“Nine dogs?” Kai bit out, fixing me with a glare. “They’re not staying here.”
“Of course not,” I said, trying to sound innocent. “I’ll call the shelter when they open in an hour.”
“Or we could keep them,” Will suggested. “I mean, look at this shit. He’s shivering.”
And he bent down to scoop up the beagle, the little guy squirming, because he was so nervous.
Kai looked bemused. And then he gave me a warning look. “Baby, I like it quiet. You know that.”
“Totally.” I nodded, trying to keep the grin off my face. “I mean they’ve been in cages all their lives. I could keep them down at the other house for like a couple days, too? Maybe fatten ’em up? Before the shelter just throws them in more cages, right?”
“Yeah, they could do with a little spoiling,” Will added. “Let’s just keep them.”
“Oh, my God,” Kai grumbled, turning back toward the house and shaking his head. “Nine dogs….”
I folded my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing.
Quickly handing Marina the cages, I chased after Kai. “Oh, and I kind of brought Gabriel’s cook,” I said, stumbling up to him. “We could use her, right?”
“Yeah, fine, fuck, whatever.” He entered the house and started pounding up the stairs. “Bring everybody. Doors are open. Why the hell not?”
I snorted behind him, his sarcasm not lost on me. He was coming apart, and I loved it. This was our life, after all, and we may trip over each other for a while yet, but we weren’t people who were okay with failing, either. We’d figure it out.
“Oh, and one more thing.” I ran, catching up to him and jumping up on the stair above him.
He stopped in his tracks, letting out another sigh. “I think I might cry.”
I tried not to laugh. Poor guy had had enough for one morning.
I stared down at his lips and broad shoulders and perfect hair and leaned in, desire heating my skin.
Wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my body to his, I caressed his lips with mine, feeling him shudder.
And I whispered, “I still need that shower.”
Then I took his hand, catching the heated look in his eyes, and led him upstairs.
Overgrown grass covered the soft earth as he stepped quietly through the headstones. A sea of plots lay beyond, over the hill to the left and behind him, spanning out as far as he could see. It really was the most peaceful place he’d ever been.
People were quiet here. Solemn expressions were as expected as angry ones, and talking to yourself was perfectly acceptable in a cemetery. Although, he could scream right now and no one would notice. No one else was here.
He looked up at the full moon, seeing the glow of a ring circling it and casting its faint light over the land. The granite headstone he looked for appeared ahead, and he approached it, a growing heat coursing through his veins as he fisted his cold fingers.
Coming to a stop, he let his eyes fall on the marker and then to his shoes and the land they stood on. And what was underneath.
He closed his eyes, letting everything wash over him.
Everyone thought he was inhuman. Incapable of feeling. Resistant to emotion. Sick. Unwell. A machine.
No.
He felt everything. He never shunned an emotion. Not one. He knew that letting it run its course was the only way to get rid of it.
Shame.
Fear.
Anger.
Love.
Worry.
Sadness.
Betrayal.
Guilt.
He owned every single one.
It sank through his eyelids and into his lungs through the crisp air, filling him up as tears sprang to the backs of his eyes.
But he didn’t cry.
It soon coursed down his arms and hummed through his fingertips, before sinking into his stomach, the tight knots hardening into bricks and then molding to him, becoming part of him. They were there. They were his.
And then everything turned softer, fluttering its way past his groin and down his long legs and through his feet, cementing him to the ground.
I am here. I am me.
This is me.
He opened his eyes and stared at the headstone. And he felt nothing anymore.
Pulling his cigarette case from his breast pocket, he took one out and tapped the end of it on the tin. He stuck it between his lips and reached into his pants’ pocket for his lighter. Lighting the end, he inhaled a puff and blew out the smoke, putting everything back into his pocket again.
He took another puff and then pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. “You can thank Little Sister for this,” he told the headstone. “It was her idea.”
Banks was as clever as he was. If only she’d been as loyal.
“It could’ve gone other ways,” he said to the grave. “Cleaner ways.”
He took another drag, the flavor mixed with the cold air tasting good on his tongue.
“Universities use industrial digesters to get rid of cadavers,” he continued, feeling amused. “They look like huge pressure cookers. You mix seventy gallons of water with a little lye and cook it until it’s the right temperature and consistency. A body can dissolve in a matter of hours.” He took another puff, pinching the butt between his fingers. “And then you can just…pour the body down the drain. Gone. Nothing.”
The wind picked up, rustling in the trees.
“But it doesn’t dissolve everything, unfortunately. Some pieces of bone and teeth survive, so those have to be crushed,” he went on. “Now, sulfuric acid, although more dangerous than lye, can completely dissolve human remains. The downside is it does take longer. About two days.” He nodded, dropping the cigarette on the plot and grinding it out with his shoe. “And that’s inconvenient.”
He’d lied to Kai. His mother’s body wasn’t gone. It was less than three miles from their houses. Right here in Thunder Bay.
Maybe he should’ve gotten rid of it.
“I just couldn’t do it, though.” His eyes fell on the headstone, his breathing turning shallow and his voice growing quiet. “I want you to exist,” he whispered. “I want to never forget that the world is a bad place, that you were real, and that every day you’re rotting under my feet.”
He flexed his jaw and tipped his chin up, trying to feel taller. Remembering the pleasure of dumping her in this grave and not taking any care to place her body or wrap her up from the elements.
Unzipping his fly, he took out her favorite part of him and glared at the stone as he pissed all over the ground.
He wouldn’t be back again. He was done with her.
But there was another who still very much deserved what was coming to her and who still needed to be dealt with. She was next.
Finishing, he tucked himself back into his pants and fastened them up again, taking one last, long look.
“Hey,” someone called out behind him. “Cemetery’s closed. What are you doing here?”
A caretaker.
He exhaled a sigh, not turning around. “Just paying my respects to my mother.”
The glow of a flashlight behind him shone on the headstone in front of him. “Your mother? But that’s Edward McClanahan’s grave.”
“Oh, is it?” he said, holding back his smile.
He heard the man’s footsteps grow closer. “If you come back in the morning, I can help you find your mother’s plot. What’s her name?”
But he just shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll be quite busy after tonight.” And he turned, meeting the man’s hazel eyes under gray brows. “I’ll leave. Happy Halloween.”
And then he walked away, back the way he came.
“Yeah, you, too,” the caretaker called after him.
Indeed.
The End
Please turn the page for a glimpse of Kill Switch,
Devil’s Night #3, coming in 2018.
*Please Note: This teaser scene is written in third person, but the n
ovel will be written in first person. This was simply a more efficient way to put you in both characters’ heads for this short glimpse.
Enjoy!
***
She walked into the bedroom, holding out her hands to feel her way. Her fingertips brushed the doorframe and then grazed the chest of drawers right inside. She knew the lay of the land in her own room by now, but she’d learned from experience to have support ready in case she tripped or stumbled.
She’d been a messy kid—leaving her things all over the floor—but losing the use of her eyes twelve years ago certainly hadn’t encouraged her to grow into any neater of a young woman, it seemed.
He liked that about her. The way her world no longer revolved around what she could or couldn’t see. She had to go by what she felt, and he’d trusted her for that.
It had been a mistake.
She walked across her room, her eyes staring ahead like a computer screen locked on one image. Touching the desk chair in front of her, she stopped and raised her arms, pulling the clips out of her hair, one by one. The pile of blonde on top of her head came falling down in waves, and he rubbed his fingers together into fists, desire making his lungs constrict.
She was even more beautiful than when she was sixteen.
Four years ago.
Glowing skin that still looked just as soft, legs he’d sunk his teeth into multiple times as she moaned, a tight tummy peeking out of her little pink tank top, and tits damn near bulging out of their tight confines. He still only saw her when he closed his eyes.
And what was between her legs? It was going to taste just as good as it felt. He’d bet his eyes on it.
She was sweet and soft and his. Even if he’d had to steal it.
Hovering her hands over to the left side of the desk, she found a container and lifted the ceramic lid. He watched her put her pins inside of it, close it again, and turn around.
But she froze, mid-step.
She turned her head in his direction, not seeing him, of course, but…she knew he was there.
His cigarette, laying on the edge of her dresser next to him, burned a stream of smoke up to the ceiling of her bedroom, clove and tobacco permeating the air.
She inhaled a long breath through her nose, a small gasp following. Her chin instantly began to tremble.
“Damon?” she barely whispered.
He smiled.
Fear etched her sweet, heart-shaped face as she shot out her hands in front of her in defense. “Damon, are you here?”
She turned her body side to side, bracing herself for whatever direction he might come from.
“Say something,” she said, sucking in shallow breaths.
But he only wanted to prolong this moment. Every one of his senses sharpened as he absorbed how helpless she was right now. She had to know he’d come someday.
Maybe for just a moment of her time. Or for a lot more.
She whirled around, still guarding herself for an attack. “Are you here?” she pleaded. “Say something!”
I’m right here, he thought. I’m staring right at you, but you’re not really sure, are you? There may be a man standing in your room right now. Watching your every little move as you walk about, completely unaware that he’s against the wall.
He may have even been here before. Several times.
She stepped toward the bed, feeling it hit her shins, and he watched as she instantly dropped down, scrambling across it until she found the nightstand. She waved her hands across the top, knocking over the lamp, the alarm clock, and sending some earrings flying.
But she stopped, realizing what she was searching for wasn’t there.
She wouldn’t find her phone where she’d left it. It was sitting next to his cigarette where he’d moved it to.
She could try to run, but screaming wouldn’t help. Her parents were out of town, and her sister no longer lived at home. Winter Ashby was alone in the house.
The girl who had sent him to prison four years ago.
He reached over, grinding out his cigarette on her dresser top and took a step. The floorboards of the old mansion whined under the weight of his more than six feet, and her breath caught in her throat.
She scurried off the bed.
Swinging around and keeping her arms in front of her, she screamed with tears in her eyes, “Get out! Get out now!”
She stumbled backward in her fright and landed into a wall, but…
No. It wasn’t a wall. What—?
She whipped around, small beads of sweat glistening on her chest. Hesitantly, she reached out her shaking hands and landed on a broad chest and a crisp shirt and jacket.
“No!” she screamed, rearing back.
But he caught her and pulled her in, her body going rigid. He wrapped his arms around her, holding hers down as he squeezed her tight against him.
His nose brushed her lips as he inhaled their scent. “You still wear it,” he groaned. “Watermelon Winter. I remember the taste.”
Her lip gloss. She was told it matched her complexion when she was younger, and she’d worn it ever since. More because the name had her name in it, and that made it special.
His lips grazed her cheekbone, and she tried to push him away.
“You’re disgusting!” she yelled, struggling to get out of his hold. “You make me sick!”
But he tightened his arms around her, jostling her as he growled in her ear. “I have to register as a sex offender in any city I move to now because of you.”
“Good!”
She dropped out of his arms, landing on the floor, and scrambled toward the door.
He let her run. It was fun to watch.
She ran into the hallway and slammed into the bannister, nearly bending in half. Grabbing hold of it, she raced down the length, letting it lead her toward the staircase and then ran down the steps and toward the front door.
“That guy who left here earlier…” he called out from up above her. “Are you letting him fuck you?”
She clasped the door handle, feeling a roll of nausea. No. He was here then? He saw Ethan?
“Because if you are,” his smooth, deep tone carried down the stairs as the sound of his footsteps grew closer. “I’m going to string him up right here in your house. Right after I make him watch how I fuck what’s mine.”
She closed her eyes against the burn as tears fell. Her hands shook so hard she could barely twist the lock.
“Just think about it…” Damon continued.
Shut up.
“You could walk around this place for days and never know he was swinging around dead right above you.”
She yanked at the chain, sliding and pulling it, trying to free it.
“Or sitting at your kitchen table in one of the empty seats with a wire around his neck and his tongue hanging out of his mouth,” he taunted more, his voice growling closer.
And then he slammed his hands against the door on both sides of her head, making her jump. She cried out as he bore down in her ear.
“Poor girl,” he whispered. “You might not even know there’s a dead body here until it starts to smell and flies swarm the rotting flesh.”
She spun around and whipped the back of her fist across his face. “I’ll call the police!”
“Go for it.” He chuckled, unfazed by the slap. “Let’s see if you can pick me out of a line-up.”
She shook her head. He was the devil.
But once, she thought he was an angel. A dark and beautiful angel.
Bile rose up from her stomach. She was going to be sick.
He grabbed her, though, holding her so tight she could barely breathe. He threaded a fist through the back of her hair, forcing her to face him.
“I asked you for one thing,” he gritted out, his breath falling on her lips. “Loyalty. The only thing I demanded from you.”
She cried out, her scalp burning. “You lied to me!”
“And you sent me to prison for three years, and girl, that does not make us even b
y a long shot.”
Then he released her, throwing her off. She clenched her teeth and held out her hands again, ready for him.
“Rika may not have deserved my anger and vengeance, but baby, you’ve earned every inch of what’s coming to you.” He reached out and gripped her jaw. “And you know it, Little Devil.”
She jerked away from his touch, and he yanked her away from the door, twisting all the locks and opening it.
He’d seen her betrayal with his own eyes. There was no mistake this time.
“Get a dog, get a gun, get a better alarm system, do whatever you want,” he told her. “Because nothing will stop me. In fact,” his voice sounded eerily excited, “you’re really going to love this next part.”
And then the door slammed shut.
She stood there, frozen.
Oh, God. She waved her arms, whipping around and taking steps and not feeling anything but wall and furniture. Was he gone?
She started to cry, unable to hold it back.
Feeling her way to the table next to the front door, she fumbled, picking up the landline and dialing 911.
Then she slid down the wall, to the floor, sobbing as the line rang.
Kill Switch will return in 2018.
Did you know my latest stand-alone romance, Punk 57, takes place in the same world as the Devil’s Night Series?
Turn the page to read the first chapter!
Dear Misha,
So, have I ever told you my secret shame?
And no, it’s not watching Teen Mom like you. Go ahead and try to deny it. I know you don’t have to sit there with your sister, man. She’s old enough to watch TV by herself.
No, actually, it’s far worse, and I’m a little embarrassed to tell you. But I think negative feelings should be released. Just once, right?
You see, there’s a girl at school. You know the kind. Cheerleader, popular, gets everything she wants… I hate to admit this, especially to you, but a long time ago I wanted to be her.