Page 26

Simmer: Heat held just below a boil.

W hat will I do when there is no heat to hold onto?

I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the man I thought I knew. He was fucking talking to himself—talking to himself like a cracked-out wacko from the asylum. He may have been exonerated, but no way in hell did he deserve to be freed.

He was yelling at some unseen person, screaming at them about killing someone.

My blood ran cold. The coffin I was stuck inside began to feel smaller, and I gasped for a breath I couldn’t find.

Was he the killer? The monster everyone was trying to find?

I came here to get the story of the woman who was killed. Maybe it was no coincidence that I would run into my professor here.

He was wearing a fucking devil mask, chased me through a cemetery, and manhandled my body so hard I had bruises and bite marks all over my thighs, ribs, and chest. He didn’t listen to me when I told him to stop.

He kept licking and sucking. His fingers wouldn’t stop pounding into me. I felt so ashamed when I came all over his face. My core and my asshole felt unbelievably sore. Pharaoh was rough—unhinged and unforgiving.

Now, he was looking at me, his shoulders hunched over, his body as far away as he could manage from me, the broken cracks of the coffin allowing mud and rain to pour through onto his head…

“Get away from me,” I snapped, my fear replaced by an anger that burned me and my lust along with it. “Get the fuck away from me!”

My professor sighed, pointing up to the sky as if I was meant to understand that reference. Tapping the top of the coffin lid to show he was as stuck in here as I was.

I growled, not taking no for an answer. I was in a literal coffin with a possible murderer.

I needed to get the fuck out of here. I turned my back on him, finding some moonlight peeking through the cracks on my side.

I began digging into the mud with my hands.

I flipped mud onto him as I dug deeper. He was shielding his face and looking away.

Good…it served the asshole right.

I was halfway done with my hole when Pharaoh’s massive shadow and a large hand clapped over my wrist and halted me.

I started to mouth off, my knee preparing to smash his thick chest, if he thought he was the only one freeing themselves from this pile of wood, he was wrong!

But he put his finger to his lips. That red devil mask glowed with the moonlight that was shining through, illuminating my reflection off of it.

Something about how he stilled, his ear turning toward the surface, made me stop.

I craned my neck to listen but couldn’t hear anything but the unrelenting rain and thunder. Still, I held my breath, waiting to catch any kind of noise. It sounded like…stomping—a person running in the thick mud above us. A new fear stilled me like ice in my veins. Someone was here.

Pharaoh looked like a predator, his body poised over mine as he continued to listen to the sounds outside.

His big body was sticking out of the broken area he smashed in his rage.

Whoever was out there would see him sticking out.

I didn’t buck him off, but I kept still so he could see what it was.

Maybe a deer ran through. A popping sound rang out, and I squeaked in surprise.

His hand latched around my body and mouth like a viper, stifling my scream.

“Shh, Little Voyeur. We have company,” he warned.

He seemed like his old self. I still wanted to smack him. I could feel his hot breath on my neck, and I winced at the tickling sensation it caused. I tried to wiggle away, but he kept me down.

His green eyes shone through the mask in a warning.

I glared back at him, but I stayed still.

An undeniable scream echoed around us, followed by three more pop, pop, pop sounds.

Pharaoh smashed me to the ground, his body a steel wall of muscle.

The crunched space took every inch of his body as he held me down underneath him, despite his freaking legs sticking out.

I opened my mouth to yell at him, but then a large object crashed into the coffin, the wooden boards breaking apart even more, and the splintered edges fell over his back in front of my eyes.

I screamed as he shielded me, the explosion of wood leaving little wooden splinters falling around us like dust.

He pulled me up. I was coughing and trying to make sense of the strange popping and the smashing into the wood. We were free. I could run from him now. I didn’t look at him. I just eyed the way out of this hole and took off. My foot caught on something, and I smashed forward into a huge mud puddle.

My mouth and chest were soaked in the liquid.

I sputtered, wiping my face and trying to get my bearings.

The lightning above us struck, and the illumination showed my hands and chest covered in a deep crimson red. I screamed, backing up and falling on my ass. The object I fell over was a body.

Red pools of blood were streaming from the back of the corpse, and I was blindly trying to get away. I felt like I was drowning, unable to move. Pharaoh’s hands wrapped around me, pulling me from the river of warm blood.

Crying and shoving my face into his stomach, I sniffled. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Pharaoh. Oh god.”

He soothed me by running his hand over my hair, shushing me like an infant, and singing that song from when we sat in his hallway after the party. His low baritone voice calmed me. I felt like I could breathe again.

“W-we have to tell the police,” I sobbed.

Pharaoh nodded, kissing the top of my head and moving away from my grip. I felt cold without his touch. Reaching up to wrap my arms around myself, I watched him walk toward the body. I didn’t know if they were alive. The popping we heard had to have been…

“She was shot,” he said, confirming my suspicions and looking at the wound on the female’s back. He checked for a pulse and sadly shook his head.

“She’s gone,” he continued while fixing the dead woman’s hair, trying to smooth it.

He started flipping over the body. My adrenaline was running at an all-time high, and my inability to stop bouncing made me feel insane. I ran over to help him, reaching under her chest and flipping her in tune with my professor.

When her face came into view, I screamed. Vacant eyes stared out at me. It was Hannah. The female dead on the ground was my brother’s fiancé.

Nausea bubbled up, and I ran away to puke. Purging all my pain and fear into the soaked ground of the blood of my sister-in-law. A new fear surfaced…Xavier.

That monster murdered two people tonight—my sister-in-law and my nephew. I cried, dropping to my knees before her and putting my hand on her stomach.

Blood coated my fingers, and I looked down, confused. Her large belly was gone, her skin flared and deflated like a balloon. There was an eerie slice across her abdomen, and I paled when I realized. “They…they took my nephew.”

Pharaoh followed my gaze, putting together the puzzle in front of him. I cried, not knowing what horror my sweet baby nephew was meant to endure in his final moments. I puked again, my body emptying every part of my soul.

“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “No! You don’t get to take everything from me, you coward!”

I screamed my pain and raged out into the night sky. Pharaoh shushed me, his hand wrapping around my mouth again. I bit him, bucking out of his hold and screaming louder at the bastard who ended so many innocent lives.

We fought. My screams echoed around us, but then we both stopped. Our bodies were frozen when a new sound emerged from the darkness.

The chilling sound…of a baby crying.