Page 18 of Heresy (The Lost Gospels #1)

THIRTEEN

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

VERA

T he bite on my shoulder has scabbed over, a tight, pulling sensation that throbs in time with the dull ache between my legs—constant, physical reminders of his brutal lesson.

But the raw humiliation, the memory of being publicly broken, is a sharper, more persistent pain.

It fuels a cold, unwavering resolve that has become my new religion.

Something has shifted in the air of this place.

The usual undercurrent of rough, testosterone-fueled camaraderie has been replaced by a taut, coiled tension.

The men move with a clipped, angry urgency, their voices low and conspiratorial.

Even the roar of the motorcycles leaving the garage this morning had a more aggressive edge, the sound of a wounded animal baring its teeth.

Something has happened. The beast is wounded, and it’s getting ready to bite back.

A distracted predator is a careless predator.

Since leaving the book—his silent declaration of a new kind of war—Hex has been a ghost. His absence is its own form of warfare, a deliberate act of dismissal that stings more than I care to admit.

But the tension in the house, the scent of impending war that hangs heavy in the air, feels like an opportunity. A crack in the bars of my cage.

You want to play with ghosts, Hex? I can almost hear his low, mocking drawl in my head. Fine. We'll fight. The thought is a phantom whisper that only strengthens my resolve. Yes, I want to play. And ghosts are experts at slipping through walls.

My new purpose gives me focus. I stop pacing and start watching, listening with an intensity that borders on a trance.

My opportunity, I realize, comes twice a day on a plastic tray.

I focus on the prospect who brings my food.

He's new, not the one they called Static.

This one is younger, his face a mess of adolescent acne and pure, undiluted fear.

He's a child playing dress-up in a monster's world, and he's jumpy, his movements hurried.

He performs the delivery with a sloppy, distracted haste.

For two days, I just listen, learning the rhythm.

The scrape of the main bolt being thrown.

The screech of the food slot. His retreating footsteps.

And then I notice what is missing. There should be a second sound.

After the heavy THUD of the bolt sliding home, there should be a smaller, sharper click.

The sound of a key turning in the deadbolt.

It was there the first few days, a final, definitive seal.

But in the haze of his new fear, in the club's rush to war, the prospect has been forgetting.

The door is bolted, but it is not locked.

A jolt of pure, electric hope, so potent it makes me dizzy, shoots through me.

A memory surfaces, sharp and clear. I’m sixteen, in the library of my father’s penthouse, watching one of his men, a quiet killer named Sasha, teach me how to play chess.

He’d used a bent paperclip to jimmy the lock on a wooden box where he kept his cigarettes.

“Every cage has a flaw, little princess,” he had whispered, his voice smelling of cloves.

“You just have to be patient enough to find it.”

Patience and a tool. I can be patient. Now I just need the tool.

My eyes scan my meager possessions. The cot, the thin blanket, the clothes on my back. My hand goes to the strap of my bra. Underneath the fabric is a thin, flexible piece of metal. An underwire.

It takes an hour of painful, meticulous work. I use the rough edge of the concrete floor where it meets the wall, sawing the wire back and forth against the rough aggregate. My fingers are raw and bleeding by the time I free it, a thin, curved piece of steel. It’s flimsy. I need a handle.

I take the piece of bread from my evening meal and begin to work it in my hands, compressing it, hardening it, molding the doughy substance around one end of the wire.

The process is slow, maddening. I leave the crude tool on the floor in the corner, where it will harden overnight into something solid.

I lie on my cot in the darkness, my heart a steady, determined beat. The tool is made. The flaw has been found. Tomorrow, this little ghost is going to try and walk through a wall.

The next day passes in a blur of forced calm and screaming nerves.

My body goes through the routine—the push-ups, the pacing—but my mind is a coiled spring, waiting.

Evening comes. I hear the heavy tread of the terrified prospect.

My heart hammers. I sit on the cot, my face a mask of weary resignation.

The bolt scrapes. The food slot screeches. The tray slides across the floor.

I don’t breathe. I just listen. The slot screeches shut. The heavy bolt thuds home. Then, the sound of his footsteps, hasty and uneven, retreating down the hall.

Nothing. No jingle of keys. No final, sharp click. He forgot again.

I wait for a full five minutes, every second an eternity. When only the familiar, distant rumble of the clubhouse remains, I move. My hands are slick with sweat as I retrieve my makeshift tool. It’s a pathetic thing, a bent wire with a lump of hardened bread for a handle. It feels like a prayer.

I kneel at the door, pressing my ear against the cold steel. I slip the thin, curved end of the wire into the crack near the bolt. My world narrows to this single, desperate task. The metal scrapes softly against metal, the sound a deafening roar in my own ears.

Patience, little princess. Don't force it.

I kneel at the door, pressing my ear against the cold steel. I slip the thin, curved end of the wire into the crack near the bolt. My world narrows to this single, desperate task. The metal scrapes softly against metal.

My fingers ache. I push. I wiggle. I feel the tip of the wire find the edge of the bolt.

My breath catches. I apply slow, steady pressure, but my hand is slick with sweat and my fingers begin to spasm.

The makeshift tool slips from my grasp, clattering against the steel door with a sharp tink before falling to the concrete floor.

The sound is a gunshot in the silence.

I freeze, my blood turning to ice. I press my ear back to the door, my heart hammering against my ribs, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps, for the shout of a guard. Every distant laugh from the clubhouse below sounds like a direct response to my failure. An eternity passes.

But there is nothing. Only the same distant rumble. No one heard.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, my body trembling with a mixture of relief and adrenaline.

I retrieve the pathetic tool from the floor.

This time, my grip is iron. I slide the wire back into the crack.

Patience, little princess. I find the edge of the bolt again.

I apply a slow, steady pressure, pushing it back, millimeter by agonizing millimeter.

For a moment, it sticks. My heart plummets.

Then, with a final, silent groan of metal, the bolt gives way, sliding fully back into its housing.

The door is unbolted.

For a second, I just kneel there, my body trembling with disbelief and pure terror. I’ve done it. Now comes the impossible part.

I rise slowly and press my hand against the door.

It opens with a low, mournful creak. I slip through the gap and pull it silently shut behind me.

I’m in the hallway. The air is cold, casting long, monstrous shadows.

I can hear the life of the clubhouse below—a shout of laughter, the clack of pool balls.

I move, my bare feet silent on the worn floorboards, my back pressed against the wall.

I reach the top of the stairs and peer cautiously over the railing, scanning the room below, searching for a path to the garage. A path to a life that is my own.

I reach the top of the stairs. I peer cautiously over the railing, my heart a frantic bird in my chest.

The main room below is quieting down for the night, the earlier chaotic energy now faded.

Two brothers are finishing a lazy game of pool under the single hanging light, their movements slow, their voices a low murmur.

Another member is passed out in a chair by the unlit fireplace. The bar is unmanned.

My eyes dart to the massive roll-up door of the garage on the far side of the room. It’s closed, but it’s a door to the outside. To freedom. The men at the table are distracted, their backs to me. My path is almost clear. A surge of desperate, dizzying hope floods through me. I can do this.

I begin my descent, my bare feet making no sound on the stairs, moving like a wraith. I reach the bottom and pause in the shadows, scanning the room one last time. Empty. Clear.

I step out from the cover of the staircase, into the open. I am a mouse scurrying across a killing floor. The garage door seems a mile away. I am halfway there.

"Going somewhere?"

The voice is low, laced with a lazy, cruel amusement. It comes from my right, from a corner steeped in shadow. I freeze, my blood turning to ice. I turn my head slowly.

In a deep, worn leather armchair that I couldn't see from the stairs, sits Fuse. His right hand—the one that touched my shoulder—is encased in a thick, white cast that rests on his lap like a chunk of plaster. He has a handgun disassembled on the table next to him, and he’s slowly, methodically cleaning the barrel with his good hand.

He hasn't even looked up at me yet. He was waiting. He knew I was there the whole time.

The fragile hope inside me doesn't just flicker. It shatters. There is no escape. My gamble has failed.

He finally lifts his head, a grim, impressed smile on his face. He raises his voice, not in a shout, but in a casual call that is somehow more final.

"Prez! I think your property tried to take a walk."

A dark door on the first-floor landing clicks open. He steps out from the shadows within, his face a mask of cold, unreadable fury. He doesn't look at Fuse. He doesn't look at anything else. His eyes, burning with a glacial, terrifying fire, are locked directly on me.