Page 38 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)

W hipping around I come face to face with Mark.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

His lips quirk. “Little innocent Sunday School. What are you doing here? Do you know I was in the crowd when Darius fucked you raw?” He takes a menacing step closer, his greasy hair shifting into his eyes. “Listening to your moans.” His hand comes up, but I flinch back.

There isn’t much space in this room. Besides the CCTVs and the table with an array of buttons, there’s only a couple of feet.

He must have been waiting here for me, behind the door.

“I saw you coming,” he confirms. “The Thornes sent me to turn off the air and Maxwell told me to get you. But imagine my surprise when I watched on the cameras as you released all the prisoners. He would understand that I couldn’t retrieve you and I was just about to leave, but then as luck would have it, I saw you heading my way. ”

I haven’t ever spoken to Mark before, at least not that I remember. But he is the one who handed Julia that drink. He is the one who raped Carrie. He is the one who sent Axel to prison.

He is at the center of every single horrible instance in my life. And maybe in some ways he isn’t as bad as Maxwell.

But in others?

He’s much, much worse .

“You’re a monster.” My fingers tighten around the razor as my vision fades in and out around the edges. My chest is heavy as the air is quickly stolen from this room.

Mark bares his teeth. “A monster that is going to stretch your holes and tear you open.”

And he means it. It is in the set of his jaw, the smug pursing of his lips, the way his eyes trace my movements.

I can tell that Mark has been waiting for this, wanting me for longer than he cares to admit. Not because he has some obsession with me, no, because he wants to control me, break me. Ruin me.

Just as he has countless women before me.

But there isn’t any time for this. To argue. “Okay, do what you want to me. But you have to promise to let the others go free.”

Mark’s cheeks tighten as his lips lift up.

He bends over until we are eye level. His slimy breath fans across my face.

“What a good little Sunday School. Maxwell was right, you don’t have much fight in you do you?

You’re just a bitch in heat, forcing everyone else to protect you. But that’s good because–”

I will never know what Mark was going to say, nor do I care.

The razor blade leaves a trail in its wake as I swipe it quick and hard across his neck.

The blood splatters across my face, clothes, and skin. A testament to what I’ve done.

It is with an odd satisfaction that I watch as the life drains from him, as the desperation in his eyes is replaced with terror and understanding. As his mouth twitches to scream, but he can’t. As every piece of him dissolves into nothing .

It doesn’t take long before he slumps to the ground, twitching on his way down. I step back as far as I can to avoid him. I do not focus on the immense satisfaction I feel as he stills on the ground.

Burying my emotions and paying it no mind, I twist around. I need to turn the air back on. The access may be open to the outside, but it isn’t enough air for where I am.

Maybe if my mind were working properly I would open the door to this control room, but it isn’t.

My head is filled with cotton balls, my legs are shaking beneath me, and my vision is fading in and out. I can’t catch my breath, each inhale more difficult than the last.

I need air. I am suffocating.