Chapter 12 · The Steel Sanctuary

Chapter 12: The Steel Sanctuary

"June, baby, you still breathing in there?" The voice crawls out of the ceiling speaker, oily and slow, and I feel it slide down my spine like a hand that has no right to touch me. "Tell Crowe to open up. I just want to see how pretty you scream when a man actually finishes."

Luca doesn't look at the speaker. He looks at me.

"Ignore him," he says. His voice is flat rock. "He wants you flinching. Don't give him the show."

"You hear me, sweetheart?" The intercom crackles, static chewing the edges of each filthy word. "I bet Crowe can't even get you wet. I bet you're dry as paper under him. Want me to come find out myself?"

My hands are shaking. Not from fear of him — from the second year of silence cracking open in my chest, screaming to answer back, and I can't, I won't, I made a promise.

Luca crosses the vault floor in two strides and the steel door groans behind him, sealed, locked, the only door in or out.