Nothing about my life isn’t real, beautiful girl.
I want to say it, but she probably doesn’t even remember the morning she changed my life in a single moment. She has no idea she fucking saved me, just the once, but the once was all I needed.
She swallows hard, her throat rolling, and her gaze comes back to mine. Her hands are in her lap now, and she looks like a good little girl, someone I could easily corrupt.
Would she let me fuck her in latex, only an opening for her cunt, so I could use her like I used that girl over the summer?
WouldI?
If I’m not detached from sex, though, I can’t do it.
It doesn’t mean anything and I can never let it.
My parents taught me that.
“Do you want to know what was on your doorstep, Sloane?” I whisper the words inside the restaurant while the storm howls without.
She glances at my hands, so close to her body, I could rip her apart if I wanted. Slowly, she nods.
“Coffin nails.” I let my eyes fall over her body, then back up. “Do you know what I could do to you with a coffin nail?”
Her nostrils flare as she breathes in. “You wouldn’t hurt me.” But it sounds like a question.
“You have no idea what I would do to you. I could drive them into your wrists. Nail you to a fucking bed frame. I could spread you apart and really hurt you with them.”
Her lips press together. She narrows her eyes.Good girl.But she doesn’t say a word, and more importantly, she doesn’t fucking run.
She should.
“And that’s me being nice.”
She takes a breath. Her chest rises. Then falls. “Why were there coffin nails on my doorstep? Who put them there?” Her voice is paper thin. Her complexion has gone nearly gray. She doesn’t ask about what I said, and she tries not to show it, but I can see it in her eyes.
She’s terrified.
So I smile at her. And I fucking lie.“I did.”
She shakes her head once. “Why? Why would you tell me that and why would you text me so early and?—”
I cut her off with the truth this time: “Because I fucking wanted to.”
“Liar.”
I don’t speak. I just watch her.
“You’re so full of shit and you’re nowhere near as scary as you try to be.”
I almost laugh, but I bite it back. “Not to you,” I admit instead. “Not yet.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
STORM
The Hollows are under the darkest cover of the storm. Rain beats hard against my windshield and I strain my eyes to see in the gloom. The paved road is smooth; the asphalt probably hasn’t been here but a few months. There are no lines dividing up lanes on this street and I’m not entirely surprised. It’s desolate out here. Technically, the Hollows is this entire corner of Stone Fell, half an hour from the city center, rolling hills and mountains surrounding fields and forest both. But aside from a single trailer park tucked up back by a creek, I haven’t seen a house yet and according to the GPS, there’s a big one on Riddle Lane.
I’m sure my parents would know all about this place, considering they’ve consistently warned me about sticking to my own town’s lines with work. But some of their secrets I’d rather stay in the dark about. I learned that in gruesome ways growing up. Besides, I don’t want to ask them for help if I don’t have to. It makes me feel like I owe them, or I forgive them, and I don’t have room for either.
