I drag my gaze over him, taking in his black curls and the way they flop over cropped sides. His nose is strong, at perfect alignment with the sharp jaw line that graces his face.
The gray shirt makes his skin look like alabaster. The wide sleeves are short, letting me admire his muscled arms and the veins on his hands. He has a tattoo between his thumb and forefinger. An artistic skull with illustrated flowers. It’s only then I remember how he kills his victims.
Strangulation. He wraps those hands around their throat and squeezes until they choke.
Beads of sweat prick the back of my neck, and I scold myself for checking him out. I’ve barely even looked at a guy since the car crash of a relationship I had with my ex, but apparently dangerous men do it for me. I wet my cracked lips and stare at the bedroom door he’s blocking.
“So, what happens now?”
He shrugs. “We kill time?”
I glare at him and he smirks like a kid caught stealing candy.
“Bad choice of words?”
“I hate that you’re enjoying this.”
He shrugs. “You’re a lot more entertaining than the company I’ve been keeping the last few months.”
I skewer him with a look. “I’m so thrilled I’m more enjoyable than convicted felons.”
He presses a smile between his lips.
My pulse thrums in my throat. I should be terrified, and I am, but I’m also deadly curious. “Why did you escape?” I ask. It makes no sense, why turn himself in if he was just going to break out?
He leans back and links his fingers together against his stomach. “What’s your name?”
I study him for a moment but at this point I’m not sure there’s much harm telling him. He already knows where I live. “Hazel.”
He waits me out, cocking his head again. “You can ask.”
I puff out a short breath. “Fine. What’s your name?” I regret the question as soon as I ask it.
“Flynn.”
His name is soft. Real. It makes him sound like a Disney hero, not a man who’s murdered over half a dozen people.
I tear my gaze away from him, studying my gran’s old floral wallpaper with an intensity that makes my head hurt. I cannot let myself relate to this man.
My peripheral vison flickers as Flynn sits forward, a frown marring his perfect face. “I did what I went in there to do. That’s why I escaped.”
His words have me looking back at him and as soon as I do, the ghost of a smile appears. His posture relaxes and he leans back against the wall again.
“What did you go in there to do?” I ask, because apparently my curiosity is morbid.
He tsks. “Come now, Hazel. You’re smarter than that.” Disapproval hums in his deep voice and I decidedly ignore how my core warms.
A police siren blares through the open window, a blatant reminder that I’m talking to a serial killer. One who I’m pretty sure just committed yet another murder.
Lights flash in the mirror next to Flynn as the patrol car crawls down the street. I think about screaming. About jumping up and slipping through the open window.
“Don’t,” Flynn says.
“Because you’ll hurt me if I do?”
Water blue eyes meet mine, far too unguarded to belong to a killer. “Because I’m asking you not to.”
My conflicted brain runs out of time. The police car disappears from sight, its siren fading away to a thick silence.
