Fourth Debt - Pepper Winters Page 0,2

recognise. I stopped paying attention, following like a good sheep, stumbling over a threshold I’d never crossed before.

He shoved me forward. “Welcome to your new home, bitch.”

I tripped forward, arms whirling, mind fighting against vertigo.

A loud slam ricocheted from behind me. A door. A prison gate.

I spun around, breathing hard. I didn’t have any words or energy left. I was sick, terrified, heartbroken. But through it all, I was numb.

I’d accepted my fate, acknowledged the truth, and finally seen what it all meant.

He’s truly, truly dead.

Daniel stalked toward me.

Automatically, my feet shuffled back—not from conscious instruction but some primal need for self-preservation. In reality, I no longer cared what happened. It was as if I watched myself from the safety of the ceiling, peering down at the poor unfortunate Weaver, no longer caring what happened to blood and bone when I no longer inhabited it.

He’s dead.

He’s dead.

I want to die, too.

Daniel never stopped corralling me around the space. Through blurry eyes, I took in the rich emerald brocade on his four-poster bed, the priceless antiques, and moss-coloured walls. The shades of green looked like we’d traded indoors for some woodland glen.

He was the hunter, raising his shotgun to shoot the dismal deer.

I’m that deer.

His hands outstretched; face alight with manic lust. “You’re all mine now, Weaver. Locked in my room, bound to my rules, at my mercy. Fuck, this is gonna be good.”

My ears rang with his voice. My eyes smarted with his appearance. I wanted to leave—to chase Jethro into the stars. Suicide didn’t compute. Taking my own life didn’t register. It wasn’t a matter of life and death, killing or surviving, but about transcending from one world to another.

He’s not dead.

He’s just…evolved.

And I didn’t want him to leave without me.

We were a pair. A duo.

I’m done with this existence.

My mind was gone—unfocused and slow. But my body still wanted to survive. My feet tripped backward for every one of Daniel’s, but there was no finesse. I moved like a robot with no one at the controls.

From my sanctuary in the ceiling, I pitied the delusional girl below. Why was I backpedalling? Why prolong the inevitable? The sooner Daniel caught me, the sooner he would hurt me and ultimately send me to Jethro.

Let go.

Let it happen.

The numbness inside would block external pain, surely.

It was best to stop everything. To stop thinking, stop breathing, stop surviving.

My knees locked. I stood steadfast.

Daniel quirked an eyebrow. He stalled when I didn’t continue our morbid dance. Cocking his head, he searched for a trap. “Giving up so easily, whore?”

I didn’t respond. Not a whisper of a shrug or a flicker of an eye. I stared right through him—at a new dimension that promised a fresh beginning with Jethro and an end to hardship.

Daniel growled under his breath. “You’re seriously just giving up?” Stomping forward, he grabbed my hair, fisting it in his sweaty hands. “You’re not going to fight me like you did my brother?”

I was right.

No pain registered. No agony or discomfort.

My senses were meaningless decoration.

“Fight back! Where’s the fucking sport if you just give in?”

He tugged my hair, raising my eyes to his. If I focused, I would’ve brought his putrid face into vision. I would’ve cringed at the sharp bone structure, small black goatee, and swept back dark hair. If I still had my sense of smell, I would’ve inhaled his musky excitement, unable to be hidden beneath thick notes of aftershave. And if I had sense of touch, I would’ve felt his body heat infecting mine, seeping into me like a disease.

But I had none of that, so I noticed none.

All I saw, heard, felt was a void: nothing but silent wind across my face and emptiness before me.

His mouth twisted with rage. “Fuck you, Weaver. You’re mine now. What do you have to say for yourself?”

The burn in my scalp chased away the icy tears on my cheeks. My heart had given up the moment a bullet slammed into the love of my life. If he wanted a reaction, he wouldn’t get it.

Not this time, you bastard.

Nothing.

I have nothing.

“My brothers are dead. How does that make you feel?”

Nothing.

I feel nothing.

“Answer me, cunt! Tell me how much you don’t want me to touch you. How much you’re afraid of me!”

Nothing.

I care about nothing.

Jethro was gone. I’d never seen anyone die before. Never been to a funeral or witnessed a pet succumb—even my own mother just vanished rather than died. My first participation in death and it’d been two men