My eyes lifted. His motions were as graceful as ever as he traversed the uneven ground. His muscles slid effortlessly under his clothes so perfectly. He was even wearing blue jeans today rather than his normal suit attire, and while I liked the way he looked in a suit, I did admire the jeans.
This was completely irrational. All of this.
Serial killers were not redeemable. They weren’t good. Theyweren’tnice. They werekillers. Cold-blooded murderers. And the thing was, I held no crazy ideas that I had the ability to change him. I didn’t want tochange him. I held no delusion that he was ‘nice if I dug deep enough’ or that he would kill anyone and everyone but me.
I knew I was going to die when this was over. I knew that. I understood that Everett was who he was and while every piece of me hated that, there was a small part of me that liked it too. He was a murderer. He beat the shit out of people for a living. It was his job. He took what he wanted, fuck everyone else. He knew who he was and he wore that with a kind of sadistic pride I had become overwhelmingly addicted to.
My skin warmed at the idea of him, and I scowled. “Goddammit,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” Everett asked, looking back.
I hardened my expression, looking towards the trees. “Nothing.”“He’s using you,”I lectured myself.“Using your pussy to pay off a debt. Stop being a cock addicted pathetic whore and get over yourself.”These feelings weren’t real. They were caused by the addiction. They weren’t real.
15 minutes of hiking later and we finally broke through into a large open, meadow made up of dirt and dead grass, the trees cut down in a wide circle with targets set up across the way against a mountainous pile of dirt.
To me it seemed like some backwoods target practice set up by a pair of hillbillies who wanted to play around with guns while they drank without worrying about killing anyone.
But hey, this was the first time I had ever been to a gun range, so perhaps this was just the normal way of doing things nowadays.
I slowed to a stop while Everett made his way to what looked like the center of the tree line on our side of the space, directly across from the targets.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and turned back to the targets. Black and white bullseyes. I had my doubts that I would even hit them. Yeah, I fantasized about shooting guns, about the sound of skulls shattering and blood splattering, but I was also rational enough to know that I had never actually shot one. My aim was going to suck, and Everett was going to make some comment about how I was turned on by the idea but couldn’t actually follow through.
I frowned at the thought. God, this was a terrible idea. Worse than terrible.
“You can’t use a gun with your mind,” he commented flatly.
My eyes swung back to him. His gloves were off, his jacket unzipped to reveal a regular dark-blue cotton tee. So normal for someone like him. Too normal. “Why are you still wearing that mask?” I asked instead.
He looked up, his icy blue eyes unwavering. He snapped the magazine into the pistol and straightened. “Because there are always people watching, even when there aren’t.” He pointed the gun to a spot right in front of him.
That answer was surprisingly truthful, lacking the usual bitterness that he carried, and I hated that. What was up with him today? He was acting strange. Explosive and then fine…
Just like Steven always acted.
I studied his face, pulling a little on my sleeves. But he wasn’t Steven.
Was he?
I lifted my chin, suddenly desperate to get back to the way things had been between us. Fighting, challenging, fucking, storming off. It was normal. It was something I could depend on. “Evelyn doesn’t wear a mask,” I reminded him.
He pointed to the spot again and didn’t say a word.
I frowned deeply, rolled my eyes, and headed for him. As soon as I stepped up right where he wanted me, he said, “It’s not asimportant for them to wear masks as it is for us,” he explained, walking behind me. “Sometimes they do, it’s their choice.”
“Because they’re women?” I asked, honestly trying to start a fight. Trying to give him a reason to shout, snarl, lecture. Whatever it took to get rid of this feeling growing in my chest. The feelings, the emotions, the fear that he was just another Steven Pelgard, waiting for his chance to flip the script.
“Face the target,” he instructed evenly.
I worked my jaw and turned towards the target, centering myself on it. “Because they’re women?” I pushed, glanced back.
He grabbed the top of my head and forced my eyes back on the target.
I jerked my head from his grip and readjusted myself, gripping my hands at my sides. Dick.
“Because their job is to protect us,” he answered, stepping closer to me. “Protect people from us.”
My breath caught as the heat of his body seeped into my back, my mind slowly going silent of everything but the way he felt standing behind me.
