area passable for humans.

In my peripheral is a dark, shadowed figure slumped against the wall, their head practically touching their chin.

After a few seconds, I’m finally able to make out their full silhouette and tall, lanky frame. Foxe’s brown hair shields a lot of his face, so I can’t immediately discern if he’s awake or not.

His hands, though, are also bound behind him.

He’s covered in blood. More blood than I think I’ve ever seen, even after his worst fights with Asher. It just pools around him in big crimson puddles, like he’s on the set of one of those slasher films my brother loves.

I note tears in the T-shirt he has on and wonder if he’s even still alive. It’s difficult to see if his chest is rising and falling. He doesn’t move at all.

When I slide my gaze from him, I manage to lift my chin enough to take a wider glimpse around the area. We’re in some sort of cave, and I have to assume it’s one blocked off by Avernia officials, since we were close to one of the openings earlier.

There’s not much else in here with us: black trash bags, tools, and large plastic bins. A few standing lights and headlamps, abandoned on the ground across from us. A card table against one wall with a couple of folding chairs pushed beneath it and playing cards spread out on top .

Next to a big kerosene tank, Willa lies flat on her stomach.

If I thought Foxe was bloody, Willa is practically unrecognizable, drenched from head to toe in scarlet, her short brown hair no longer brown at all.

Everything is red, and it takes me a second to realize the screams were likely coming from her.

She’s been stripped naked, her ankles tied to two stalagmites, spreading her wide open. An incision from her vagina to the top of her ass leaks a stream of blood, soaking the ground beneath her.

I retch, unable to stop myself as I take in the state of her. She twitches, straining slightly against her binds, before she gives up in the next second. Almost as if she’s trying to save her strength.

Glancing down at myself, I note my clothes, assessing mentally for other injuries. Aside from the splitting headache and the mounting horror, I feel okay, though I find that alarming.

What if they were just waiting for me to wake up?

From the corner of my eye, I see Foxe’s leg move, and my head swivels to look at him. He groans softly, rolling his as he lifts his chin.

For a few seconds, we just stare at each other.

“Are you okay?” I whisper finally, each word a struggle.

He shifts, nodding toward his side. “Other than the hole in my side, I guess.”

My mouth gapes, my gaze dropping to assess the wound. I can’t see it, though, through his shirt. “What the fuck happened?”

Shaking his head, he drops it back against the wall with a grunt.

“One second, Willa and Eli were arguing about whether to go to Lethe’s after the party, and the next, I was struggling to keep my goddamn eyes open.

They tried to prop me up, but then they started feeling funny too, and the next thing I know, we’re being dragged down into this creepy-ass cave by some guys in white masks.

Assholes stabbed me for no reason. Guess I blacked out at some point. ”

White masks. Oh God.

My eyes dart around the room, widening at the three of us. “Where is?— ”

“I don’t know.” Foxe glares at his feet. “If Willa’s any indication though…”

A hard lump lodges in my throat, making breathing difficult. Air filters around it, coming out of me in short, staggered bursts.

Head swimming, I start to push up from where I’m doubled over on my knees and crawl toward Foxe. One of Willa’s eyes pop open, and she lets out a strangled noise when she sees me, matching the one I let out when I realize she really is alive.

I don’t know how she is, but I’m not going to question it.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I mutter to Foxe, as if he isn’t likely thinking the exact same thing.

Turning my back to him, I lift my wrists.

“You guys have lost a lot of blood, so we need to make it quick. Try breaking this off with your foot. If you put enough pressure in the middle, the bindings might snap or at least give enough slack that I can slip through?—”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Like almost every other time I’ve heard it, Beckett Dupont’s voice sends a shiver down my spine.

Three hooded figures with white face masks walk through an arched entryway, the one in front coming over to stand in front of me.

I can tell it’s him, even without looking into his soulless eyes or hearing him speak again.

He kicks Foxe’s leg, slamming his heel between my bindings; the force of it pulls me backward, knocking me onto my side. Pain ripples through my rib cage, and I grit my teeth, trying not to let it distract me.

“It’s a shame we didn’t get to continue our fun before you passed out,” Beckett says, crouching and petting my cheek as he pushes his mask into his hair. “I guess your murderer boyfriend won’t have to learn you were unfaithful before you die.”

The relief that floods through my system with his taunting makes me nauseous, but I latch on to it anyway, knowing that if nothing else, I still have that. A glimmer of hope in this utterly bleak reality.

“Asher isn’t a murderer,” I reply, snatching my face away from his touch .

Beckett smirks. “Aw, he really doesn’t tell you anything, does he?

How sad. I can link at least two student deaths directly to him.

Who knows how many others there are? Celeste, maybe?

” He cocks his head, then pinches my skin, giving me a little shake.

“Can you really say with a hundred percent certainty that you know the man you’ve been fucking this semester? ”

I glare at him but remain silent. It’d be a lie if I said I hadn’t wondered often about Asher’s life without me or what he was doing the night Celeste died.

Him being one of the three who had a direct hand in things wouldn’t have been possible, I don’t think, given how quickly he showed up after they disappeared, but some involvement isn’t totally out of the realm of possibility, right?

He’s always been violent and angry. Maybe in our three years apart, those qualities exacerbated, and he snapped.

Still, even with that knowledge—would he really kill someone without a reason?

Violent and angry doesn’t mean there isn’t a purpose behind his movements.

But he left you, Lucy. What happened to him in the meantime?

Do you really know him anymore? Is he the boy you fell in love with, or is that just what you’re hoping for because you don’t want to admit that he could have changed?

Beckett sighs, releasing me with a shove. I roll onto my back, my wrists a strained buffer between my tailbone and the harsh ground, and he scoffs, turning away.

“Doesn’t really matter, I guess. Him wanting to be a Curator should be all the proof you need, Wolfe. He’s been plotting your downfall like the rest of us.”

“That isn’t true,” Foxe says in a low voice. He meets my gaze. “You know he’d never do anything to hurt you.”

My heart hammers inside my chest, a metronome of uncertainty.

“And he didn’t touch your fucking roommate?—”

A blow to Foxe’s nose interrupts his sentence; one of the other masked figures drives their knee into his face, and I hear the sickening crunch of bone as Foxe absorbs the force with nothing more than a pained grunt.

My stomach rolls, terror agitating inside like a hurricane.

Beckett gives the masked figure a dirty look. “Can you get a fucking grip? If you start knocking them unconscious again, there won’t be any time to do what we brought them here for.”

I push up on my elbow, trying to maneuver myself back into a sitting position.

My eyes stay on Foxe, watching for signs of concussion—or worse.

His head lolls as the other person steps away, pushing him back against the wall.

Blood gushes from his nose, which is crooked in a way I don’t think it’s supposed to be, but he manages a small grin in my direction.

“ I’m fine ,” he mouths, though his eyes are unfocused and glassy.