The darkness was so complete, so absolute, that for a terrifying moment, Emily thought she had gone blind. The only sensory input was the suffocating pressure of the man's arm around her waist, the spicy-sweet scent of his cologne, and the frantic, panicked pounding of her own heart against her ribs.
The arm around her waist loosened, but the hand over her mouth remained. "Don't scream," he murmured, his voice a low, steady vibration against her ear. "No one can hear you anyway. But it's unpleasant for everyone involved. You, me, the rats."
Rats?!
She swallowed the scream that was building in her throat, a knot of pure, undiluted terror. She nodded, a small, jerky movement, and he slowly, cautiously, removed his hand from her mouth.
The air rushed back into her lungs, cold and damp and thick with the smell of dust and decay and something else... something metallic and coppery. Like old blood.
