CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
ALICE
"Hi, princess."
The words crawled across my skin like a swarm of insects.
A twisted, grotesque smirk pulled at the corners of his lips as he spoke, carving deep, unfamiliar lines into a face I thought I knew.
He looked completely, utterly insane.
The polished, meticulously crafted charm he used to wear like a second skin around the Oakhaven campus was entirely gone, stripped away to reveal something hollow, rotten, and deeply disturbed beneath.
"Marcus...?"
My voice didn't even sound like my own.
It felt like a breathless, ragged gasp trapped in the back of my throat rather than a whisper.
I couldn't believe it.
My mind frantically tried to reject the reality standing right in front of me, searching for any other explanation, but the harsh glare of the naked lightbulb overhead didn't lie.
It was him.
"Surprising, isn't it?" He let out a low, dry chuckle, a sound so dark and devoid of humor it sent a violent shiver straight down my spine.
He began to pace toward us, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the damp concrete floor.
"Here I thought you'd appreciate the rescue, Alice. I thought you'd be grateful to me for taking you away from that filthy, suffocating lower sector and bringing you into my world. But you actually miss that garbage, don't you? You cling to it."
He stepped fully into the light, and as I forced myself to look up into his face, my breath caught.
The gray of his eyes was entirely swallowed by his wildly dilated pupils, making them look like two black voids.
It was the gaze of a textbook psychopath—unblinking, hyper-focused, and completely detached from reality.
"How could you do this?" I demanded.
My teeth chattered violently, a lethal cocktail of adrenaline and raw terror flooding my system.
I strained against the heavy ropes binding my wrists behind my back, the coarse fibers biting agonizingly deep into my skin.
"Why would you do this, Marcus? What do you want from me?"
"Don't pretend to be innocent, Alice. It insults both of us," he said, his voice dropping into a breathless, manic cadence as he stopped just inches from my chair.
"I know the truth. I know you're my soulmate. From the exact fraction of a second you stepped onto the Oakhaven campus, I knew it. I felt it in my blood. I knew you were the only one ever meant for me. All of this... it's just destiny playing out."
He reached out his left hand, his fingers spreading open as he roughly cupped the back of my head.
The mere contact of his cold, calloused skin against my damp hair made a violent, suffocating wave of nausea roll through my stomach.
It was a repulsive, possessive grip.
Summoning every ounce of strength left in my aching body, I slammed my head back, jerking violently away from his touch with a guttural gasp.
"Stay the fuck away from me, you insane, crazy bastard!" I snapped, forcing my voice to sound hard, sharp, and unyielding.
I needed him to see that I wasn't broken, even if my inside walls were crumbling into dust.
He didn't back away. Instead, he threw his head back and let out a skin-crawling, echoing laugh that vibrated off the walls of the basement.
It was a sound born of pure delusion, making my heart spike to a level of panic I had never known existed.
"This is it," he whispered, leaning down until his hot, sour breath fanned across my face, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying, manic awe.
"This is the exact fire that pulled me to you on the very first day, princess. You fight. You burn. And I am going to take you far away from here. I am going to keep you with me forever, where no one else can ever look at you."
"I am going nowhere with you, you fucking psycho!"
The rage blinded me, overtaking the fear.
Before my brain could even register the consequence, I leaned forward with all the leverage my bound torso allowed and spit directly into his face.
The wet impact hit him square on the jaw.
The utter shock of the insult froze him instantly.
For two agonizing seconds, the room went dead silent.
Marcus stood perfectly still, his eyes wide, a drop of spit sliding down his cheek.
Then, the madness returned tenfold.
Velocity. Pain. Darkness.
A blinding flash of white light exploded across my vision as his backhand violently struck my right cheek.
The sheer force of the blow snapped my head entirely to the side, the wooden chair groaning under the sudden shift in weight.
A sharp, iron metallic tang instantly filled my mouth, and within seconds, I felt the hot, slow trickle of blood leaking from the burst skin at the corner of my lips.
My cheek burned like fire, throbbing in rhythm with my frantic heartbeat.
"I told you I am taking you with me!" Marcus roared, his pristine composure shattering completely as his face contorted into a mask of rage.
He towered over me, his chest heaving as he pointed a trembling finger at my face.
"Whether you walk out of here on your own two feet or I drag your lifeless corpse, it doesn't matter to me! You're mine, Alice.
Completely mine, and I'm going to prove it to you. We will live together, and if we have to, we will die together."
This was a nightmare.
He was completely, irrevocably gone.
There was no reasoning with him, no appealing to a humanity that no longer existed.
Terrified, I frantically cut my eyes to the side.
Right beside me, Ellie was slumped forward, her chin resting against her chest.
The brief spark of consciousness she had managed earlier was entirely gone; she was out cold again, her pale face illuminated by the harsh overhead bulb.
Looking at her pasty, lifeless skin made me infinitely more terrified for her than I was for myself. She was pregnant.
She was vulnerable.
And she was trapped in this hell because of me.
"Ah... this bitch," Marcus muttered, his voice suddenly shifting from raging fire to cold, venomous disdain.
The sudden change in his tone made my eyes snap back to him instantly.
He had turned his body slightly, his dark gaze fixing entirely on Ellie's slumped form.
The hatred radiating from him was palpable.
"No, Marcus, don't! Don't do anything to her, please..."
The words broke from my mouth before I could stop them.
Every shred of my pride vanished, replaced by a desperate, begging plea.
It made my blood boil to grovel before him, but if it kept his toxic, unpredictable attention fixed entirely on me and away from Ellie, I would beg until I lost my voice.
"I like it when you plead, princess," he purred, the rage melting out of his expression, replaced by a sick, predatory gleam.
He let out a low, breathless sigh, his hand traveling down to adjust the waistband of his pants.
"I really do. Hearing you beg like that... it makes my cock go hard."
An overwhelming wave of revulsion hit me as he reached for his belt, beginning to unfasten his pants.
It was a crude, disgusting display of dominance that made my stomach violently churn.
I instantly snapped my eyes toward the dark, shadows of the far corner, refusing to look at him, choosing to stare at the blank concrete wall instead.
But Marcus wouldn't let me hide.
With a feral growl, he lunged forward.
His calloused fingers clamped onto my chin with bruising, crushing force, violently wrenching my face back around until I was forced to look directly at him.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you," he hissed.
Then, with his free hand, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a heavy, matte-black handgun.
The cold steel caught the light as he raised it, extending his arm until the barrel was pointed directly at the side of Ellie's unconscious head.
My heart didn't just skip a beat; it dropped into a bottomless, icy abyss.
Pure, suffocating horror paralyzed my lungs. Tears of absolute helplessness well up in my eyes, blurring my vision as I stared at the weapon.
One twitch of his manic finger, and Ellie—and her unborn child—would be gone forever.
"Please..." I choked out, a hot tear spilling over my bruised cheek.
"Marcus, please, don't..."
"Get your hands off of her, you motherfucker."
The voice didn't just cut through the silence of the room—it shattered it into a million jagged pieces.
It was a low, lethal baritone, vibrating with a level of demonic, unhinged fury that seemed to shake the very foundations of the concrete beneath our feet.
It wasn't the voice of a man; it was the sound of a monster unleashed.
Before Marcus could even turn his head, the heavy metal door of the basement didn't just open—it was violently, catastrophically ripped entirely off its steel hinges.
The door flew through the air, slamming into the concrete wall with a deafening, thunderous crash that sent dust and debris exploding into the room.
Standing perfectly framed in the threshold, shrouded in the swirling dust and bathed in pure, unadulterated malice, was Zade.
His dark coat billowed slightly around him, his chest heaving with a lethal, rhythmic precision.
His knuckles were raw, covered in fresh streaks of dark blood, and his jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles looked ready to snap through his skin.
But it was his eyes that stole the air right out of my lungs.
Those striking amber eyes weren't just angry. They were burning with the terrifying, absolute promise of death.