Chapter 22

Caroline stumbled back several steps from fear and clamped both her hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. It wasn't until their eyes met that she realized that the thing on the ground was a man. He was sprawled in a pool of filth and blood, his body covered in whip marks. From the waist down, there was nothing but two uneven stumps, bone gleaming white through torn flesh, leaving thick trails of blood wherever he moved. Caroline's stomach churned violently. She couldn't hold it back and gagged, sweat breaking out in cold beads down her body. The man slammed his head again and again against the door, a hoarse, broken sound spilling from his throat. In his hazy eyes flickered a kind of frenzied madness. Then, she saw the scar at the corner of his mouth, and a sudden realization hit her like a bolt of lightning. The man before her was Gregory. The blood in her body ran cold. The shock made her body tremble uncontrollably. Caroline stared at the ruined man before her as he dragged