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MR. X
She’s as beautiful as I remember,I thought as I watched her walk out of school with her little friend, who had bright green and black hair. My Shiloh had colored hair as well. It was red like blood. It suited her. Blood had always suited her. Especially when it was smeared across her pale, soft skin.
Just envisioning it brought me back to the night I’d made myself her whole world. I had painted her with so much blood. Hers. Her sister’s. She had shed such beautiful tears as I’d severed the ties that kept her from me. It had been the perfect night until she had acted like an ungrateful brat. I regretted losing my patience with her and punishing her like I had. After some time apart, I’d realized my mistake. I had forgotten that my Shiloh loved to play hard to get, loved to be chased.
I wouldn’t make that mistake this time. I would do my best to be even more patient with her. No matter how tempting it was to just take what was mine, I would make our reunion better than perfect. Our reunion would make time stop moving. When we finally came together, every inch of her would be covered with blood and tears. I wanted my hands to slip over her skin when I buried my cock into her cunt. I needed her to be branded with bruises from gripping her too hard as I fucked her. I loved leaving evidence of my claim on her body. I could see one of my marks on her inner arm right now. To add more would be the fruit of all my labor.
1
Redand blue lights lit up the darkened neighborhood. My cheeks were wet and cold from the nonstop tears that rolled down them. Dried blood covered my hands and knees. Ethan’s hysterical voice as the paramedics had rushed Isabelle out of his house was playing on repeat in my head, drowning out all the noise around me.
“What happened?” he demanded as he pushed through the crowd that had congregated in the foyer to watch the paramedics hurry Isabelle downstairs on a gurney.
I froze in my descent behind them on the stairs, my eyes locking on Ethan just as he realized who was being carried away. The widening of his green eyes and the horror and panic that filled them gutted me. I stopped breathing and tears blinded me as he rushed to her side with frantic words:
“Isabelle!”
“What happened?!”
“Who did this to her?!”
The ambulance had long since rushed off with Ethan trailing it in his own car. Now I was standing in the middle of the street in front of Ethan’s house, staring down the dark road as if I could still see the ambulance and Ethan speeding away. Police, crime-scene personnel, and a few people who had been attending Ethan’s birthday party were moving around me. The police had finished taking my statement, but were still speaking to Keelan, Knox, and Creed.
The dried blood on my skin made it feel tight. I drew my hands up to stare at them. They were trembling. Strangely, the blood didn’t trigger an episode. Maybe because I was already standing in hell, a new level that my mind would no doubt drag me back to later.
Staring at my hands, I hated how familiar the sight was. The smell, too. The pungent scent of pennies had been embedded in my nose since Keelan and I had found Isabelle, butchered and barely alive in one of the bathrooms in Ethan’s house.
Hehad found me.
You are mine. X.
He had written it in Isabelle’s blood—a message for me on the bathroom mirror, because he knew I’d find her.
A sob barreled its way up my throat.
Oh, Isabelle.
The guilt and sorrow were so heavy that my chest felt moments from caving in. My body demanded that I just curl up and cry. That demand nearly made my knees buckle. I fought it, though.
Fisting my bloody hands, I dropped them back at my sides and closed my tear-filled eyes.
I’m sorry, Isabelle.
I’m so, so sorry.
I wished I could have gone to the hospital with Ethan—to be there for Isabelle and him.
But I couldn’t.
I had to put distance between me and them. Even now, I could feelhimwatching. And if I stayed here, he’d go after Ethan next, and then someone closer to me.
Maybe he already has.
I glanced atKnox, Keelan, and Creed. Colt’s absence made my heart pound painfully in my chest. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Knox and Creed since Keelan and I’d split up from them to search for Colt around Ethan’s house, but I’d overheard Knox tell Keelan, just as EMS had rushed into the bathroom to help Isabelle, that he and Creed hadn’t found Colt.
The thought of Mr. X taking Colt terrified me so much that I felt like I was going to vomit.
I inhaled deeply through my nose and exhaled long and slow through my mouth as I stared back down the street in the direction the ambulance had driven.
