Page 87 of The Collector

He closed his eyes and let the sensation pass over him, and then he locked it away for another time.

He selected a syringe, filled it with trazodone—enough to drop a man twice her size. He couldn't risk her waking up before he was ready, attempting to escape. Placing it in his back pocket, he filled another for the prisoner.

Her voice cracked through the walls like a whip.

"Hey, you sick fuck—I know it's you! Let me the fuck out of here! Now!"

He smiled. "Still fighting. Elanah was a great performer. Raven had been right."

He stepped toward the door, voice smooth as silk.

"Elanah, I'm on my way to you—calm down. I'll explain everything in just a minute." He closed the cabinet by pulling the book back, and he made sure it closed properly.

And then paused.

He reached for the syringe in his pocket. And smiled again. Show time.

From the looks of it, Elanah hadn't fared well during his absence. She lay twisted in the bed sheets, limbs tangled, skinslick with sweat. The air in the room was thick, rank with the stench of her fear, filth. Her body had betrayed her. The mattress was soaked through with urine, vomit, and something darker. Her hair clung to her face in damp ropes. Her lips were cracked with dehydration, eyes—when they opened—were glassy, unfocused. She was far from the pampered princess he'd bound to the bed. No silk to cover her body. No perfumed illusion of beauty. Just skin, stink, and disgrace remained. Just a normal person who'd had all their pride stripped away. He loved seeing people broken down into their most raw versions and seeing past the version of themselves that they presented to the world. The picture portrayed in the room was one of what truth looked like for people like her. The ones who allowed themselves to be vulnerable to the whims of the world, captured by its monsters.

The Collector watched her from the doorway, unmoved by the sight of her. She gasped, noticing him casually leaning there. A brief look of relief crossed her face until she saw the needle in his hand.

"Didn't I tell you?" he said, voice low, almost tender. "Monsters always win, Elanah."

She jumped and then blinked, slow and unfocused.

The Collector continued as he crossed the room halfway to the bed. "You thought becoming a monster would make you untouchable—that if you grew fangs, the world would bow down at your feet. But the truth is, Elanah— monsters don't announce themselves. They wait. They watch. And by the time you decided to sharpen your claws, you had already curled inside the jaws of something far darker than you could ever be."

Her breath caught—sharp, involuntary. "Ww..why are you doing this? I thought we were going to take the Kings down together?" Elanah's chin quivered, her lips shaking with fear as she took him in.

Her eyes widened, panic blooming fast, her movements becoming feral as the Collector stepped closer.

She screamed. High, jagged, primal, as if the sound alone could free her from her bindings.

It sliced through the room, so piercing that the Collector flinched, one hand snapping to his ear as he snarled at her in pain.

The Collector looked at her, his expression unreadable, watched the fruitless battle Elanah fought.

He'd seen others fight like this before. And he knew exactly when the fight would fade, the moment the syringe delivered the powerful sedative into Elanah's veins, it would all be over.

The Collector stepped closer, syringe in hand. The metal point broke her skin easily. She watched in horror as it did. Her eyes were already beginning to close as he whispered to her.

"Don't feel too bad, Elanah, you were a prisoner of my desires long before you walked through that door."

With Elanah secured, it was time to move the prisoner. The mausoleum waited.

He yanked the trapdoor open and started down the stairs. No mask today. What was the point? In forty-eight hours, he'd be gone—this place, this persona, all of it buried. No one would recognize him on a beach in Bali, on the other side of the world. He'd be someone else by then. His go bags were already waiting for him in his boat, at the marina in town. Every piece of his exit plan had been thought out and planned months ago. He just needed the final pieces of his plan to fall into place.

It was time to let go. Time to trade the ghosts of his past for greener pastures. He wanted to take more of them down, shake the very foundations of the cartel.

But at the bottom of the steps, he stopped cold.

Everything looked normal except for one blaring fact that had him scrambling across the room.

The prisoner was gone. The cell lay empty in front of him as he moved in closer to inspect it. He felt a slow dread creep over him. He'd worked so hard to get to this point, and the prisoner was just…gone.

For a moment, he couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. The air was wrong— it was too still, too quiet in the room. His restraints lay twisted on the floor like shed skin. The cot overturned, one leg splintered, rested against the wall.

And then it hit him.