Chapter 175

DARLENE

“Is this a bloody joke?” I screamed, feeling my hands shoot into the yellow candescence of the wide, tubular-looking room as the blood pounded hotly in my ears.

“Dar please, I can explain all this,” My husband’s baritone was even as usual, but I could sense the undercurrents of panic in the way his voice wavered at the end as I whipped my hair this way and that, trying to register everything I was seeing.

There were long winding chains dragging from the low stone ceiling of the cellar, the workbench and gurney at the end of the room with the flickering white of a fluorescent dangling above it made my blood run cold.

What had they been doing here? The room was empty, save for the ominous-looking barrels that were piled high in the corner, their deep brown backs throwing off the yellow light.

“My God,” I whispered before realizing that I had gasped out loud when the ugly-faced man in the ring chuckled dryly.

“Ain't no God here Lassie, count yourself lucky, not everyone who gets