And tomorrow morning, I would purchase the Glenfallow Chronicles, the popular newspaper, just to be sure tonight’s escapade had been documented. I would make sure I left the body where eyes could see. I would love to inflict the city with pure terror. I needed them restless, afraid, running from a ghost they couldn’t see.
So long as I was in control, Scotland must not sleep tonight.
I could almost picture tomorrow’s article.
‘The Crimson Artisan Strikes Again’.
They better get the details of the murders right this time. They better praise me well.‘The Crimson Artisan, a killer with a surgical hand, and an artist’s eye. Each body is his canvas, each mutilation a masterpiece.’
You could say with his silly, little sketches, my brother was the artist. But make no mistake. I was the sculptor.
A staccato of footsteps reverberated in the room as two soldiers filed in on cue to do what they knew without being told. They would take the body, strip it for anything of value–the organs, if they were in good condition–sell them for millions, then toss whatever was left into the incinerator, reducing it to nothing but ashes.
While the soldiers circled the body, I felt a vibration against my thigh. A bloodied hand slipped into my pocket only to return with the unfamiliar cell phone I found earlier.
I was turning the room upside down this morning, hoping to find a clue when instead, I saw one of Callan’s cell phones under the bed. I didn’t know how it ended up there. I figured it fell and he never bothered to pick it up. He had at least five of those.
I had pulled it out and tried to turn it on. Luckily it was charged. Since I was searching for clues literally anywhere–I had actually gone down to the kitchen for the first time in forever this morning, opening cabinets and lifting pots, searching for something, anything I could work with. Anything that would lead me to the ledger so I could find it on time and focus on my fun.
Anyway, I had kept the phone in my pocket to go through it later when I was done with this soldier.
And now it was actually…ringing?
I turned it over in my hand. Elizabeth, the caller’s ID read.
“Elizabeth,” I hummed, my brows furrowed, tongue curled inward and pressing against the wall of my left cheek.
I didn’t know any Elizabeth, never met one. I had gone through the journal Callan and I shared messages through and I didn’t remember coming across this name there.
This only meant one thing. While I was chained away as always, my twin brother had been very busy with other things.
My thoughts began to spiral. This was it, wasn’t it? The reason Callan refused to release his body to me on time?
Had he gotten carried away because of this…Elizabeth?
A sick kind of amusement slithered through me as I moved my finger to swipe at the screen. But before I could even touch the green icon, a violent, thrashing sensation ripped through my skull. Immediately, my vision distorted, twisting at the end like heat waves. A weight pressed against my mind, a force clawing and shoving at the walls of my consciousness.
That son of a bitch.
Callan was trying to take back control. Was this idiot actually being serious right now?
Not only did he give me control days late, he was trying to snatch it back now? The audacity almost made me laugh.
Why was he doing this?
Because of her? Now that I knew about his filthy, little secret, he was afraid, trying to protect her from…me?
For fuck sake, had this idiot never seen a woman before? What was so special about this creature that he didn’t just become reckless enough to lose the ledger that held this fucking empire within its pages, but also greedy to the point where he didn’t want to share his body with me anymore?
I inhaled sharply, each question answering itself. I gritted my teeth, my fingers twitching on my side.
My muscles were rigid with barely contained fury.
For weeks I had been locked away, curled up in the darkness, scratching at walls as chains dug into my skin. When I finally stepped out, I barely had time to go hunting, and instead, I was stuck searching desperately for a ledger whose disappearance had nothing to do with me but my stupid brother. And now that stupid brother was trying to take back control from me?
What a pathetic love-struck fool.
My gaze flickered to where the corpse had sprawled before the soldiers hauled it out. Blood still pooled on the spot, soaking into the cracks of the concrete, the scent dancing in the air like a metallic perfume.
