Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 113

Sage

Throughout the day, we sleep in small bursts. We rehearse exits in our heads. We use the bucket, we hide crumbs, ww text the hinges, catalogue every little detail: which guard limps, where the keys hang, which vent coughs when someone passes. By dusk, the place is pressure cooker. We lock our breath, count the minutes, and wait for the footsteps that mean he’s arrived.

Something changes in the air before it happens. The guards stop talking. Their footsteps sound heavier, sharper, like they re suddenly aware someone important is listening. The corridor lights flicker to life one by one, brighter than usual. Even the hum of the vents shifts pitch, becoming deeper, almost as if the whole bunker is holding its breath. Naomi catches my eye. No words, but we both feel it. Nico goes still beside me, his hands frozen mid–fidget. He doesn’t ask; he doesn’t need to. We all know what’s coming. Then there’s silence. Not the usual kind, not the quiet between rotations. This is the kind that sinks into your bones. The kind that means the predator has entered the cage. The locks rattle. Keys scrape. The door groans open. And there he is. Yakov. He looks exactly as I remember, neat, deliberate, everything about him controlled down to the tilt of his head. Black gloves, a pressed coat, hair slicked back as if he never sweats. His boots echo through the room as he steps inside, six men fanning out behind him, rifles steady but not raised. He doesn’t need them to. His presence does the work.

“Well,” he says, voice smooth as oil. “Look at my little ghosts. What a waste.”

Naomi spits blood on the floor, defiant even now. “Go to hell.”

He smiles, thin and amused. “Oh, Naomi. You’ve always been spirited. It’s a shame, you were one of my best.” He turns his gaze to me then, slow and assessing, like I’m a weapon he built and lost. “And you. The one who thought she could outsmart me. I gave you life, purpose, and a place in my empire. And you… what? Fell in love? Decided you deserved something more?”

He steps closer, boots stopping just short of my chain. I don’t flinch.

“You disappoint me,” he says softly, almost tenderly. “You could have been great. But you let yourself believe you were human.”

He turns, hands clasped behind his back, and paces like a man giving a lecture instead of a death sentence. “I raised you from nothing. I taught you to fight, to kill, to survive. And this-” he gestures around the cold stone room “-is how you thank me? By betraying your father?”

“Father?” Naomi scoffs, voice shaking with fury. “You’re just a sad old man playing god.”

For a moment, his mask cracks. His jaw flexes. Then he exhales, smiling again. “Perhaps. But even gods can kill their mistakes.”

He nods to one of his men. The guard steps forward, raising his rifle, and my pulse slows. My fingers twitch. Every sense sharpens. Because this? This is what I was built for.

Two guards move in at once, grabbing Naomi first, then me. Their hands are rough, fingers digging into our arms, but we don’t fight. Not yet. We let them drag us upright, chains clinking against the floor, our feet scraping over concrete as they haul us toward the door. I keep my eyes down, breathing slow, saving every ounce of strength for when it matters. Yakov stays behind for a moment, his gaze sliding over to Nico. He studies him the way a butcher might look at a cut of meat. “I’ve heard about you,” he says softly, stepping closer until his polished shoes are almost touching Nico’s chained hands. “You’ve been busy. Clever little tricks. You might be useful to me.”

Nico’s eyes flick to mine just once, quick as a blink. Over Yakov’s shoulder, I give the tiniest nod. Play the part. It’s the only way he stays alive long enough for me to fix this.

Yakov tilts his head. “Do you want a chance to live?” he murmurs. “To be better than the pathetic humans you’ve surrounded yourself

with?”

1/2

12:03 Tue, Oct 21

A Fitting End.

พร

Nico stutters, shoulders hunching. He looks down at his feet, hands twisting in the chain like he’s trying to hide. “Y–yes,” he grits out,

voice low.

This pleases Yakov. I see it in the faint curl of his mouth. “Good boy,” he says, patting Nico’s cheek with a gloved hand like he’s already his. “We’ll see how useful you really are.”

Then he flicks his fingers and the guards jerk us forward, out of the cell and into the corridor. The air feels different here, cooler and cleaner, carrying the scent of damp earth instead of sweat and metal. My boots drag over the stone steps as they pull us up, up, until the bunker door swings open and the night rushes in. It’s colder than I expected. The wind stings my face, carrying pine and wet soil. And there, under a twisted tree at the edge of the clearing, hang two nooses. Thick rope swaying in the breeze, waiting.

Yakov steps out behind us, hands clasped, eyes bright with something like joy. “A fitting way for you two to go, don’t you think?” he muses, voice soft but cutting. “Ghosts turned traitors, dangling like the weak they tried to save. How poetic.”

Naomi snarls under her breath. I say nothing. The guards shove me forward, rough hands on my arms, the cold bite of the night sinking into my skin. The ropes sway just ahead, the branches creaking above like a warning. My boots scrape over the dirt until I’m almost at the base of the tree. I let myself “stumble,” falling hard onto one knee, a soft grunt leaving my throat like I’ve lost my balance. The guard on my right jerks me back up, his grip loosening for just a breath. That’s all I need. My fingers slip inside his coat, find the hilt of the blade at his belt, and I slide it up my sleeve in one practised motion. The steel is cold against my skin, hidden now in the wide cuff of my jumper. My pulse stays steady. No flinch. No tell. They haul me back upright, none the wiser. My hands stay chained, but I shift my wrists just enough to feel the weight of the knife sitting snug against my forearm. Insurance. Hope. I lift my head and force my face blank, watching as Naomi is shoved ahead of me. She mounts the box without hesitation, chin high, blood drying on her lip from the guard’s backhand earlier. She looks at me once, a flash of teeth that’s almost a grin, before facing forward. Then they turn me. The rope dangles above, rough and ugly. One of the guards jerks it loose and lets it sway down toward me. I step up onto my own box slowly, eyes on the noose, feeling the knife like a secret pulse under my sleeve. I plant my feet, steady. Rope. Knife. Distance. Timing. My heart drums once. This isn’t the end.

Chapter Comments

8

0

Write Comments

SHARE