Page 9

KYRIE

T he voice, the sibilant, low murmur, feels more real the longer I huddle into myself. Minutes turn into hours. Maybe the hours turn into days.

Still, that voice keeps me company.

I don’t cry. I just lie there on the rough stone passageway, half-listening to it murmur things that don’t make sense.

I’m not sure if it’s real or imagined, if I’m awake or if I’m dreaming.

“Golden tongue,” the voice echoes inside my mind, probably some death-related hallucination. “You need to get up. I haven’t waited this long for you to have you give up already.”

I’m too tired to get up.

I blink instead, sighing as I close my eyes.

It’s cold in this hallway, drafty but dry, something that manages to register through my stupor. My knees press into my chest, my arms tight around them as I shiver into the rough rocks.

My eyes open.

Someone’s calling my name.

Why should I get up? My friends all left me in the hands of my killer, a male who remade me for one purpose—so that I’d belong to him, body and soul.

Lara betrayed me.

I close my eyes again, so tired, my body heavy, so much heavier than it has any right to be.

“Kyrie.” It’s a low murmur, and not of the disembodied hallucination that has kept me company.

Part of me wants to scream at him again, to tell him not to touch me, the other part telling me this is right, this male picking me up off the floor, holding me close to his body.

That he’s mine, that I’m safe.

I don’t say anything.

I let him carry me back down the hallway.

What’s the point of arguing?

I don’t have the energy to fight anymore.