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His flesh and blood surround my hand like a warm blanket as I push my way through his open carcass. “You ever seen a beating heart? I learned this trick when I was in the psych ward. This was one guy’s specialty. I didn’t know that someone could watch their heart beating outside their body. I’ve always wanted to try it.”
I shoved my hand in farther, wrapping it around his beating organ. “The thing about the system, they take relatively normal misunderstood people and turn them into a thing of nightmares. I wasn’t always like this. I used to have a conscience, but let’s just say that now, I’m nothing but a cold-blooded killer who likes to play before he’s done with his prey.”
You’d think he’d be in unbearable pain, but you wouldn’t guess by how still the fucker is. His eyes are wide with fear, but there’s also a morbid fascination. Maybe the booze made him a little out of it like he can’t register what’s happening to him. I dig hard and yank his most vital organ from his chest, watching as his eyes take in his still-beating heart in my hand before he goes limp and his body crashes to the ground.
Emily being there doesn’t even register until she screams. The same scream I heard ten years ago.
Fuck.
I run over to her, refusing to let her freak out the way she did then. She flinches when my hand contacts her skin, and I want to take the hammer to my head and knock my brains out of my skull. Maybe I should have just beaten the fucker up, but the years I’d spent with murderers had wired my brain to see things differently. When you’re used to killing for survival, you don’t register anything else. Your body goes into survival mode—him or me.
I’m an animal because that fucker was going to hurt someone who’s mine.
“Em, please calm down.”
Her shaky hand comes out with Mace, and she sprays it in my eyes. “Don’t touch me.”
Fuck, that shit stings. My eyes are literally on fire. “That fuckin’ hurt, Em.”
“I’m calling the cops.”
I push through the pain. Pepper spray is some lethal shit, but the idea of being locked up again is a powerful motivator.
I lunge at her, clasping my hand over her mouth. “The fuck you are,” I grit through the pain as she digs her teeth through my flesh and bites hard. “You don’t fuckin’ recognize me, do you?” My hand is firm on her mouth. Even though I can’t see, and she just bit the shit out of my already bloody hand, I stay firm, making sure she can’t freak out and more damage. “It’s me… Stone.”
Her eyes flash with recognition. I’m just glad that hearing my name isn’t making her run for the hills. The last time she saw me, I probably looked crazy, and this reunion can’t be making her feel any better.
“I’m gonna take my hand off your mouth, but if you scream, I swear to God, I’ll gag you with that dirty rag on the floor.”
She nods in understanding as I remove my hand.
“You just bludgeoned a man for being drunk,” she says calmly.
“Yeah, well, he should have listened when I told him to get lost.”
“You’re fuckin’ insane.”
“When it comes to you, I always have been.”
Chapter Four
EMILY
When it comes to you, I always have been.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? To this day, I don’t know what happened that night. I just know that the last time I saw this boy—no, man—he’d killed my father.
I wanted to go see him when they locked him up, but every time I went, they turned me away. Stone never showed up. I sat there behind the glass, my eyes fixed on the door, but he never came through it. After a year, I gave up. I figured he’d snapped, and everything was a mirage in my lovestruck teen memory. So I pulled up my big-girl pants and moved the fuck on. Now here he is, looking every bit as crazy.
The warmth of Stone’s heavy body against mine is overwhelming. I’m not sure if I’m turned on, angry, or scared. The same confusion I felt as a teen is back again, with a vengeance. I never understood why I reacted so strongly to Stone. He’s not good for me, but when I’m close to him, it’s like the world disappears, and all I can see is him. He’s not a safe bet. Maybe that’s where the high comes from. With Stone, I don’t know what I’m going to get, and that feeling of the unknown is like a potent drug. Once you get a taste, you’ll always be an addict.
He talks in a clipped tone into his phone, his body still pressed against mine, holding me in place. “I need cleaners. It’s bad,” he says before hanging up the phone.
