As we’re leaving, the Reverend’s shadow appears.Not him, but a man who aims to take his place one day.Pleasant Southeran, snake tattoo slithering up his neck, checking the perimeter.A shotgun strapped to his back.
Slapping my hand over her mouth, I drag Becki out of his line of sight.On the walk back, we keep to the shadows.But my head is noisy with thoughts of why anyone is guarding the old church and its basement.
We make it to the clubhouse quick.I lead her to my room.Her room now.This time, when I lock the chain, she doesn’t fight.
She watches me, her eyes dark and hungry.
“You almost kissed me,” she whispers.
I stare back.“And I won’t make that mistake again.”
Closing the door, I lock it.
I lie.
Because next time?
I ain’t stopping at her mouth.
Chapter 11
Royal
I should leave her alone.
That is the first lie I tell myself when I march back to my room in the basement, blood boiling, Marlena’s glitter shirt still burning a hole in my thoughts.I should take the evidence straight to Legend, should gather Oaks and Rye and map out every sick connection between those missing girls and Pearly Gates.
But my boots take me somewhere else.
Straight back to Becki.I shouldn’t want this.Shouldn’t want her.
Not when the world is falling apart outside these walls.Not when her daddy is carving girls out of the dark and feeding something in the tunnels of Kentucky.Not when she is chained to my bed, because I chained her there, and still manages to tempt every ugly part of me I’ve spent a lifetime burying.
But wanting her is a sickness, and I’m long past pretending I want to get well.
I stop outside the door like an idiot.Like a man who has forgotten the rules he carved into himself.The hallway is dim and silent except for the single buzzing fluorescent light at the far end.It flickers like the clubhouse itself is warning me away.
Turn around.Walk away.
Don’t touch her.
I ignore it.
I unlatch the door and slip inside.
Becki is situated on the edge of the bed, knees drawn up, chain wrapped around her wrist like she’s wearing jewelry from the devil.She looks up when the door closes behind me, and the expression on her face tells me she knew I would come back.
Of course she did.
She always knows which way I’m already leaning.
She knows me too fucking well.
“You forget something?”she asks, voice too calm.
“No,” I say.“You did.”
She raises one eyebrow.“What did I forget?”
