Page 222 of Ruin My Life

All he gets is silence.

The deeper we go, the better. The more isolated, the more time I might have.

We round a sharp bend and the woods part, opening up to a clearing that overlooks the water. The sight punches the breath from my lungs.

The cliffs.

The rocky beach below.

Black-green waves heaving under a slate-grey sky.

The dusting of snow like powdered sugar over the driveway.

For a heartbeat, my pulse stumbles—then steadies. It’s not Rebecka’s. The bones match, but the skin is wrong: baby-blue siding instead of white, a charcoal roof, a chimney as dead as the yard. No smoke. No warmth.

Just a hollow shell, exactly what I need—exactly what I was praying for.

Connor veers off the track, crunching into a sweep of tall, frost-bitten grass that hides us behind a knot of trees. The tires crackle over frozen stalks, snapping like brittle bone. Heslams the car into park, engine sputtering in protest before cutting out.

“Don’t move.” His voice is razor-sharp as he lifts the gun from the console, keeping it aimed it at my ribs.

My hands float where he can see them—steady, compliant.

He rounds the hood, boots grinding ice into the silence. When he reaches my door, he rips it open and his hand clamps around my arm. The muzzle of his gun digs hard enough between my ribs to bloom bruises beneath my skin.

“Walk,” he murmurs, his lips too close to my ear, his breath hot and sour against my skin.

He herds me up the steps, boots creaking on warped boards. I halt at the door, my heart rattling in my chest.

“I don’t exactly have a key,” I say, dull as stone.

I feel Connor’s smirk slice at my temple. “No, but she’s less likely to shoot you in the face than me.”

He pivots, bashes the butt of the gun through the thin window beside the knob. Glass webs, then bursts—cold wind knifing through the dark house as he snakes a hand inside, not bothering to avoid the shards of glass surrounding the frame. Blood smears down the peeling frame as he flicks the lock.

“Open it.” The barrel digs deeper between my shoulders.

My fingers wrap the icy knob. It sticks—then gives with a croak. The door drags inward, hinges moaning like a beast roused from too-long sleep. Stale heat and a sigh of dust seep out to meet us.

I stand frozen at the threshold.

The layout is eerily familiar. Kitchen to the left. Living room straight ahead. But the furnishings are decades older and mismatched—faded floral prints in yellows and oranges, heavy dark wood, a deep green carpet fraying around the edges.

“Hello?” Connor calls into the silence.

Nothing.

He swivels back to me, face tight with suspicion. “Where is she?”

I lift my chin, let a ghost of a smile touch my lips. “How should I know?”

He doesn’t like that.

He shoves me hard enough that I stumble over the lip of the doorframe. My boot snags the rug, and I nearly faceplant before catching myself on trembling palms. The gun barrel digs into my spine again, urging me forward.

Connor drags a wooden chair from the kitchen, the legs shrieking over tile and threadbare carpet until he plants it dead center in the living room.

“Sit.”