Damn—my morning just got ten times better.
Feeding off a surge of adrenaline and eager to get back to the game I started years ago, I snag a set of keys from a canister in the makeshift kitchen then exit the cabin.
I like Claudia—my fingers itch to corrupt her curvy frame—but she’s all types of fucked up, and I’ve got business to take care of.
Business that doesn’t include bedding a psychotic woman.
* * *
The gleaming grinI’ve been wearing since my Pontiac GTO kicked over at the first turn of the keys thirty minutes ago turns blinding when the radio switches to a news broadcast. I’m not just grinning at the report that two long-serving guards at a penitentiary for the criminally insane were killed last night. It is knowing my dad is still at the top of his game. I’ve been locked up so long, my GTO’s battery should have died years ago. The fact it started on the first try proves he’s still playing the game he taught me the day of my sixth birthday.
I didn’t get a toy truck or any other gift you’d expect a normal child to receive. I was given an invitation to an exclusive club, a club so secretive, only the founder knows each member’s name: my father.
I’m not going to lie; I pissed my pants when I spotted their target for the day. The girl was young, around my mom’s age when she had me—approximately sixteen. The welts on her body and face were so disfiguring, the only thing I can recall about her now is the scent of her blood.
Although I did the occasional hunt with my dad in my teens, my interests did a one-eighty when Shelley entered the equation. My dad was disappointed, but he understood. He didn’t have much choice. He had done the same thing with my mother. She was supposed to be his victim, not occupy his bed.
I don’t know if my father altered the rules because my mother’s stomach was swollen with me, or because he had an instant connection with her like I had with both Shelley and Cleo. But whatever it was, I’m certain it was fate.
He raised me as if I were his own flesh and blood. His parenting methods were unheard of by the many doctors my mother had probe my head in my early teens, but I wouldn’t be the man I am today if it weren’t for my father. For that alone, I’ll be forever in his debt.
My mind drifts from fond memories when the radio crackles, announcing a new bulletin. “Police are on the lookout for three patients who escaped Meadow Fields Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane last night. Dexter Elias, Claudia Brown, and Ashlee Vought are considered armed and dangerous. Extreme discretion is advised before approaching the assailants.”
“Three?” The rest of my curiosity comes out in a groan.
Claudia’s escape makes sense—I played the game right. But Ashlee. . . I’m at a loss.
From the pieces of my memory I’ve pieced together the past thirty minutes, I’m confident Claudia was with me during my escape. But Ashlee hasn’t come up once in my endeavor to clear the fog from my mind.
We interacted a few times when I strategized a way to put my game plan into play, but I never clued her in on my plans to escape. As far as she was aware, my interest in Claudia was purely to bed her. Hearing Ashlee escaped with me is more shocking than waking up with a sleeping Claudia in my arms.
Snickering at my stupidity of being lumped with two loons, I continue my trip. I make it another forty miles before I have to pull over to pump gas. My father’s staff kept my battery charged, but they weren’t as courteous with the gas tank.
With police two counties over seeking Dexter Elias, I secure one of three wallets in my glove compartment before clambering out of my car. The gas stations have drastically improved from what they once were. I can watch the news broadcast of my escape on a small TV in the pump while my gas guzzler’s tank is replenished.
Every image of Lee and Bryce flashing across the screen spikes my pulse. I don’t feel remorse when the broadcast shows their blubbering families. They should thank me. I saved them from a life of misery by taking out their trash. Once the dust settles, I’m sure they’ll understand that.
After filling the tank to the brim, I head to the restroom inside the gas station. All their money must have been spent on the fancy gas pumps, as their washrooms aren’t up to standards. They are dingy and old, nearly as rundown as the cabin I left over an hour ago.
While taking a leak, my mind wanders to Claudia. Not because she bores the piss out of me, but because I can smell her on my cock. My mind is still hazy, but it’s clear enough for me to remember what happened last night. We didn’t fuck. We snuggled.
Just the thought has my cock wilting in my hand.
I don’t spoon. Come to think of it, I’ve never slept in the same bed as a girl. I hurt her, fuck her, then leave. I don’t do sleepovers. I didn’t even break the rules with Shelley and Cleo. Don’t get me wrong. I watched them sleep. I just never slept over. That’s entirely different.
Claudia is still on my mind when I stomp past an ancient computer advertising a minute of internet usage for a quarter. Although I want to pretend I’m feeding coins into the meter as a means to track down Cleo, the article Ashlee gave me last month ensures I know which direction to head.
Marcus didn’t just upend my chessboard when he joined my four-year game with Cleo; he upended Cleo’s entire life. She’s no longer a resident of Montclair, New Jersey. She’s a shiny new citizen of Ravenshoe. I wonder if the mayor of that nondescript town in Florida knows the vile man it raised in its carcass?
As I wait for the wired connection to find a match on Claudia Brown, I slouch in my chair. I’m not tracking down Claudia’s info to finish what we didn’t start last night. I’m merely curing weeks of confusion.
I hate that I can’t read Claudia. But secretly, I also love it. It kept things interesting the past two months, which is a task in itself when you’re locked in a mental asylum. Easing my curiosity will make the transition to the next phase of my game plan a lot easier. It has nothing to do with Claudia’s fruity smell on my skin. Nothing. At. All.
Ignoring the recurring denial echoing between my ears, I lean in close to the monitor. It’s blank. I’m not talkingI’m a seventy-year-old geriatric who doesn’t know his way around a computerblank. It is blank,Claudia isn’t who she says she isblank.
I take a few moments to ponder my next move. If I were half the man I was before being locked in a mental asylum, I’d leave this gas station and continue my quest for revenge. But since I am as inquisitive as I am determined, I search a different subject.
Nicholas Holt brings up more information than a standard Google search. Thousands of paparazzi pictures of him and his bandmates, an extensive list of musical accomplishments, and one lonely request for a restraining order against a woman named Megan Shroud is presented before me.
