0 Likes
Chapter 114. Kaiden
Chapter 114: Kaiden
Kaiden’s POV
I crouched beside her, careful not to let my knees touch the growing pool of blood that soaked into the wooden floor like spilled wine. Barbara’s face had gone ghostly white, the kind of white that had no warmth left in it–just bone–deep emptiness. Her lips were tainted with a soft, chilling hue of blue. Her limbs lay crumpled awkwardly, like a marionette. dropped mid–performance. No signs of struggle. Just sudden, absolute collapse.
For a heartbeat, I froze–watching her, almost willing her to move, to twitch, to groan, anything. A part of me braced for the sudden jolt of her eyes flying open, for that moment of horror movie resurrection where she might grab me, nails digging into my arm, gasping something cryptic. But there was no such drama.
Just silence.
Stillness.
The kind that wraps around your chest and squeezes.
Her chest rose. Then fell. Barely. If I hadn’t been staring so intently, I would’ve missed it. She wasn’t dead. Not yet. Thank god. But even if she had been… I don’t think I would’ve felt a thing. No guilt. No grief. Nothing. Just a cold relief that she won’t be hurting Lucy anymore.
Still, something humanly kicked in. I leaned in and pressed two fingers to her neck. A pulse thudded faintly beneath the skin. Weak, but present. My hand fumbled into my pocket for my phone. With trembling fingers, I dialed emergency
services.
“Hello,” I said, steadying my breath. “There’s a girl–she’s unconscious. There’s blood. We need an ambulance.”
“Can you give me your location?”
“Yeah,” I snapped, my patience thinning like a wire about to snap. “Dailus Forest. There’s an old abandoned cabin–deep in the woods, no exact address, alright? Just-” I dragged a hand through my hair, breath sharp. “For God’s sake, trace my phone’s location! I don’t have time to play navigator–she’s bleeding out!”
“Is she breathing?”
“Barely. Pulse is weak.”
“Stay with her. Help is on the way.”
I hung up. No time for comfort. I had bigger questions clawing at me.
If Barbara is here… then where is Lucy? Did someone else took her?
That single thought struck harder than the sight of blood.
As the dispatcher promised help was on the way, my gaze drifted back to Barbara. Something didn’t sit right.
I know Lucy. She’s the kind of fool who would try to save her own killer if they were bleeding out in front of her. That’s just who she is–naïve, maddeningly kind, and far too selfless for a world like this. She wouldn’t have walked away. Not from this. Not without helping Barbara–or at the very least, making damn sure someone else did. She would’ve called for help. She would’ve stayed.
Unless…
She couldn’t.
Unless Lucy was hurt too.
Or hiding.
Or worse–someone else was still out there. Watching. Waiting. A second predator.
A fresh wave of dread curled in my stomach, heavier than before. It had nothing to do with Barbara’s pale, limp form or the blood that continued to seep into the dirt around her like ink in water.
I spun around and exited the room, the scent of blood and mildew clinging to the air like smoke. My boots thudded against the wooden floorboards, dust stirring in small clouds with every step. The rest of the cabin stretched out before me–dim corridors lined with cracked picture frames and peeling wallpaper, like the ghosts of a life that had long since rotted away. Shadows clung to the corners like waiting hands, and my eyes moved fast, desperate, scanning everywhere, every inch of the floor for some trace of her, but there was none.
Lucy.
Successfully unlocked!
Her name wasn’t a thought–it was a heartbeat. A scream reverberating through every cell of my body.
I was running out of time. I could feel it in my bones, in the way the silence here wasn’t just silence–it was wrong. It was a vacuum. Like the world had been holding its breath too long and if I don’t do anything then it must collapse into an apocalypse.
1/3
Chapter 114: Kaiden
I can’t stop. Not until she was in my arms again.
Not until I knew she was safe.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, sharp and persistent. I clenched my jaw. I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want anything to distract me from this search. But it buzzed again–insistent. Like fate itself refusing to be ignored.
Growling under my breath, I yanked the phone out of my pocket. Selena. Her name flashed across the screen like a curse. My jaw clenched. I didn’t have time for her melodrama, not now. Not when every second wasted felt like a mile between me
and Lucy.
“You better have something sensible to say,” I muttered, voice rough, nearly a snarl, before thumbing the screen to answer. ” This better not be-”
“Kaiden,” she whispered.
The sound of her voice–thin, brittle, like it had been dragged across glass–froze me mid–step.
It wasn’t her usual biting tone. There was no fake silk, no sugar–coated manipulation. Just rawness. Barely–there breath. My heart stopped. My mouth went dry.
Something inside me shifted.
No. Something inside me sank.
And suddenly, all my anger–my rage, my disgust, my resentment toward her–was shoved aside by something far more paralyzing.
Dread.
“What happened?” I demanded, but it came out hoarse. Uneven. My throat was tight. Too tight. My lungs were working, but I couldn’t feel them fill.
Images began racing through my mind–Lucy’s face, her smile, her laugh, her goddamn stubbornness. The way she said my name when she was mad. The way she looked at me when she trusted me. Loved me.
And then the flip side–Lucy alone. Lucy afraid. Lucy bleeding.
No. No. Don’t do this, Kaiden. Don’t picture it, don’t-
My grip on the phone tightened until the edges bit into my skin. My stomach churned, twisted into something cold and sharp, a lead weight dropping lower with every heartbeat.
Every second of silence on her end was another knife to the gut.
“Selena,” I said again, my voice quieter this time, but far more dangerous. “Tell me what the hell happened.”
“Ross…” Her voice cracked like ice under pressure–fragile, splintering, barely holding together. “He ran…”
The name slammed into me like a freight train at full speed.
Ross.
That monster. That fucking bastard.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The air grew heavy, thick like smoke in my lungs. The quiet of the woods around me vanished beneath the roaring in my ears.
He’d escaped?
No. No, no, no.
The world around me tilted. My vision narrowed. It felt like the trees, the cabin, the bloody floor in my mind–they all closed in, pressing tighter, suffocating me with the weight of what that meant.
My fingers twitched against the phone, knuckles white with tension. My body was rigid, carved from fury and fear. My pulse thundered in my ears, too loud to think.
“What do you mean he ran?” I growled, my voice a blade. Sharp. Controlled–but only just. Rage boiled beneath my skin like lava under thin glass. I could feel it cracking.
Then I heard it.
“Lucy…” she whispered, and the sound of her name–her name–sliced through me like a jagged knife.
My mind went feral.
Lucy’s name wasn’t just a word–it was a lifeline, a scream, a siren. The image of her flashed before me–her dark eyes, her stubborn chin, her laugh that felt like sunlight on my worst days.
“Yeah, what about her? Is she fine?” I snapped, my voice shaking now, no longer able to hide the panic blooming beneath the fury. “Did you find her? Did you find Lucy?”
Silence.
2/3
Chapter 114: Kaiden
I waited, teeth grinding, every muscle wound so tight I could’ve shattered.
Selena didn’t answer right away–and that pause, that silence, it was worse than any scream.
Then she spoke.
And it gutted me.
“Protect her…” she breathed.
It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t a command. It was a plea.
A broken whisper soaked in fear and guilt and resignation.
And then a sound-
A sharp thud–the unmistakable crash of something–someone–hitting the ground.
My breath hitched. “Selena?”
My stomach dropped.
“Selena?” I choked out, stepping forward like I could somehow move through the phone, reach her. “Selena?!”
No response.
“Selena!” I shouted, heart pounding against my ribs like it wanted out, like it was trying to claw its way to Lucy. “Talk to me! What the hell’s going on?!”
Only silence. The kind of that follows after something terrible. The kind that seeps under your skin and stays there.
“Damn it!”
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and inhaled deeply, forcing the storm in my chest to settle.
Selena’s final words rang in my head like a gunshot.
Protect her.
I will. I will protect her, Selena. I will. Whatever it takes.
Even if it meant breaking every bone in Ross’s body. Even if I had to tear through the trees, scream into the shadows, bleed for her–I will find Lucy.
To be continued…
口
Subscribed
