Page 43 of Spitfire

He nods as he tears his gaze away and gets a far-off look. "Imagine my surprise when I realized you were doing some stalking of your own. My curiosity got the best of me, and I couldn't leave you alone, Scarlett. I started to follow you everywhere. I even rented out a room in your rundown apartment building, from an old, drunk guy a few floors above you. I broke in once, hid a cheap camera, and put a keystroke tracer on your laptop. I needed to know what you were up to, and how I could protect you."

"Oh my god, Xavier! You would have just been a young teen!" The horror of what he's describing hits me. He ran away from the system, followed me to another state, and stalked me, all while barely being in high school. "How the hell did you support yourself?" I question.

He flinches, as a dark expression crosses his features, and he refuses to meet my waiting gaze. "I did what I knew best: I stole, broke into places, and when that failed, I sold the only thing that ever had any value."

He sold himself. My chest tightens painfully at the image of a young Xavier all alone, and just trying to survive any way he could. "But you went to college. I saw the information when I researched you." Another pang of embarrassment soars over me at my admittance that I had been looking into him.

He gives me a naughty smirk that, despite his bruised face, promises a world of seduction before nodding. "Faked, all of it. I got my GED, and that's about it. Everything else I've forged, and all my skills have been earned through life experience."

My glance trails across the expensive loft, and its quality furnishings, with a bit of disbelief. He definitely doesn't look like he's hurting for money, and I'm not sure his journalistic career is paying him well enough for all of this.

"God, Spitfire, you usually have a better poker face. I'm very good at what I do."

I look up at him from below my lashes, and bite down on my lip, refusing to correct him on the nickname. It's growing on me. "What is it that you do, Xavier?"

"I destroy lives, Scarlett. I find your deepest, darkest secrets, and exploit them, using all the tools at my disposal."

Well, shit.

THIRTY-TWO

SCARLETT

Part of me wants to delve deeper into what he's doing, and how, but I have a more pressing need. I need to understand what is happening to me, and how I became Ashmaker. "Ashmaker," I question as I hold his stare. "When, and how, did you discover what I was doing?"

He refills his glass and moves to sit next to me on the sofa, his calming scent of something citrusy and peppery mixed together soothing my frazzled nerves. "It was actually an accident." The corner of his lips rises in amusement. "You went on a date with a guy, a piece of shit, from everything I could find on him on the dark web. I followed you to try to protect you, knowing his proclivities for assaulting women, and recording his deeds."

He leans back, his ankle resting on his other knee, looking for all the world relaxed, as if this was any other topic, and we were any two other people and not killers. "There was something different about you that night. At first I wasn't sure if it was a change in your demeanor, or if you were pretending with him, but it made me suspect all was not right."

I find myself leaning towards him, the rich timber of his voice comforting me, despite the gruesome tale I'm positive he's about to tell me. "After your dinner, which I watched with amusement, as you plied him with alcohol until he was beyond inebriated, you indicated you were driving him home. I didn't realize at first that you had slipped something into his drink, but when you headed towards an abandoned strip mall instead of his dorm, I recognized something was up."

I try to remember the night he's describing, vague images coming and going, but nothing staying long enough for me to fully grasp it. It's frustrating, and makes my head spin and ache. "Color me surprised and intrigued, when I watched you pull around the back and drag Timothy Jacks out of the vehicle, and into the deserted building. It took you a bit. He was double your size, but you seemed determined."

Timothy Jacks. The name has the gin I just drank wanting to make an instant reappearance. Jason's depraved friend. "From the shadows, I witnessed you strip him naked, cutting off his clothing piece by piece. There were tools hidden under a pile of rubbish, which told me you had planned how the night was to go down."

"He started to wake from his drug-induced state, and before I could even think to intercede, you stabbed his thighs, one after the other, and then his abdomen, until you were covered in his blood, like something from a horror movie. All the while you looked like you were in some sort of a daze, mumbling to yourself about sins and justice."

"You cut off his cock, Spitfire. Held it in your hands, your face covered in rage, and that's when I understood that man must have hurt you at some point. I wanted to appear to you then, and wrap my arms around you, to promise that it would all be okay, but I was nothing but a scrawny kid with nothing to offer you."

I reach for his hand, and he intertwines his fingers through mine, holding on tightly. "He was someone from back home. A friend of one of my foster brothers, who raped me over and over, before he moved away for college."

"He got what he deserved, Scarlett, and it still wasn't enough. I wish I could resurrect him and kill him over and over, for what he did to you and how he hurt you. I wish I could do that to all of them who hurt you."

"Tell me the rest, Xavier."

"You tried to force his cock down his throat, but you didn't have the right angle, and used the sharp side of the blade, which cut up his face horribly. That seemed to put you into a blind rage, and you stabbed him more times than I could count, until he was more shredded meat than man. I watched with a bit of humor as you struggled to cut off his head, then arms and legs, sawing him apart. You looked so exhausted by the end of it that I was worried you weren't even going to make an attempt to get away. Finally you rose, stripped off all your clothes, and used bottled water to wash yourself clean, before re-dressing in hidden clothes."

His fingers tighten on mine. "I was so fascinated, Scarlett. I'd never seen anyone do what you did, and despite not knowing what crime he committed against you, I instantly knew he deserved it. It lit a flame within me, one that only increased as I watched you organize all his body parts, and your bloody clothes, cover him with a discarded painter's tarp, and douse him with lighter fluid, before using a match to set him on fire."

The image he's projecting appears in my mind, and I watch as if it's a documentary on Netflix, as the flames rise higher and higher, and I stand there, enthralled. The air fills with the stench of burning hair and flesh, and the heat causes a fresh sweat to soak me. Still, I can't force myself to take a step away from the burning remains, my rage not satisfied.

It was beautiful, cathartic even. We rid the world of another monster, the voice appears in my head, filled with pride.

"You stayed until the flames spread to the walls, and other items inside the space, and I feared for your life, so I made a banging noise that seemed to get you moving. Once I watched you race out to your car and drive away, I had to make sure nothing could lead back to you. I erased your tire tracks, and went back into the burning space to make sure nothing would be left of him, and your clothes. Then I went back to my apartment in my stolen vehicle, and erased your digital footprint, including the surveillance from the restaurant."

"You were the reason I was never questioned," I gasp, understanding and wonderment hitting me. "No one ever knew I was with him that night, or had been speaking to him by text. You made it all disappear." He takes my glass from me and places it next to his on the coffee table, before he yanks on our hands until I fall into his lap, and he shifts until I'm straddling him. My core rubs down hard on his crotch, the denim scraping against my sensitive folds in just the thin pajama shorts I'm wearing.

"I would do anything for you, Spitfire. From that moment on, you became my life's mission. I would need to survive, become stronger, and get better at my craft, if I was going to protect you. That was almost ten years ago, Scarlett, and every day since, I have watched your back, even if you didn't realize I was there."