Chapter 9 · Bell Five: Forget Him

“Don’t touch that door, Ivy.”

Cade caught my wrist before my fingers reached the black latch. His grip was hot, hard, and annoyingly steady. The chain between our life-links snapped tight, dragging me against his chest.

“Let go.”

“Not until you tell me what you saw.”

“A way out.”

“That’s not what you saw.”

His breath brushed my ear. Too close. The corridor had narrowed to his arm around my waist, cold metal biting into both our wrists, and the sealed door waiting three feet away.

Something scratched behind it.

Not with nails.

With a pen.

I yanked against him. “The ledger’s in there.”

“You said it was upstairs.”

“I lied.”

“I noticed.”

“Then stop acting surprised.”

Cade spun me around. My shoulder struck the stone wall. His gray eyes locked onto mine, hard enough to pin me there.

The black mark beneath his collar had spread another inch since the fourth bell. It pulsed once against his throat.

The bell had taken something from him.

I knew that much.

I just couldn’t remember what.

“Say my name,” he said.

The words hit harder than the wall.

I stared at him. “What?”

“Say it.”

“Cade.”

He didn’t move. “Again.