A low, guttural chuckle, devoid of mirth, emanated from the shadowed figure. It was the first sound they’d made since their cryptic warning, and it grated on Thomas’s nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. The figure stepped forward again, slowly, their hidden face tilting as if in macabre amusement.
“You fight, Thomas. Good. It makes it all the sweeter,” a voice, raspy and cold, finally broke the suffocating silence. It was electronically distorted, yet carried an undercurrent of venomous satisfaction that sent a fresh wave of ice through Thomas’s veins. “Believe me, I will derive a great, great pleasure from watching you understand your final moments. From watching you pay.”
“Pay for what?” Thomas gasped, his voice ragged, his arms burning with effort, the ropes around his wrists now
