Page 102 of Intense

“Hello, Troy,” I greet him, full of cheer.

A surgeon’s smile cuts across my face as our eyes lock.

I flick the overhead light on, and the white walls glow like an operating room.

Nyx shifts around my throat like she can sense the tension bleeding through me.

She always knows. She’s part of me, born from the same quiet rage.

I stop in front of Troy and crouch down, my hands hanging loosely between my knees.

“You know,” I murmur, “you logistics boys are the real problem. You’re not the preachers. Not the pimps. But you make everything run. The girls, the money. The drugs. You grease the wheels of hell and convince yourselves you’re not burning.”

He tries to smirk. It doesn’t quite land.

“Don’t think your silence makes you noble,” I continue, slowly standing. “It makes you complicit. You let your hands stay clean while the girls bled. But that is about to change.”

I circle him. My fingers trail across the tray of tools, not picking one up yet, just letting the sound of metal taunt him.

“You tried to frame me.” My voice drops. “A fellow doctor. A healer.”

He says nothing. But I can hear his breathing get louder.

I stop behind him, leaning close. “Why me, Barnes?”

Silence.

“Where did you even get my name from?”

Still nothing.

So I let Nyx slither down my arm.

He jerks when he sees her.

“Are you going to ask the name of my snake? It’s rude to be so uninterested, Troy.”

He shakes his head and I roll my eyes.

“Meet Julius Squeezer,” I say with a grin.

He’s shaking, and I can’t help but laugh as I approach him.

“Not even going to laugh at my jokes? This is disappointing on so many levels.”

He opens his mouth but doesn’t say a word. I think Nyx has frightened the words right out of his body.

“Her name is Nyx,” I say flatly.

“So many men are afraid of her; I can’t work out why,”

Nyx curls across my wrist like a ribbon of shadow, her tongue flicking toward him as she tastes his sweat. I lean in.

“She was tortured once, you know. Starved. Pinned to walls for entertainment. And now?” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Now she chooses who gets to die.”

He pulls against the restraints, but they hold.

“You really want to die for The Preacher?” I ask, softer now, almost intimate. “Do you really believe in his cause? Enough to bleed for him?”