Happy Birthday, dear twinsies . . . Wasn’t that what he’d sung? As if the two of them being twins and sharing a birthday was significant. Holy shit, what was going on? “Hurry, Chloe,” she whispered urgently as the forest seemed to close in on them. It was her twenty-first birthday and, for the first time in her life, Zoe Denning personally felt the presence of evil in the world.

Pain screamed through his neck and throat.

An even deeper anguish came from the knowledge that the bitches had escaped.

For the first time ever, he’d lost both victims. He closed his eyes for a second and gathered himself. Willing the fire around his neck to subside, he reached up and felt the blood drying on his throat. He’d been lucky there. That cunt Zoe had tried to kill him with his own damned shears and rope. His lip curled in disgust at his weakness. But he wasn’t dead yet.

Wincing, he rolled over and climbed to his feet. His head was clearing at last. A quick survey and he saw the devastation in the basement, the cracked light, the scattered ribbon, the bloody scissors that had been meant to end his life.

He let out a hard growl as rage engulfed him. Didn’t they know he was doing them a favor? Taking their lives before they turned into adults? Saving them from the horrors of being separated, wrenched apart?

He’d been careless. Complacent.

And Zoe had gotten the drop on him.

Un-fucking-thinkable.

Blood had crusted down his neck, and he knew he was lucky to be alive, but the fury that consumed him didn’t allow him time to give himself a pat on the back. Not when the twins had gotten the better of him, left him for dead and found a way to break free. Fuck. Wait until Myra found out. Shit, he could already hear her taunting him, reminding him of what an idiot he was.

“Son of a bitch!” he roared, but his voice emerged as a whisper, a painful mew. He realized whatever that bitch Zoe had done to him with the rope around his neck and the scissors thrust into his throat was going to keep him from speaking very loudly, at least for a while. Not that it mattered, but it pissed him off.

Furious, his blood pumping, he pounded a heavy fist on his worktable.

She’d get hers.

He’d see to it.

He had to get them. Chase them down. Bring them back. Finish his work. He checked the clock. There was still time.