Chapter 2

Sera's POV

The phone screen cast a ghostly blue glow in the cramped bathroom.

Lunn sent a photo.

With trembling hands, I tapped to open it. My stomach churned violently, and panic coiled tightly around my heart.

It was the bottom of Dead Man's Bluff, Westhaven's steepest ravine. Kael's prized custom heavy motorcycle was nothing but a twisted pile of scrap metal. The gas tank was still burning.

And in the rocky clearing illuminated by the fire, there was absolutely no sign of Kael.

Immediately, another frantic text popped up:

[Sera, is he home?! I'm begging you, tell me he didn't go to you!]

Gasping for air, my shivering fingers tapped out a single word: [Yes.]

The second I hit send, the signal bars at the top of my screen vanished. No Service.

I frantically dialed 911 over and over, but the receiver offered nothing but dead silence.

In that moment, the old house became an isolated island, completely cutting off my only lifeline.

The bathroom door was suddenly pounded so hard that dust rained down from the doorframe.

"Sera? What’s taking so long for a first aid kit?"

Kael's voice seeped through the wood.

I slapped my hand over my mouth to muffle my chattering teeth.

"What are you doing in there? Are you talking to Lunn?!"

The sinister interrogation bled into the horrific sound of the doorknob being violently twisted, metal grinding against metal.

"Stop touching the door! The lock is broken!" I took a deep breath, shoved my phone into my back pocket, grabbed the white medical box off the sink, and threw the door open. "I was looking for the hydrogen peroxide! God, Kael, why are you rushing me like a madman?"

Feigning annoyance, I met his gaze.

He stared at me for several agonizing seconds before a crooked smile broke across his face.

"Glad you found it, Babe. I'm dying of pain out here."

He turned and swaggered back to the living room, sprawling comfortably on the sofa—less than six feet from Eleanor's silent coffin.

I forced myself to walk over, kneeling beside the couch. I picked up an alcohol swab with the tweezers.

"This is going to sting. Deal with it."

I tried to sound irritated, exactly how I always acted when he got hurt racing.

But the moment the swab touched his skin, I flinched back, snapping my hand away as if I'd been bitten by a viper.

It was freezing.

"Why did you stop?" Kael’s head snapped toward me.

Before I could react, he grabbed my wrist.

His large hands were cold and clammy, trembling with a morbid excitement. They slid up my arm, gripping my waist and yanking me violently against his chest.

"You smell so good today." He pressed his icy, pale face into the crook of my neck, inhaling greedily. His voice was hoarse. "Sera, I really missed you tonight. Just for tonight, right here on the couch..."

"Get your hands off me! Get away!"

I violently shoved him with everything I had. Surprisingly, his heavy, muscular frame offered zero resistance. He stumbled backward and crashed hard into the coffee table.

"Don't touch me!" I retreated to a safe distance, disgust and terror burning a hole in my chest. "I told you, the moment this funeral is over, we’re divorcing! Look at the state of you. Keep your hands to yourself!"

Kael froze.

Surprisingly, he didn’t explode in anger. Instead, he slowly turned his head, pushed himself up, and walked over to the coffin. He picked up a heavy brass candlestick from the altar, struck a match, and lit a white candle.

The dim, warm light hit his face from below. Half his features were masked in shadow, his torn lips pulling up into a deeply unsettling smile.

Yet, as he stared at the flickering flame, his words were unimaginably desperate.

"I'm sorry, Sera. I swear, I'm never street racing again."

His tone was so sincere, it sounded like an oath sworn to my dead grandmother.

"I'll sell the bike tomorrow. Throw the helmet away. I'll get a real job, come home to you every night, and we’ll have a beautiful baby... Please, just forget the divorce. Give me one last chance to be a real family. Please?"

In three years of marriage, it was the first time I had ever heard him yield.

But looking at that pale shell that couldn't bleed a drop of warm blood, looking at that painted-on, grotesque smile… I felt nothing but a paralyzing, skin-crawling dread.

"It's too late, Kael..." I slowly moved my hand behind my back, tightly gripping the medical scissors inside the first-aid kit.

Before I could finish—

The flame on the mourning candle violently stretched upward, burst into an unnatural green flash, and instantly went out!

Pitch blackness.

Without warning, the "Kael" in front of me let out a guttural, inhuman roar. Wrapped in a freezing stench of rot and blood, like a beast clawing its way out of hell, he lunged across the coffin straight at me!