Rain crashes down the moment the lid is thrown open, soaking through me instantly, snapping the dizziness from my head like a slap.
My vision clears just enough to see him—Wrath, towering above the grave, rain slicking over him, head tilted slightly, red eyes glowing like dying coals against the night. He stares down, still and unreadable. He’s shirtless, a thick chain wrapped around his forearm and barbed wire hanging loosely from his neck.
I don’t wait. I scramble to my feet, leaning into the muddy wall for balance as my eyes drop to the thing below me, trapped, writhing and wrapped tight in layers of black plastic.
I flinch back, fingers sinking into the wet soil, body instinctively pulling away. I glance around, trying to make sense of how deep I’ve been dropped, how fucked I really am, but every path only leads me back to him. Wrath, locked on me from at least seven feet above like he’s watching a show he’s seen a thousand times and never gets tired of.
My eyes narrow as he slowly crouches on the edge and I almost think he might reach out and help me, but who the fuck am I kidding? Of course he isn’t. He’s enjoying this. The sick bastard. He’s getting off on the fact I’m stuck in his little game.
“Motherfucker,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “Let me out!”
He doesn’t speak or react to my insults, he never does, not yet anyway, but he doesn’t have to because his hungry eyes say everything. Heput me in here for a reason and that realization sends a spike of fear through me.
“What do you want?” I shudder out, feeling defeated, but trying hard not to show it. “And what the actual fuck was inside that cabin?”
Without taking his gaze from mine, he slides his tatted hand into his black jeans and pulls out paper. I watch, body vibrating from adrenaline and the cold as he writes, glancing between me and his words.
When he’s finished, he rips a piece off and drops it inside. My eyes follow as it floats down and lands on the legs of the body. I lean down and quickly swipe it between my fingers, my gaze landing on the dripping script.
Your curiosity might just get you killed—and kept forever.
Before I can respond, another catches my eye, and I snatch it midair with a growl.
I want to take full advantage of my little corpse and teach that brat mouth a fucking lesson. She’s hauntingly beautiful when she’s scared of me, like something already halfway gone. I wonder if I can take her the rest of the way, peel back what’s left of her fucking sanity and see what’s hiding underneath all that panic.
I have no time to process his words before there’s one more.
Tell me, Allure… how far would you go to keep your life out of my hands? Would you beg with dirt in your throat, kick while your lungs collapse under the weight of the earth? What would you do to stop me from burying you alive, right here in this fucking grave—only to dig you back up. Not to save you. No. Just to see what’s left of your cold, decaying cunt for me to fuck.
His vile words strike a cord and my gaze darts up to his, squinted into a glare.
“Nothing. I’d do absolutely nothing,” I bite out through shallow breaths. “Because you wouldn’t dare kill me.”
He lifts a single thick brow in challenge before he writes again, tossing the paper inside for me to catch.
Wrong. Fucking. Answer… Tut. Tut.
I swallow hard as he calmly rises to his feet, then leans down, and something metallic glints in his hand. A shovel. Panic surges through me like a jolt of electricity, my eyes blowing wide as he slams the blade into a mound of dirt.
Without waiting, he tosses the first load into the grave and mud splatters across my bare legs. I start breathing faster, backing away inch by inch, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even look at me. Just keeps digging and dumping, again and again, like I’m already dead.
“Wrath…” I warn. “Don’t.”
Fuck, he’s actually gonna bury me alive.
“You sick freak!” I bark, voice cracking through the silence. “Is this just your way of getting your dick in my mouth or something?”
He stops mid-shovel, then slowly turns his head, side-eying me like I just lit a fuse, and the look in his red eyes says I might’ve just handed a new idea straight to his twisted, deranged brain.
After a few seconds, he resumes tossing dirt into the grave, and soon it’s almost up to my knees. The seconds stretch and my mind kicks into overdrive, desperate for something, anything, to say, something that might get me out of this.
“Is this what you want? For me to beg for my life? Will that satisfy you in some fucked-up way?”
He raises the shovel again, and for a split second, I think I might choke on the dread crawling up my throat.What’s worse is I don’t know what he’s thinking, or what his next move is. I’m starting to feel the full weight of his silence, how it wraps around me like a suffocating fog. It’s more unsettling than any words could be.
The loudest threats come from those who speak—but true terror lives in the silence of a man who doesn’t. And that silence? It’s louder than my heartbeat, louder than the world outside this grave.
When I’m bust deep in mud, I try to claw it away, but it’s too heavy on my body, I can hardly breathe and he’s not stopping for a second. All I can think about is the poor body beneath me, buried alive, and what his intentions are. My anxiety is at an all-time high