I glance at my watch. Eleven thirty-five p.m. My phone dings and I glance down, read a text, short and sweet, from Mike. “I can get back the $.”

Good. One thing off my plate. I text back. “Do it.” Then I set my phone down, pull off the mask—fuck the fumes—and step over to my visitor.

I should walk away. I should step into the hall, take the stairs down, enter the night sky and let FtypeBaby take me anywhere but here, in my apartment, at the motherfucking witching hour, with a knife in my hand and a body before me.

This is bad. All the elements of an impossible temptation. I feel the moment my soul loses the decision, my madness starting to flow with greedy inhibition. The dam breaking, power surging through my body, excitement in my veins, my limbs unrestrained, my mind at full iwillkillthismotherfucker strength: All are very, very bad. Not for me, not for my sick heart, which is orgasming at the—I unsheathe my knife—future, but for him. The blood pulses, all sane thought leaving my head in the loud rush of excitement. I fight it, try to curl, try to cover my ears, the action only amplifying the sound. It is useless and the moment that I surrender to it… it is the best moment in the world, a full-body rush of euphoria, one that bursts through me with clear and perfect energy. I am high, able to do anything and everything, but I have only one want on my agenda.

I step forward and lean over, roll his body to its back and straddle him, resting my weight on his stomach, his attempt to buck me off met with a warning look. This is bad. I hear the cry of my soul and ignore it as I finger the knife.

I should walk away.

I have so little control.

I smile.

CHAPTER 97

EVEN THROUGH BLURRED vision, waves of nausea rolling through him, tears pooling in his eyes, and pain—worse than any he has ever encountered, every breath a fresh smack of madness—Marcus wants her. Two years since he’s had cunt. He thinks about her naked, the glow of her skin on camera, that impression only slightly dampened by the clothes covering her skin. Gorgeous, her legs on either side of him, the light weight of her body straddled atop him like she is about to give him the ride of his motherfucking life. But her smile worries him. It beams, as if today might just be the best day ever, as if she has just became the fucking prom queen. It doesn’t mix with the knife in her hand, his knife, the one that she flips with surprising efficiency, as if she was born with it in her grip, as if she has plans in store with it.

And suddenly, her looks don’t matter. Because the sudden fact, one that eluded him while he was writhing on the floor, his mind breaking apart at the seams, hits him square. She, this tiny girl with long dark hair and eyes that scream her madness to the world, might be his downfall. And with death, not prison. An even more intolerable sentence, one impossible to return from, one that fills him with fear, his Catholic upbringing suddenly pushing to mind all of his crimes. All of the people he stepped on. Women he damaged. Lives he ruined. He’d thought the devil had come in the form of Katie McLaughlin. But no. It is Her.

He blinks hard, the action clearing the tears, his improved clarity taking in the view before him, his chest inhaling as she runs the knife softly across his shirt. Her hand shakes, the knife jiggling slightly in her palm as it makes its path. Nerves? She doesn’t look nervous. She looks… excited. Eager.

It is almost, in the final moments of his life, arousing—the knowledge that this beautiful creature could embrace, look forward to, enjoy the art of pain, of control. They say that love is finding your soul’s match in another. His cock hardens of its own accord, her eyes flickering to his as the consistency beneath her changes. He rolls his shoulders, trying to relieve the pain of lying on handcuffed hands. She shifts, rolling backward, testing his arousal. Then she chuckles, clicking her tongue disapprovingly and reaches up, gripping the knife with both hands and, with one swift move, buries it into the muscles of his chest.

His hard-on withers and dies, right about the time that his chest seizes with incredible pain.

CHAPTER 98

MIKE STILLS, HIS eyes fixing at the upper right corner of the screen, where the video feed is. The video looks jerky, as if it is stuck on repeat, the stick figure on top repeatedly moving, arms up down up down, every other piece of the clip still, frozen. The body beneath her thrashes, her movement becoming that of a bucking bronco for a short moment before the man’s upper torso raises, the girl shimmying up his body with greedy movement, before one final downward swipe causes any and all motion beneath her to cease.

He exhales, closing the top of the laptop, not sure if he could take any more, the image branded on his mind, contrasting sharply with the sunny smile he has grown attached to. He knew she had a dark side, had gotten a taste of it when she did the impossible five months ago. But that video, seeing the image of her physically taking a life… it paints over every image of her with a dark brush, adding shadows and depths that scare the hell out of him. He’s spent the last days hating that man, cursed him during bouts of clarity during those two days of hell. Hated him more than he’d even known was possible. Still—he feels a reaction to watching him die. A bit of pity, guilt settling into his stomach as if for a long residence. The last few minutes have taught him a lot about her. A lot that he hadn’t really known. He shoves the laptop to the side and closes his eyes. Swallows a wave of nausea.