Page 110 of Wicked Salvation

My breath stutters. I feel it in my gut like a punch. Eden is in grave danger because there’s only one person who could have done this.

I take one slow step back.

Then another.

My hand grips the frame of the door, steadying me.

“Eden,” I call out, my voice low, cracking.

All that meets me is cold silence.

I turn, heading back out to the hallway. The room is on the top floor, but there’s no sign of anything else. I pace the walkway, my eyes scanning every square inch, even though I don’t know what I’m looking for.

Blood?

A sign of struggle?

Her shoes abandoned?

Her sweater hastily thrown off?

But I know I won’t find anything here.

Anastazya wasn’t just killed, she was left out in the open.

It was a display, a warning, an extreme, debauched message.

And I know who it’s from.

Silas.

The realization sinks into my bones like ice water.

Of course.

Of course he wouldn’t let her go.

Of course he wouldn’t give her up without blood.

I was stupid to think he’d slithered back into obscurity.

Monsters don’t disappear—they wait.

The panic that’s been bubbling in my chest turns white hot, blazing, sharp. Fury burns my blood, and now all I can feel isfury.

I bolt from the dorm. There’s only one place on campus dark and twisted enough for his theatrics—those fucking catacombs. If Silas has laid a hand on Eden, I am going to kill him with it. She’s mine now, and she always will be.

My lungs burnwith every breath. My legs don’t feel like mine. The sky overhead is bruised and bleeding, the last light swallowed by the rising dark. Gravel scatters beneath my boots, the wind slashes across my face like a warning.

Too late, too late, too late.

I don’t stop until I reach the crumbling old chapel. I jump over the fallen pillars, the loose stone, my heart beating faster with every step. Damp cold air seeps out from the catacombs, the kind of cold that creeps under your skin and wraps around your spine.

That’s when I see her, a crimson-stained shadow crawling out of the catacombs.

My heart drops out of my body.

She’s on her knees, gripping a knife. Her entire body is soaked with blood. The glow has left her skin, leaving her with a ghostly pallor. Her hair’s matted to her skull, tangled and wet, and her right arm hangs limp at her side.