Page 99 of Twisted Violet

It’s in the air.

The weight of it.

The silence that isn’t really silence. It’s the kind that rings in your ears and dares you to move.

The door slams shut behind me.Hard.

I don’t flinch, but my fingers twitch at my sides.

The air is thick with dust and the metallic stench of rusting steel. Moonlight filters through cracks in the roof, casting silver lines across the concrete floor like the whole building’s been cut open.

Every step echoes.

Louder than the last.

My sneakers scuff against the floor as I move deeper, past abandoned machinery and skeletal rafters looming like predators overhead. The only sound is the steady, pounding rhythm in my chest.

I keep walking.

Even when it feels like something’s crawling up the back of my neck.

Even when I swear I hear a breath that isn’t mine.

Then I see it.

A single beam of light. Artificial, deliberate and cutting through the dark like a spotlight.

Standing dead center in its path… ishim.

Looking like he’s been waiting centuries.

His hands are in his pockets. His head tilted slightly. His smile-

God.

That smile always made my skin crawl.

It still does.

“My perfect girl,” he croons, voice low and syrupy. “You came.”

He steps forward once. “How brave of you.” Another step. “How stupid of you.”

His eyes trail down my frame, over my blank expression, past my oversized sweatsuit, and down to the sneakers on my feet.

His smile widens like I’ve just proven some sick theory right.

“Come here,” he says, holding out a hand like I might actually take it.

I don’t move.

He sighs as if I’ve disappointed him. “Always so difficult.”

Then he closes the space himself.

Each step is slow and measured. The way someone might approach a deer in the wild.

He stops inches in front of me.