Page 48 of WITSEC

I passed my room and was almost about to pass hers when I heard her yelp. Stopping, I spun around, and my heart tried to lodge itself in my throat. Mr. X had her in his grasp. Her back was to his chest. He held her to him with an arm around her middle and his knife pressed so firmly to her throat, she was tilting her head back as if to get away from it.

“Please,” I begged with my hands out in front of me.

“Please what, my Shiloh?” he asked. There was such disgusting delight in his voice. It was as if this was all a game to him.

I took a tiny step forward. “Please don’t hurt her.”

Mr. X threw his head back laughing. “Oh, my darling, are you sure you want that? After all, she’s why I came for you.”

What?

“Shi,” Shayla whimpered, and tears started falling from her eyes.

Mr. X pressed his knife into her delicate skin a little more and a line of blood slid down her neck and over her collarbone.

“How do you think I knew they were going to take you from me?” he asked and stared down at Shayla. “Your sister here is the one who told me.”

“No,” Shayla forced out.

He leaned his mouth close to Shayla’s ear. “Don’t remember? You were in that cafe you love to go to with your friends. All you did was whine and complain to them about your pathetic spoiled life.” A smile stretched slowly across his face. “I was sitting at the table behind you listening. I was hoping to hear about how your father reacted to the video I sent him the day before, but you revealed so much more.”

All the blood in Shayla’s face seemed to drain and her wide eyes flicked to me.

Mr. X’s eyes rolled to me, too. “I don’t know why she is so precious to you. She is nothing more than a toxic tether holding you back from me, and I will cut you free from her.”

My sister’s brows scrunched together and something flickered in her eyes. Acceptance, maybe? Because in that moment, we both knew what was going to happen. She had accepted it—accepted that she was about to die, and she had done it so quickly while I stood there frozen, terrified, and unwilling to accept it.

“Shi, run!” she cried out just before Mr. X slid his knife across her throat, silencing her forever.

Blood poured like a crimson waterfall from her neck. Her gray eyes were wide, filled with terror as they held mine.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t look away.

I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing was real. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. I was certain that if I could close my eyes, what I was seeing would be undone.

With each passing second, I watched the spark of life within her eyes dim. My shared soul, the person who’d come into this world with me, was being ripped away. Disbelief was quickly yielding to the sharp power of truth and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it.

Mr. X unhooked his strong arm from around Shayla’s middle and shoved her forward. Without resistance she fell, crumpling to the floor in the hallway right in front of my bedroom. Blood pooled around her, seeping into the beige carpet, staining the ends of her cotton candy pink hair a bright red.

My heart raced at a painful rate, booming in my ears with a rapidthump! thump! thump!

I should have run like Shayla had told me, but I wasn’t in my body. My soul had left me, and it was standing next to her, begging for any sign that she was still alive.

Please move!

Her fingers twitched on the blood-soaked carpet and hope bloomed in my chest. My gaze tore away from her to Mr. X. His booted foot took an ominous, slow step over her body while his monstrous coal eyes held mine. There was blood splattered across his face, clashing against his alabaster skin. An evil smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he took another step, then another, closing the distance between us.

I knew I needed to run, but I couldn’t feel my legs.

“Shiloh,” he sang my name. His voice was light yet haunting and made my entire body tremble.

Move!

Move!

If you don’t, you won’t be able to get help for Shayla!