Chapter 44 Kristen
I woke up with fire behind my eyes and a mouth full of dust. My skull felt like it had been cracked open and the pieces left to rattle against each other with every breath. I blinked once, twice, and the world didn’t quite make sense yet. Everything was too sharp and too close and too wrong.
”Hello, Kristen,”
The first thing I noticed was the light. Harsh. Flickering. Too bright for my headache. My vision blurred in slow waves, like I was underwater trying to surface but couldn’t quite reach the air.
And then the shape in front of me snapped into focus.
Caleb.
He was standing there smiling — that same wicked smile that had haunted me before everything went black. It wasn’t relief I felt when I saw him. It was confusion first, and then something rising in the pit of my stomach that tasted like fear and disbelief all twisted together.
My head throbbed with each beat of my heart. I tried to move, and the moment I did I realized I couldn’t. My wrists were tied to something solid behind me. Ropes bit into my skin, damp and unforgiving, chafing against every tiny shift.
My ankles were bound too. Wet ropes. Rough.
Panic crept in, slow at first, like a cold animal sliding up my spine. I wheezed out a groan and forced my eyes up to him.
“Caleb,” I croaked, voice hoarse. “Untie me. This isn’t funny.”
He didn’t move at first. Just stood there, that smile still lingering on his lips, eyes watching me like he was waiting for something.
Then he laughed. Low. Slow. Not amused by a joke, but by a secret he enjoyed holding.
“Caleb Sutton is dead,” he said, voice calm, almost gentle.
My heartbeat stuttered. My brain scrambled.
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound firm and in control. “That’s enough. Untie me.”
His laughter deepened — not cruel, exactly, but utterly wrong. Too familiar and too strange all at once.
And then it happened.
His skin rippled.
Not like flesh trembling from cold or heat or emotion. It moved as though it was water sliding over bone. I watched, frozen and horrified, as his features shifted in a way that should have been impossible.
Muscles pulled. Flesh loosened. And from his back — great, shadowed shapes unfolded.
Wings.
Bones widened and stretched. His posture elongated. His eyes glowed — not with anger, not with warmth — but with something that felt like hunger and calculation all at once.
He was no longer Caleb.
He was something else entirely.
“You’re… you’re a gargoyle,” I whispered, voice barely there, disbelief and terror rattling together.
He nodded, and his expression didn’t carry pride. It didn’t carry shame. It carried something far colder — inevitability.
“Yes,” he said, voice deeper now, resonant with something older. “A gargoyle.”
I wanted to back away. My body tried to move, to recoil, and my muscles betrayed me because I was tied down. I could only stare, horror creeping up my throat like ice.
He watched me, eyes thoughtful.
“I’ve been watching you for two weeks,” he continued. “Waiting. Learning. Planning.”
My breath hitched, panic rising like a flood. “Why?” I demanded, jaw trembling. “What do you want from me?”
He tilted his head slightly, like I was a curious puzzle he’d already solved.
“I need you to free my master,” he said. His eyes narrowed, studying me as though weighing every bit of fear on my face. “But I couldn’t move you yet. Not until I knew exactly when to strike.”
I swallowed hard. My voice was small, shaky. “What are you talking about?”
He stepped closer, and every instinct in me screamed to recoil — if I could’ve moved — or to scream. I couldn’t decide which was stronger: the terror or the realization that I might actually be here for ritual and not rescue.
“You don’t know,” he said, and the way he spoke it was almost fond. Calm. Like he was explaining something obvious. “They haven’t told you anything.”
A cold chill slid up my spine. “Told me what?” I whispered.
He looked me directly in the eyes then, and I could feel his gaze settle like a hand pressing against my chest.
“You,” he said, “my dear, are the key.”
The words didn’t land like information. They hit like a blow.
My stomach dropped. My limbs trembled.
“Why?” I asked, voice cracking. Terror and confusion warred inside me.
He didn’t answer at once. Instead, he turned his back just long enough to reach for something — a device that looked like metal prongs connected to thick cables. I watched his movements carefully, trying to interpret intention without hope.
My panic spiked. “Don’t you dare,” I said — more a warning to myself than him.
But he clipped those prongs onto the ropes binding my wrists.
My wrists. Already numb from being tied.
My chest tightened. My breaths came faster. Reality was folding around me faster than my brain could register.
And just when my terror had peaked — he flipped something.
There was a crack of energy. A hum that felt too loud and too close. A shudder that started in my bones and ripped outward.
Pain exploded inside me — not sharp and screaming, but deep and pulsing, like my nerves had suddenly been lit on fire from the inside out.
My scream tore out of me, raw and unfiltered, filling the room without permission.
I fought it at first. Tried to twist away. Tried to spit in his direction. Tried to make any movement that was mine instead of controlled.
But the ropes held. And the device dictated every pulse that tore through my body.
I could feel it in my muscles, in my lungs, in every shattered breath that followed one another too fast to count.
He stood there, calm, watching. No pity. No rushed cruelty. Just fascination — like he was observing a study rather than inflicting torment.
My vision blurred around the edges. Tears welled up. My teeth clenched.
I screamed again.
Not for pain. For disbelief. For betrayal. For everything that had gone wrong and left me with no choices and no defenses.
”Oh, I am going to enjoy this.” I heard him say and feel my throat dry up in pain and shock.
Leo
Leo where are you?
“It’s going to be a long ride, Kristen.”