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She didn’t want me to hurt her friend, but she wasn’t willing to wrestle the knife out of my hand to save her. I think she wanted me to call her bluff. I think my dear, sweet Brianna didn’t know what she wanted, but once I showed it to her and she truly let go, we would have so much fun together.
Hiding the knife behind my back, I answered the door, smiling the moment I saw Erin standing outside, looking so out of place here. She blushed when she saw me, kicking at the ground with her feet when she said, “Hey.”
“Come in, come in,” I told her, holding open the door so she could walk inside. I shut the door and locked it, walking with her, deeper into the house. “I hope you don’t mind being a model for my newest piece—”
Erin was eyeballing everything. The walls, the floor, the high ceilings and the chandeliers hanging there. She was so lost in the impressiveness of the house, she didn’t even answer me.
But then we rounded the corner into the hall that eventually led to the back door, and we found Brianna standing there, looking upset. That got Erin to slow to a halt and say, “Brianna. I… I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“I didn’t know you were coming over,” Brianna said, pointedly ignoring the way I loomed over her friend.
As Erin undoubtedly blushed again and stuttered out, “Oh, yeah, I—” I lifted the knife behind her and feigned stabbing her a few times. It was funny to watch Brianna try to keep it cool, even funnier that Erin had no idea I was mock-stabbing her from behind.
“Erin, you should leave before—”
I stopped with the pretend stabbing, lowering the arm with the knife and once again hiding it behind my back when Erin turned around to glance at me. “Before what, Brianna?” I asked. “Before something happens? Like what? All I want to do is paint this beautiful creature here, since you refuse to model for me.”
“Uh, this feels awkward,” Erin stated the obvious, glancing between me and Brianna.
“It isn’t like I want to kill anybody.” My other hand went into my back pocket, the one with the rag, and as I pulled it out, I said, “Oh, wait.”
I moved fast after that, wrapping an arm around Erin’s body and bringing the rag to her face, cupping it over her mouth and her nose, letting her get a good, long inhale of the stuff. No house was a house without a good stash of chloroform.
Erin struggled… for about five seconds. Then the stuff hit her, and her body went limp. I let her fall to the floor, her body slumped over in a mess.
“You son of a bitch,” Brianna muttered, watching as I set the knife down and stuffed the rag back into my pocket. She sent daggers with her eyes as I grabbed Erin and heaved her over my shoulder like a rag doll. I picked up my knife.
I started walking, moving past her in the hall. Brianna glared all the while, and then, something changed. She darted away, which I found odd, mostly because she’d been so insistent that she wouldn’t let me do this to her so-called friend.
Whatever. I’d bring Erin to the pool house and then get Brianna.
I lugged Erin outside, around the pool, to my pool house, where I liked to do my work best. She weighed next to nothing, so it didn’t really bother me much. I had to fumble a bit with her body and the knife so I could get the key out for the door to the pool house, but I managed.
In we went, and I deposited her on the small chaise lounge I’d moved near my workspace. I didn’t linger on her much; as much as I enjoyed the act of killing and what came before it, I wanted Brianna here. I wanted her to watch, to learn to enjoy it.
I went back to the house in search of Brianna, and I found her in the kitchen, standing near the sink. One of her hands was flat on the counter near the sink; the other I couldn’t see.
“Wake her up and let her go.” Brianna’s voice came out low and oh so serious. I couldn’t say whether I’d ever heard her sound like this before. It was sexy, not going to lie, the danger in her tone.
“No. I told you what I’m going to do to her while you watch.” I started for her, but when she said what she said next, I froze.
“I won’t be watching.” Brianna lifted her other hand and set something down on the other side of the sink, not staring at it, but staring at me instead, to see my reaction.
A knife, very much like the one I’d taken to the pool house with Erin.
I laughed at it, at her. What did she think she was going to do? Attack me with it? Come on, we both knew how that would end, and as much as I’d get off on fighting her, I didn’t want to waste any time. Erin wouldn’t be knocked out forever.
“Wake her up and let her go, Gareth,” Brianna repeated, her jaw tight. Her fingers danced over the handle of the knife, and whatever amusement I’d gained from this situation, I lost right then, when I realized it.
The knife wasn’t for me.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Brianna
The expression Gareth wore was, at first, one of slight amusement. Like I was a child throwing a tantrum, and he just found me adorable. But then, after I repeated myself, as my fingers lightly ran along the knife’s handle, that expression started to change.
It was funny, almost like a light switch had been hit. Gareth’s smirk fell off his face, and he stood there, on the other side of the kitchen, his stare hardening.
Gareth was going to hurt Erin regardless of me telling him what he wanted to hear, to punish me for taking so long to say it. Well, like I’d said before, two could play his games. Really, this was all his fault, not only for inviting Erin over here, but also for making a big scene behind Erin’s obliviousness with a knife.
