The long-sleeve black shirt clings to his muscles, and his pants are perfectly tailored for his long limbs. As I study him, my eyes catch on the black leather gloves he’s wearing.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Travis shouts, glaring down at me on the ground.
“Why are you dressed like that?” I retort. “With the gloves and everything?” My mind tries to paint a picture of him that I can’t quite finish. Even googling everything I have about him, he’s a mystery. You would think a public figure like him would be a little more transparent.
“You’re injured,” Travis says, shaking his head at me as he points to my knees. Obviously, I felt that something was wrong when I fell. I guess I didn’t realize the severity of the scrape until he points it out. “You need to go back to your cabin and clean the wound immediately. A severe bacterial contamination can lead to an infection that spreads to your entire body, possibly resulting in limb loss, sepsis, or even death.”
He’s really worried.
I stand up, with no help from Travis. If we’re going to be together, he’s seriously going to have to work on his chivalry. I wipe the dirt from my hands and look down at my knee, poking the wound gently.
“Don’t touch it,” Travis scolds me, rolling his eyes.
“Thank you for caring about my well-being,” I say, flashing him a soft smile.
He shakes his head and exhales a long breath before running his fingers through his hair. He takes the gloves off and clenches his fists tightly together and glares at me with his lips in a thin line.
“What are you doing here?” He folds his arms in front of him, clearly annoyed at my presence. I’m a little confused because I definitely thought he wanted me here. After all,hewas watchingme.
“Well, I thought you might be getting lonely up here all by yourself,” I delicately say, bringing my hands to my hair to twirl a wavy coil around my finger. “Besides, it’s pretty lonely at Ryan’s place. I was thinking we could keep each other company.”
Travis stares at me, and I feel the hope blossoming in my chest. He’s going to invite me in and pour each of us a glass of wine, and I’m going to jump his bones until neither of us can see straight. By the end of the night, he’s going to be on his hands and knees, begging me to stay with him.
Instead, he turns around and climbs back into the car. The headlights turn on as he slams the door shut and puts it back in drive.
“Where are you going?”
He rolls down the window but doesn’t look at me as he drives toward the garage. “You’ve completely thrown off my schedule. I’ll have to do this another day.”
The garage door closes behind his car, and I’m left standing in his driveway, blood trickling down my leg from the open wound on my knee. I’m confused, and frankly, my feelings are a little hurt as well.
I head back to the cabin, giving Travis some time to cool down. He’ll come around eventually.
Chapter Seven
Travis
All that planning for nothing. Today was supposed to be the day. But thenJuniper. Sage. Featherstonecame into my life and ruined it. I was looking forward to finally being able to calm down and relax after the kill.
I suppose Kevin can count his blessings that he has another day to beg on the streets for money and booze.
Ihadtwo hours scheduled for the kill that are now free. I hardly know what to do with myself. The rush from the kill is exhilarating, and I usually schedule self-pleasure time afterward. I look at my calendar and see it penciled in for the time I anticipated being home.
Frustrated and angry, I sit down on my couch and spend the next sixty-eight minutes thinking about killing Sage. That’s when I start to get bored with imagining all the ways she could die.
I decide to try something different and just relax for a bit—chill, as people would say. Grabbing my phone, I pull up my music app and scroll down the most popular playlists.
Romantic Acoustic Favorites? No, thank you.
’90s Urban Hits. Who listens to this nonsense?
I finally settle on classic rock, the least annoying option. I click on the playlist, and to my disdain, a rock ballad starts to play. The singer’s raspy voice comes through the speaker: “I miss you so hard ...”
With a frustrated growl, I stop the song so fast my phone slips from my grasp and smashes against the floor.Ugh.
I pick up my phone and stuff it in my pocket. I spend the next few minutes sitting there seething about nothing going right.
When it’s finally time for the next event on my schedule, I stand up and walk to my bathroom. I undress and turn on the water, making sure it’s the precise temperature I like before stepping in. Water cascades down my back, and the absence of blood rinsing off my skin is palpable. There’s nothing like seeing that after a kill.
