The scene flickered around her, and suddenly she wasn’t standing in the middle of a cold wood anymore; she was in her bedroom in the house she and Alain had owned in Paris. That’s right, she thought. We’re in Paris. The confused pressure lifted.

A fire crackled behind her, but the heat didn’t even touch the cold sitting in her bones.

“I told you not to try me,” he said, pushing her against the tastefully papered wall. Despite the light in the room, she had trouble seeing his face—he was Alain, but mushy around the edges. Sometimes he looked like someone else.

“Stop,” she said, her voice far away in her own ears.

“No,” he said, smiling, and the smile seemed to stretch across his whole face, revealing rows and rows of perfect white teeth. “And do you know what, you stupid bitch? You can’t make me.”

Slowly, as though he was making sure she could see what he was doing to be afraid of it, he raised his hand to her throat, fitting it carefully against her skin, and applied gentle pressure. She tried to struggle, to move her limbs, but she was frozen in place. It was as though someone had poured lead through her blood.

Gradually the pressure around her throat tightened, until she could barely breathe. Panic crashed through her, her whole world narrowed to the point where his hand met her windpipe.

“You think you’re so strong,” he said, leaning in so his lips almost touched her cheek. “But look at you. All you can do is cry.”

She hadn’t realized she was crying but at his words felt the tears running down her cheeks. She scratched at his hands, her air cut off entirely, and once more death was rushing at her. Sobbing and helpless was how she would die, and the shame that enveloped her was the last thing she felt before her vision started to go gray at the edges.

The bedroom door burst open, slamming against the wall, and suddenly the pressure around her throat released. She collapsed, gasping, aware of a scuffle going on around her but barely able to lift her head. When she finally pulled herself up, leaning against the wall behind her, she saw two men savagely wrestling.

He’d come for her, she realized, a small cry coming out of her damaged throat. Sam had come for her.

Sam.

Something caught in the light, a silver glint she remembered. She tried to yell out, to warn Sam, but the only thing her voice could manage was a croak.

Alain brought the knife down, plunging it deep into Sam’s chest. Sam staggered back, one step, another. Blood seeped out, staining his white shirt in seconds, and the scream meant to warn him rang out too late as he fell to the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT