And then… cookies.
Sweet, warm. The kind she used to make on cold nights.
Xena.
There’s nothing here but gas and smoke, and still the smell overwhelms me. I know she’s not real—it’s the conjured-up version my mind has created whenever she's not around. She haunted me in prison, and now she haunts me again.
“Find me, baby,” she pleads, taking a step back away from me until she disappears behind a tree, and I snap back into the present.
The present where I’m holding the prick by his collar as he cries and pleads for mercy—he will not be receiving. “Do you know a man named Alec?” I ask, my voice low, hiding the burning fury within me.
He shakes his head. “No. Please, no.”
“If I check your car, I won’t find any masks that match the driver of that Mustang?” I cock my head to the parked car behind me, and the way his eyes open and his breath catches, I can tell he knows whoever the driver was. Which is good, I assumed that much. “Time is ticking.”
He opens his mouth to lie.
My fist meets his jaw before the words even finish forming.
Blood spatters. Teeth snap.
I fucking hate liars.
I crouch down and grab his face, forcing him to look at me.
“Let’s try that again,” I growl. “Do. You. Know. Alec?”
This time, the stench of ammonia bleeds through the scent of woods and cookies. “Do I scare you?” A smirk stretches across my face. “I’ll show you exactly what I am capable of if you don’t use that mouth and talk.”
“Fi–ne,” he stammers out slowly, raising his hand as my fist comes back in the air, waiting for a response like a guillotine. “I know him from ODM. One of the guys in charge—e. He hosts the raves.”
“And you participate?” I already know what the answer is, I just want to confirm and to send a message. Because, unlike what people say, blood always sends a message. Releasing his collar, I take hold of his neck.
“See you in hell.”
He shakes his head to plead, but it's cut short by the snap of his neck as I twist it. His face freezes in shock, eyes wide and glazed. Steadying my shaking hands, before moving from his neck, and grabbing his collar. I drag his body toward the driver's door of the wrecked car, reach in, and pop the trunk. Then I continue dragging him to the back of the car, where she waits for me with a sad smile. Her mascara runs down her face; her brown eyes are dull with drugs.
I push up the trunk, and sure enough, the mask is there. The same neon mask with neon stitches across the lips. Grabbing the mask, I place it on my face and then grab his body, stuffing it inside his trunk. Just as the hissing turns into a sickening pop, flames erupt from the front of the car quickly, and I slam the trunk shut.
The fire begins to eat everything it touches.
The approaching tires break the silence. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Chino shaking his head inside the car. Kai meets my gaze, his knuckles white around the wheel. I wonder if he pictures his own death when he looks at me. He thinks he can bide his time—pray for salvation for Tokyo—but both are condemned. Unluckily for them, their sentence is death.
Chapter Eleven
Tokyo
“Why did you lie to him?” I ask Alec as he walks towards the bathroom, the blood from Heartless still staining his pale skin. He turns slowly, unbuttons his pants, and licks his top lip before walking towards his backpack that’s resting on the floor.
“I didn’t lie.”
My pulse quickens, and my thumb begins to play with Kai’s silver band. My thin, bleached brows pull together. “What?”
“The real question is, why do you think I’m still lying?” He clicks his tongue as he grabs an envelope from inside his backpack. “Your own father said that you weren’t related. Did he not?”
The words settle in my brain like an infection, flooding with memories of that night and how Oscar smiled as he told me I wasn’t his and tried to rape me. How would he know such a thing? My eyes shoot to Alec’s just in time for his smirk to grow wider. Sicker. My arms wrap around myself. I didn't wantto believe him then, but as I stare at the white envelope Alec is offering me, I swallow the lump building inside my throat. “When?”
Tears build, threatening to spill, but I hold them in. Alec kneels in front of me, not offering me any comfort, but to see my ruin. How the mascara runs down my face from all the tears I cried tonight, and his cum that’s dried on my face.
