Mallory?Hugo Whit’s kid.She’s only inches from me, and so much younger than I remember.She’s still girlishly soft around the jaw and excessively swayed by fashion if her ham-fistedly pencilled-on eyebrows are anything to go on.Her eyes however, are the stone cold glare of a killer.
I’ve heard that teenaged girls are like walking evil.Never had much involvement with them myself, but I had first hand lessons on how warped a woman’s mind can get courtesy of my mother.Frankly, it’s a miracle I made it as far as adulthood without winding up as some brutal sadistic dick or sleeping in the gutter.
I know what saved me.Landing the role inSunsetters.
“Are you going to puke?You’d better not do it on me.”
I blink and she slaps me again.“Hey, wake up, I only gave you a little bit.I’m sure you’ve shot up before.”
Nah, actually.Narcotics aren’t my thing.
Her fist tightens on the front of my shirt, tugging until the fabric is so taut I’m sure it’s going to rip.
“Are you listening, arsehole?You’d better be paying attention to me.”
The buttons give.It takes a moment to realise they’ve been sliced off.She has a knife!A fuck off big kitchen knife, the sort that pro chefs use, and that probably came straight out of the drawer at home.I doubt she’s old enough to legally purchase such a thing.
“Mallory,” I croak.I attempt to turn my head, but the throb behind my temples immediately turns into another toll of bells in my ears.“What’s going on?”
“Payback.You fucked everything up, so I’m returning the favour, and then you won’t be able to do it again.Nobody will want you anymore.No one will be tempted.”
It would be helpful at this point if I understood what exactly I’m supposed to have done.The only connection between us is the commercial and Whit, but that was eighteen months back, and I haven’t seen the man since.Other than the one brief exchange at the gala dinner, Mallory and I have never spoken.
It’s probably not wise to ask, but if I know, I might at least manage some sort of defence.“What did I do, Mallory?”
“You know.”
That’s just it, I don’t.
“You ruined everything,” she snarls in exasperation.“You and Bask turned him.Made him into a filthy faggot like you, and now he doesn’t want me anymore.Our home, our family, it’s ruined because of you.It was perfect before you came along.Perfect.”
“I’m sorry about your parents getting divorced, but people fall out of love.”
The black of her eyes is going to be burned into my memory for the rest of my days if I live through this.
“No.You caused it.You and Bask.You turned him, stole him from me when you put your thing in him and fucked him in your dirty, nasty way.”
She makes it sound like we’re vampires and we sucked him dry and then filled him up with fresh preternatural spunk instead of blood.
“He says it’s all a lie, but it wasn’t a lie.It was real.He loved me.I knew.We had our secrets.I saw all his signs.”
She also makes it sound like they were lovers, which even in my addle-brained state, is definitelyuh, twisted.I mean, he’s her dad, right.I know that doesn’t necessarily spell sanity, but still… At least there was no biological connection between me and my bastard stepdad.Hell, he wasn’t even officially that.Just some shithead who wheedled his way into my mother’s flat and never left.
Maybe I’m just reading more into her expression than is actually there.Maybe they were just super close.But if that’s true, how could she not know he was into guys?I knew it before we’d ever shaken hands.
“I didn’t turn him, Mallory.”I’m not responsible for his or anyone else’s sexual preferences or conduct.“Your father, Whit, he instigated it.It’s what he wanted.I only agreed to join in because—” Damned if I can actually remember why I agreed to fuck him.I was drunk and, “—he begged me.”He’d been angling for it throughout the shoot, and then after he’d finally jammed his dick into Adam, he went all out whining to be the filling in a salami sandwich.
Thankfully, I’ve wits enough not to tell her that.
“That’s not true.You’re making it up.He’s not like that.He wouldn’t do that.”
I hate to break it to her, but… “He might not have beenoutbut neither of us were his first.”
“Liar!”
Okay, so maybe the truth isn’t the way to go.“Look, I’m sorry.I get that it’s difficult to hear things about your dad, to learn he’s not the person you thought he was, but…”
Her hand closes around my throat and the knifepoint tickles the skin to the right of my eye.I’m a goddamned idiot for forgetting she had hold of it.She draws the blade down along the ridge of my cheek bone, leaving behind a line of fire.Wetness that has nothing to do with the tears leaking from my eyes runs down my cheek.Shit!I daren’t move.Daren’t even blink or swallow.If I do, that blade’s going to end up in my eye, and then I’m likely enough dead, never mind disfigured.
