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“Stranger?” I murmur, my hand going to my pillow where he normally sleeps. “Did you bounce on me—” My words fall off with a gasp when my fingers slide against something wet and smooth, instantly causing me to jerk backward.
Lightning strikes as I move, illuminating the figure in my bed who’s lying beside me, and who undoubtedly woke me up. For several tense moments I’m absolutely terrified…until my eyes trace the shape of the familiar mask, and I reach forward to push Phoenix’s hood back, exposing his hair that’s just as dark as everything else in my room.
“Hi,” I whisper lamely, fingers trembling when I touch the mask again. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m upset,” I amend, still jumpy and nervous from earlier and how upset I’d been. “I’m sorry. I’m kind of off, I just—”
“Can I touch you?” It’s his voice that melts something in me and dispels the shakes from my fingers. “I know how your brain gets when you’re upset. Is it okay if I touch you?”
Fuck.He’s the first person to say something like that to me in longer than I care to think about, and I sit up to tuck my legs under me, glancing around the darkness of my room. “Where’s Rory?” I ask, just in case the answer is unpleasant, even though it means I’m ignoring his question.
My desk light flares to life, the color changing LED lamp less harsh than most of the other lights in my room. But I blink the spots away all the same, noting the outline of the other masked killer in my room tonight.
“How did you get in?” I can't help but ask, even as Phoenix sits up and braces himself on his knees in front of me. “Don’t tell me you broke in.”
“Is that a no to me touching you?” He’s so careful to keep himself a hair’s breadth from me, so fucking careful to hold himself back that I consider marrying him on the spot. “If you tell me no, then neither of us will break that boundary, Bailey.”
Scratch that. I’m prepared to marry both of them on the spot for that alone.
“I’m sorry,'' I apologize, not meaning to let my thoughts run away with me. “I’m okay now. You can touch me.” He doesn’t waste any time, his knees pressing against my legs as he leans in to run his fingers through my hair, the mask still obscuring his face.
Slowly, I reach up to pull it off, thrilled when he lets me. When Rory sinks down onto the bed to my left, I do the same with his mask, marveling at the still-wet blood that’s spattered over both of the white, plastic faces. “Is she dead?” I ask dumbly, leaning into Rory’s touch on my arm. “Like, actually dead, and not like Evan ‘dead?’”
“Evan will be dead soon enough,” Rory informs me dryly. “And Ava isverydead. I thought about bringing you a souvenir.” I swear his eyes glow in the darkness when he says it, but I don’t react.
“I told him not to,” Phoenix assures me, hands stilling when I reach out to touch the blood sprayed up one side of his face.
“Did you take your masks off?”
“I wanted her to see me before she died,” Phoenix confirms. “Rory thinks it’s stupid, and no, before you ask, he didn’t take his mask off for Evan. But Ava was different.” His hand tightens around my wrist. “Ava deserved it more than anyone for what she said to you tonight.”
It’s hard to swallow the words he’s thrown at me. Avadiedtonight because of my feelings. Because of the guilt she stirred to life in my chest. Ava could still be alive if I’d just been able to walk away from her instead of getting so upset.
And God, that should really bother me.
But instead of being angry, I lean in, my eyes on Phoenix’s as I swipe my fingers through the blood on his face, dragging it over his skin. “Tell me how she died?” I ask, looking between them. “Please?”
I shouldn’t know. I shouldn’twantto know. But something inside me demands it, starves for it, and needs it so I can go on breathing.
“How much detail do you want, darling?” Rory purrs; and when I transfer my gaze to him, he opens his arms wide for me in an almost theatrical gesture. “How much do you want to know about all the screams and promises she sang for us?”
The shudder that goes up my spine when his arms close around me like a cage is only partly from fear, and I don’t fight the arousal, the heat his words stir to life in my body.Fuck, I shouldn’t be turned on by this. I shouldn’t want to hear about how she’d died, or be so thrilled that they’re here to share it with me.
“Did it hurt?” I find I’m not too keen on him repeating the whole murder to me, maybe, but there are a few things I wouldn’t mind knowing.
Such as where my sense of morality went, for one.
“It hurt,” Rory promises, his fingers creeping up my hips, dragging my t-shirt up with them. I’m only wearing it and a pair of thin shorts that cover very little, and I’m sure by now both of them have noticed.
Especially when Phoenix’s hand curves over my thigh, pushing upward over the curve of my ass and bringing the shorts up with them. “No underwear?” I hear him chuckle.
“I’m sleeping,” I reply dryly. “I wasn’t expecting you two.”
“I stabbed her first.” Rory is definitely more into the murder side of this than I am, but I don’t mind that much. Not when he reaches up to cup my face, as Phoenix moves so he’s more behind me than he was and shifts me onto my knees between the two of them. “We chased her for a while. We made itfun.” Lightning flickers outside of my window, lighting up the upper half of his face and touching on the wide, manic grin he wears. “I like the chase. Phoenix just wants the kill.”
“Phoenixdidn’t want her telling anyone,” the murderer behind me murmurs, his fingers stroking over my hips. “She could’ve found someone if you let her run much longer.”
Rory eyes me, brows raised. “We both know I wouldn’t do that. Don’t we, Bailey?” His fingers skim my lower lip and, knowing what he’s after, I part my lips obediently so he can press his fingers into my mouth for me to suck on them. At the same time, Phoenix pulls my shorts down my thighs, his hands moving to spread me wider so he can see all of me, as if it isn’t still pretty dark in my room. “We both know I’m always so careful. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail, you know?” He’s slow as he fucks my mouth. His fingers are so careful and teasing against my tongue.
“He stabbed her first,” Phoenix agrees in a soft purr, leaning over me. “Butfuck, I’m the one that got to kill her. He stabbed her in the thigh. Just to make her scream.” His teeth close on the nape of my neck lightly, grazing against my skin, as one of his hands brushes my upper thigh. “Then I cut her arms.” Both hands come up, nails scraping the skin just below my shoulders. “She tried to get away, so I stabbed her in the back.” One hand moves to grip my lower back, nails sinking into me lightly.
