hair as he stopped in front of my cell and stared me right in the eye. “You,” he says, his voice the same, yet so very different than the last time I’d heard it. “She was looking for you , dear sister.”
Chapte r5 | key
I had to be hallucinating. It wasn’t real. It…it couldn’t be real. Perhaps all the drugs weren’t completely gone from my bloodstream like I’d thought. That had to be it, because the alternative… It wasn’t possible; Nick said he’d killed him.
He took another step toward me, and I took another one back. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw Cordelia paralyzed, her eyes wide with fear.
This wasn’t a hallucination. She was seeing what I was, too.
“It’s been a long time,” Bobby said, sliding a key into the lock on my cell door and turning it. There was a heavy click before he swung the door open and stepped inside. I continued to back away, unsure what it was he planned to do. He was one of them . Deep down, I knew that. But on the surface…he was my brother, and I hadn’t seen him in seven years. I experienced a flood of conflicting emotions, and I wasn’t sure which one I should follow.
His scent hit me, and I recoiled, pressing my back against the jagged surface of the wall and sliding down to the floor, breathing heavily. His brow furrowed. “You’re not afraid, are you?”
I was…and I wasn’t. Mostly, I had been caught off guard, but I was also more conflicted in that moment than I’d ever been. I knew, on a primal level, that he was a threat to me—I could smell it, see it in way his eyes gleamed—but, looking at him? His green eyes mirrored mine, and he wore that same crooked grin that I remembered and had missed every day for seven years.
He was Bobby. He was my brother. How could I be afraid of him?
Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I saw Jason stand up straight as Bobby walked past him and toward me…and then stopped. His lips curled up into a smile, green eyes still holding mine, and his right arm shot out at a speed my eyes couldn’t register at first. Not until I followed the length of his outstretched arm to where his hand seemed to disappear into Jason’s chest.
“I told you ,” he said, turning his face to Jason, who was sputtering and clawing at Bobby’s arm, “to stay away from her. She’s off limits.” The low rumble in his voice took me back to the first day I’d woken up here. The day I’d been taken to Room One and Jason tried to have his way with me after I’d been drugged. At the time, I hadn’t recognized the voice of the man who’d interrupted him, but I flashed back to that day in a nanosecond, and I knew it was Bobby.
Red-black blood seeped from the wound, wrapping around Bobby’s wrist like a bracelet and dripping to the floor. The smell of death burned my nostrils, but it only grew more potent when Bobby extracted his hand, clutching the black, unbeating heart that used to sit in Jason’s chest.
Jason gasped, staring at his heart in Bobby’s hand. He reached out for it, but before he could so much as graze it with his fingers, he slowly turned to ash and fluttered to the floor. All I could hear was my blood pounding in my ears as Bobby returned his soulless eyes to me. The minute they locked on mine, I no longer recognized him. The fog of confusion had cleared the second his hand pierced Jason’s chest and ripped out his heart. This wasn’t my brother. He was, like Nick had told me, a monster in every sense of the word. Everything that Bobby was had been stripped away, and this demon walked around, wearing his skin, gleaning information from his memories in order to survive.
Standing a foot in front of me, he extended his right hand, still covered in Jason’s putrid blood. I stared at it for a minute, uncertain what I should do.
You need to get out of here, a voice reminded me, and I knew it was right. While I originally wanted to believe that the man in front of me was my
Chapte r5 | key
I had to be hallucinating. It wasn’t real. It…it couldn’t be real. Perhaps all the drugs weren’t completely gone from my bloodstream like I’d thought. That had to be it, because the alternative… It wasn’t possible; Nick said he’d killed him.
He took another step toward me, and I took another one back. Glancing over his shoulder, I saw Cordelia paralyzed, her eyes wide with fear.
This wasn’t a hallucination. She was seeing what I was, too.
“It’s been a long time,” Bobby said, sliding a key into the lock on my cell door and turning it. There was a heavy click before he swung the door open and stepped inside. I continued to back away, unsure what it was he planned to do. He was one of them . Deep down, I knew that. But on the surface…he was my brother, and I hadn’t seen him in seven years. I experienced a flood of conflicting emotions, and I wasn’t sure which one I should follow.
His scent hit me, and I recoiled, pressing my back against the jagged surface of the wall and sliding down to the floor, breathing heavily. His brow furrowed. “You’re not afraid, are you?”
I was…and I wasn’t. Mostly, I had been caught off guard, but I was also more conflicted in that moment than I’d ever been. I knew, on a primal level, that he was a threat to me—I could smell it, see it in way his eyes gleamed—but, looking at him? His green eyes mirrored mine, and he wore that same crooked grin that I remembered and had missed every day for seven years.
He was Bobby. He was my brother. How could I be afraid of him?
Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I saw Jason stand up straight as Bobby walked past him and toward me…and then stopped. His lips curled up into a smile, green eyes still holding mine, and his right arm shot out at a speed my eyes couldn’t register at first. Not until I followed the length of his outstretched arm to where his hand seemed to disappear into Jason’s chest.
“I told you ,” he said, turning his face to Jason, who was sputtering and clawing at Bobby’s arm, “to stay away from her. She’s off limits.” The low rumble in his voice took me back to the first day I’d woken up here. The day I’d been taken to Room One and Jason tried to have his way with me after I’d been drugged. At the time, I hadn’t recognized the voice of the man who’d interrupted him, but I flashed back to that day in a nanosecond, and I knew it was Bobby.
Red-black blood seeped from the wound, wrapping around Bobby’s wrist like a bracelet and dripping to the floor. The smell of death burned my nostrils, but it only grew more potent when Bobby extracted his hand, clutching the black, unbeating heart that used to sit in Jason’s chest.
Jason gasped, staring at his heart in Bobby’s hand. He reached out for it, but before he could so much as graze it with his fingers, he slowly turned to ash and fluttered to the floor. All I could hear was my blood pounding in my ears as Bobby returned his soulless eyes to me. The minute they locked on mine, I no longer recognized him. The fog of confusion had cleared the second his hand pierced Jason’s chest and ripped out his heart. This wasn’t my brother. He was, like Nick had told me, a monster in every sense of the word. Everything that Bobby was had been stripped away, and this demon walked around, wearing his skin, gleaning information from his memories in order to survive.
Standing a foot in front of me, he extended his right hand, still covered in Jason’s putrid blood. I stared at it for a minute, uncertain what I should do.
You need to get out of here, a voice reminded me, and I knew it was right. While I originally wanted to believe that the man in front of me was my
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