Donovan is so sweet he’d probably let me climb onto his bed and get on top of him. He probably wouldn’t question it if I had a knife in my hand.
The thought flashes behind my lids: me straddling him, blood on my knife, crimson smeared across his skin.
His hard body beneath mine, nude and freckle-covered and…
“Fuck,” I hiss, walking home from the class I just finished sitting in on. I’m scheduled to help at the local art therapy center for a credit toward my degree starting next week. It was all sad-eyed kids and broken teens, and I could barely pay attention to the administrator because I could see myself in their faces.
I could see everything that had led me to the thoughts I was having about Donovan, the urges that were nearly taking me over.
And I could see all the ways I’d ignored help and let myself become what I am now.
I turn down one of the darker alleys, my fingers digging into my pockets to ward off the cold. It’s fucking freezing here, and the warmest thing I have is the hoodie I stole from Donovan. I wasn’t going to wear that to an art class and fuck it up… so I have on a thin jacket with the hood pulled up and a pair of dark gloves. It was the best I could do.
“Hey there,” a gruff voice rings out, and my fingers clench, wrapping around the hilt of the switchblade I keep tucked away at all times. “Little cold to be walking alone, isn’t it?”
I don’t stop moving when I speak. “Yeah, you think walking with someone magically raises the temperature?” I’m careful when I slip around another corner, my eyes flicking up to the buildings around me.
Old.
Abandoned.
This is already a run-down part of the city, and I don’t see a goddamn storefront or camera in sight. Just dilapidated walls and shattered windows. Empty eyes staring back at my empty soul.
Right.
“I think there are things you could do that would warm you up, sweetheart. Why don’t you let me show you?”
The feel of a touch on my shoulder is the only signal I need. I turn with my hands still in my pocket and face the man in front of me—he’s at least six feet tall, with greasy hair and sallow, pockmarked skin.
I can’t see the beauty in the lines of his face, but I can see the art in the way his eyes widen when I lean forward and flick the button on my knife, letting the blade spill out and into his stomach.
He lets out a groan, and his hands are rough when they wrap around my throat… but I’m faster when I raise my knife and stab it into the side of his neck. There’s precision in the movement,because I know exactly where to strike to make a person bleed out.
It’s fast—a hot burst that washes over my chest and soaks into the fabric of the only damn jacket I own. I’d be more angry if I could take a breath, more angry if I wasn’t being drowned in the sight of the man’s eyes going wide, shocked, and then dull, as I bring the knife up and twist it into his sternum, searching for a home in the center of his heart.
He stumbles back, and I ride his body to the ground. This… this isn’t exactly what I wanted. I usually try to be methodical when I kill. Precise.
But we’re also in a back alley, and this guy looks like trouble.
And luckily, it’s cold enough that I have on gloves. Gloves and a toque, as Donovan would say.
He’s still breathing when I look down at him, wet gurgles that leave bubbles of crimson on his lips. I try to memorize the image of it as I bring my knife down again and again and again.
It’s messy and wild and will look like the attack of opportunity that it was, just not for the reason anyone would think. Chaotic. Messy. Impulsive. Violent.
Which is exactly what itshouldlook like. I’m not even going to try to hide it, or it’ll look more suspicious. I just rifle in his pockets while his hands bat at me weakly.
He has a gun that he didn’t pull—idiot—and two wallets that aren’t his.
I steal the cash out of them and leave the gun beside him as he bleeds out. My gaze flicks over him one last time, memorizing the sight in front of me.
Body on the ground, blood pooling around him like a liquid lake, dragging him to his death. I can see it in my head, the outline of it on canvas as I watch his chest rise and fall…
Rise and fall.
Rise and fall… and then stutter and stop.
I tear my jacket off, balling it up to hide the liquid staining against the black, and shiver. I’m lucky I have on a thin black undershirt, or people would see the blood on my skin as I dart out of the alley and leave his body on the ground to freeze.
