Page 182 of Viper

“We have to find that woman and get out,” he whispers. He points to the lodge a few cabins away. “I bet she’s in there.”

If she’s not already dead.I don’t say it, but we both know it’s unlikely she’s still alive.

I nod, tucking the image of that man away, hoping to god she didn’t meet the same fate, and glance around the building toward the main lodge. Movement catches my eye. I duck back and hold up my fist, then use the same two-finger gesture to silently convey I saw something or someone move.

Keeping my back plastered to the building, I peer around it. When I see nothing, we dart to the next building, my chest heaving.

A faint sound, one that raises the hair on the back of my neck, slips through the fear pulsing in my head. I blink, slapping my hands over my ears.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Shadowy demons scream through my head. The scent of metal and roses and burning candles fills my nose as the memory tries to take over. Blinking through it, I suck in a breath.

“Fuck man, you okay?” Hunter whispers. “Please don’t pass out on me.”

I swipe at my brow, my head swimming. “I’m fine.”

“You’re white as a ghost.”

Ghosts. If only they would leave me alone. If only she would stop fucking haunting me. Headmistress Isla and the things she did to me. The sick, depraved things she used to hurt me, the things she made me do to her.

The faint sour taste of her stings my tongue. Sweat and sinful sweetness a little boy should never know.

“Fuck,” Hunter whispers, horror lining his tone. “Someone is over there.”

My focus snaps back to now, my vision clearing of the purging room, and I pick up on the same faint moaning that sent me back in time to that horrible place.

I’m not there.

I’m here. Inthisnightmare.

Keeping my back pressed to the building, I inch until I’m at the corner and peer round. When there’s no movement, I gesture to the next cabin, and we inch out into the open space between the buildings, staying low to the ground until we are in the shadow of the main lodge.

As we move forward, the large clearing comes into view.

And I freeze.

Hunter crashes into my back. I barely move, my feet rooted to the ground, staring at the scene in front of me.

A man kneels in the center, his back to me, completely naked. Red pools on the dull green grass around his knees, glistening like rubies in the bright morning sunlight. A thin, delicate arm rests on the ground a few feet away, detached from its owner. Moist, fresh blood oozing from where it had been sawed off. Large, hairy arms, bloated and purple, covered in flies, lie behind him, along with small delicate feet.

In front of him, a pole juts from the ground, painted a gleaming wet red. My gaze moves up, then stops, resting on red hair, limp and heavy, drenched, like its owner was caught in a rainstorm.

But rain isn’t red.

Drip, drip, drip.

A throaty, erotic groan breaks the silence.

“Oh, my fucking god.”

I’m faintly aware of Hunter gripping my arm, trying to pull me away. But it’s like the grass grew up around my boots, planting me to the earth, forcing me to witness.

The man’s black hair shines in the midday sun, rippling purple and blue like a raven’s wing, as he moves. Some part of me is aware I know who he is. And even though every part of my mind tries to make sense of what I’m seeing, recode it differently, I know acutely what is happening. What he’s doingeven before he shifts, kneeling back, his arm jerking up and down rhythmically, stroking.

My stomach heaves.

Hunter’s desperate grasp on my arm finally unfreezes me. A faint click breaks through the noise in my head, and the hard, cold barrel of a gun presses into my temple.