Page 5 of Refrain (Beautiful Monsters #2)

“Number ten. It is you. What? You thought I wouldn’t notice? You can change your hair or fix your face, but you can’t take the whore out of the bitch, can you?” He sounds smugger in Russian than he ever could in English. “Couldn’t get enough of Piotr’s cock, could you, Ksei?”

My pulse hammers in my ears. The bed is the only barrier big enough to scramble behind and put between us.

Fight, Grey would hiss. My hand slaps my thigh, registering the absence of my gun.

Shit. Something glimmers from the corner of my eye, so I grab it.

The ashtray. My fingers tighten over the awkward shape as I raise it between Vlad and me.

He’s already snatching his butcher’s knife from his back pocket.

With one hand, he tears off the leather sheath covering the blade.

“What I really want to know is—Who helped you?” He bares his teeth in a vicious snarl the moment I flinch.

“You think I’m stupid? You couldn’t have survived this long on your own. So, who?”

“Maybe you’re not as untouchable as you think?” I counter, but he’s right. I didn’t survive Piotr on my own—and I’d rather die than betray my benefactor.

“Is that so? Speaking of touching , Piotr’s missed you,” he tells me, hefting the blade so that the edge catches the light. “I called him—”

“What?” I step back. Air won’t go into my throat. The room caves in, the walls looming closer. Focus…

“I refreshed his memory,” Vlad says, his voice distorted, coming from a million directions at once.

“There’s only one bitch I remember with a face like that.

I thought he killed you, Piotr. I spent a week scrubbing your brains from my shoes, after all.

You were always his favorite, sneaky little Ksei.

But I don’t think he’d mind if we have some fun, no? ”

He lunges. Lightning fast, Vlad aims lower, and I lash out, nails drawn, in a vain attempt to block the blow.

I strike flesh, but so does he. Pain. I double over.

Fire sears my every nerve ending as something wet and warm dribbles down my arm, coating my fingers and threatening my grip on the ashtray.

“Just as feisty as always,” Vlad admits. He swipes at his forehead with a meaty hand and hisses to discover that I’ve drawn blood. “You always did cause more trouble than you were worth—”

“Like Anna?”

He chuckles at the name, shaking his head. “A friend of yours?”

“Don’t play dumb.” I swallow hard, eyeing the blade. Pain disrupts my focus, consuming every nerve in its path. I blink, and one sneering monster splits into four, cackling from every corner of the room. “Where is she? I know you remember her. I know she’s here—”

“Anna…” He contorts the name around his tongue and then spits onto the floor at my feet. “I think I recall one girl with that name. Small. Pretty little girl. If I remember correctly, Piotr threw her out, along with the rest of the trash you called family.”

Red. It’s all I see, swallowing Vlad as he swings at me again. But my arm flies out as well. A sickening thud warns me that one of us struck true this time. Him? No. Groaning, he stiffens. Staggers. Falls.

I’m over him in an instant, adjusting my grip over the ashtray as he clutches his head. “Where is she?”

“You little—”

“Where?” I hit him again, startling him mid-curse.

He merely laughs, focusing his gaze on me. “Dead. She’s fucking dead—”

I hit him again. My movements devolve into a frantic motion of my hands rising and lowering over and over. No matter how many times I strike, he’s still laughing at me. Taunting me.

“You’ll never find her,” he sneers. “She’s dead. A ghost. All this time, you were chasing a ghost—”

Vibrations ricochet through my body. Footsteps. I heft the ashtray, ready to strike. But the figure staring at me is all wrong. His face is too pretty. His eyes are too blue, widening at the sight of me .

I look down and discover why. My fingers are slippery, caked in warmth. They loosen their grip on the ashtray, and it falls only to bounce against a shapeless lump smeared in red.

If good ol’ Vlad isn’t already in hell, he’s well on his way there.

“We’ve gotta get the fuck out of here,” the blue-eyed man says.

We? My tongue feels too heavy to question.

I’m too heavy. My body reacts solely on autopilot to take the hand he’s extending toward me.

One yank has me on my feet, and he rips something from my back—the wings—and drops them onto the floor.

Behind him, the door swings on its hinges.

Chaos issues from the hallway. Shouting.

Vlad’s name echoes in different voices. Far away. Closer. Then closer…

“Hey!” Someone snaps his fingers.

My brain sputters back to life. I focus on his face and notice the pink lips moving in tandem. Saying something. Shouting something.

“Come on!”

We’re in a hallway now. Or more like Blue Eyes is, dragging me along after him. It smells. Acrid. Sharp. Like smoke. It’s darker as well. The pounding bass has cut off, revealing a cacophony of shouting in its place. Screaming.

“Fuck!”

A metallic clang draws my attention over Blue Eyes’ shoulder. He’s standing before a fire exit, slamming his hand against the door. It’s locked and chained from the other side to thwart any brave girl who might get the idea in her head to escape.

“I know a way.” My voice sounds too thick. I blink again, and the world drifts in and out of focus.

“Where?” He hooks his palm beneath my chin when I don’t answer quickly enough. “Come on. Think! Where?”

I blink again. Twice. Three times. Shadows flicker beyond him. Vlad’s men.

“This way.” I turn back toward Piotr’s room, my old cage.

I used to study every inch of the four enclosed walls.

I bet I could still find every trace of old blood, every stain I left behind.

He’s here, weighing me down even now as I stagger toward his private bathroom.

My foot strikes something I didn’t expect, and I nearly trip over it. Something heavy. Human.

“This way?”

Blue Eyes is too fast. He muscles me forward, already catching on to our only chance for escape—the window placed right above the Jacuzzi-style bathtub. Apart from the ventilation, I think Piotr enjoyed the power that came with dangling what appeared to be an easy escape before his victims.

“You have to break the glass.” The words trickle out of me.

I don’t know if Blue Eyes heard them or if he’s already come to that conclusion himself. He lunges across the tiled flooring, and the next second, a waist-height vase meets the glass’s frosted surface.

Then I’m aware of fresh air and chaos. Sirens wail above the general clamor of traffic, and an icy wind nips at every inch of bare skin—though I’m not anywhere near as cold as I should be.

A glance down reveals why. Someone dressed me in a black button-down shirt long enough to reach the tops of my knees. When? I can’t remember.

“Hey.”

A firm shake on my shoulder drags my attention to the man standing beside me.

His torso is bare; it’s his shirt I’m wearing.

Lean muscle flexes with tension, betraying the strength his lanky frame disguises.

That’s not all. A tattoo spans the width of his chest. It’s new, the skin still peeling around the edges.

Eight letters mark his flesh, etched there in black ink.

Something so odd that I have to read it twice.

M U R D E R E R

“We need to move,” he says.

We must be in an alley. It reeks of trash. Slick wetness crushes underneath my bare feet, but I don’t even have the strength to shiver in disgust. It’s like Vlad took a piece of me with him to hell. I laugh, the harsh sound clashing with the gruff voice cutting over me.

“Stay with me.”

How? I’m not Chloe anymore. She’s lost…

It’s only when I glance at my body in an effort to find traces of her again that I realize that the blood covering me isn’t Vladimir’s.

Not all of it. It drips, forming a morbid symphony that echoes off the brick walls of two nearby buildings.

You’re in shock, a part of me declares. I’ll bleed out soon enough. Minutes maybe.

“Hey!” He shakes me again.

But I don’t have the resistance to withstand the motion. My head goes back and forth.

“Shit!”

Suddenly, the world shifts. My feet aren’t on the ground anymore, and I’m staring up at the impassive indigo sky. Air rushes by, clawing at my hair and flinging it in every which direction. We’re moving faster.

But not fast enough. Footsteps gain on us too quickly to outrun.

“Espi,” a woman exclaims, panting. “What’s going on—”

“Nothing good,” the man holding me says. “Get as far from here as you can. Call me when you’re safe. Got that?”

“Okay.”

The footsteps trail off again, swallowed by a rushing sound that drowns out everything else but the roar of police sirens and one last piece of Grey’s advice.

If you’re ever stupid enough to blow your cover, know this…

It only gets worse from there.