Page 155 of Pleasure & Prey: Vol. 2

“I hope you find him,” Esme whispers from behind me. “J-just let me know if I can help you with anything else.” She sounds so small and so wounded, I expect a look of regret to cross Flanagan’s face when he looks at her.

But instead, all I see is calculated interest. Without another word, he leaves our apartment, letting me close the door hard behind him, but I’m too busy with a rush of coolness curling down my spine to even hear what Esme is saying.

“Tova?” Esme reaches out to grab my hand, and with a jolt, I realize I’m gripping the knob like I’m about to follow him.

“I need to go for a walk,” I mumble, ignoring that I just took one to clear my head and figure out how to help my roommate. But maybe, I decide, as I close the door behind me and head down the hallway as the elevator doors close behind him, what I really need to do to help her is make sure that some private investigator stops sniffing around, instead of getting her ice cream and having a movie marathon.

I take the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, though I don’t head to the ground floor right away. The elevator doors ding while I’m still halfway between it and the second-floor landing, and yet again I’m glad that we apparently live in the least populated apartment building in Seattle. Really, I assure myself. I honestly don’t mind. Even in different circumstances, I can’t say that I’d mind.

“Yeah.” I hear Flanagan’s voice echo in the entryway, and when I peek around the wall, I find him on his phone. It means he pays even less attention to me as he walks, so it’s easy for me to follow him out of the building without being seen in the light of street lamps and buildings.

Making him regret coming here, making him regret being such a jerk to my roommate, is suddenly looking more and more like an option. I swear my jaw clenches, my mouth nearly watering at the idea.

I could stab him.

No, that’s too easy. But I ponder the possibilities as he laughs with the person on the phone, heading for a parking garage at the end of the street. Street parking here is awful, and I hope he parked in one of the old, dark garages that leave a lot to be desired.

The box cutter in my pocket is heavy and comforting in my hand. I don’t know when I grabbed it, but I don’t really mind at the moment. No, not right now. Not when I could use it.

Sure enough, Flanagan turns into the furthest parking garage, still on his phone, and the darkness inside swallows him almost immediately. I have to quicken my pace just a little, just to make sure I can keep up enough to follow him to where he’s going.

I could cut his mouth wide, slash him from ear to ear like I’ve done before. He’s nothing like the man in the cabin, but I think I’d get a lot of satisfaction from chopping and sawing at his mouth with the dull box cutter after how he talked to us in our apartment.

He’s just a fucking man, and I’ll make sure he knows that he bleeds like one. He walks up to the second floor, his voice echoing in the mostly empty space. I follow him there, then to the third, and when he breaks away from the ramp to head for a lone car in the corner of the garage, I can’t believe my luck.

Don’t go down the well, Sierra.

Cass’s voice rings in my ears, but the words are muffled and distant. I’m so cold that my fingers are numb, but that coldness urges me forward, whispering in my ears that I can do this. That I have to do this. I need to prove a point, and I need the warmth of his blood on my hands to fight back the cold.

Don’t lose yourself again.

His voice gets quieter in my head, my vision tunneling until it’s a point on Mike Flanagan. God, it’ll just be so easy. Even if he were to turn now, what would he do? Ask me what I’m doing? I can just keep walking. I can just…take the life from him. The thought causes my heart to race, and my thumb slides on the catch of the box cutter, sliding the blade just a little outward. I’ll have to be quick.

But that won’t be a problem. I’ll have to disorient him, or incapacitate him.

I’ll have to make him bleed.

“Yeah, yeah, Nancy, I know.” He chuckles, then gives a full-on laugh as he fumbles with his keys. “I’ll be home in a bit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to stay out so late.”

When I’m done with him, he won’t be coming home at all. I pass by a pillar, then another, and I’m slowly pulling the box cutter out of my pocket when suddenly, I’m grabbed by the nape of my hoodie and the hand holding the box cutter. I gasp softly as I’m whirled around, and my back slams against a wide pillar that blocks Mike Flanagan from my view.

“My, my, my…” Larkin leans close, keeping his hand around the box cutter and shifting his other hand to my throat to cut off my air so I can’t scream.

As if I would scream anyway.

“Aren’t you a little fucking monster?”

11

My heart leaps into my throat at Larkin’s visible menace. His long fingers curl around the box cutter, and I let out a sound of protest when he wrestles the box cutter from my grip and shoves it into his back pocket. “Shush,” he tells me absently, fixing his jacket before turning back to me fully.

When the ignition of Flanagan’s car starts, I jerk to look around, but he doesn’t let me. Larkin’s fingers curl more tightly around my throat, then he shoves me back against the pillar once more, my shoulders hitting so hard that I wince with an unhappy yelp.

“You even sound like a feral little animal,” the man taunts, his voice dripping honey-sweet with false praise. “Just growling and snarling. What’s wrong, Tova? Are you too fixated on your prey to look at me? You know, that won’t get you very far⁠—”

“Do you ever stop talking?” I snap, looking back at him. We both freeze as Flanagan drives by, though he doesn’t notice anything, and his lights never illuminate us. “God, you really like the sound of your own voice. Now let me go.” I kick one foot back to try to propel myself off the column, but it’s useless. His muscles flex under the jacket, and all I manage is to come off the column enough that he can slam me against it once more, causing me to yelp with pain.

“Ouch! Can you stop it?”