Page 41 of Bleed with Me

“Yes, miss,” he squeaked.

I stretched my protesting limbs and picked Dorian’s picture from the floor, hearing the elevator’s ding. Lucas burst inside half a minute later, hair wild, pupils blown, chest heaving. Fear clung to him like a second skin.

“I hate you,” he announced without greeting, slamming the door of my walk-in closet shut. “Deeply, from the soul outward.”

“Hello to you, too,” I replied, leaning against the wall. “You’re late.”

“Late?” His voice cracked as he spun toward me, eyes gleaming with a manic mix of panic and outrage. “Malin’s people were breathing down my codes. Do you understand what that means? My servers are dead. My house is a graveyard of burnt circuits. If there is an afterlife for routers, mine are screaming.”

“At least they died heroically,” I snorted, muffling my laughter with my hand.

He glared, dragging a hand through his curls.

“I wiped everything,” he rushed on, words spilling fast. “Servers, backups, the backups of the backups. Every little pretty piece of code I wrote in the last five years is gone. My house is dark. Even my fridge is traumatized. And I ran here like a cartoon character with a bomb behind him. We’re so unbelievably fucked.”

“You’re here,” I pointed out, taking his elbow and dragging him toward the floor with me. “Not in Malin’s dungeon, not in an unmarked grave. I call that a win.”

He sat beside me, lifting his eyes to look at the board hanging proudly on the wall.

“This is insane. When did you snap more photos?” he asked, his tone floating somewhere between horror and resignation. “You almost died today, and your coping mechanism is to enlarge your shrine?”

“It’s called motivation,” I replied, shrugging. “And don’t pretend you’re surprised.”

He stared at Dorian’s pictures, then at me, then back at the pictures.

“You know what the worst part is?” he muttered, disbelief written on his face. “He probably likes it.”

My heart did an embarrassing little jump.

“What?” I squeaked like a trapped mouse.

“Dorian,” Lucas clarified, rolling his eyes. “Your psycho prince charming. I heard everything. He lied to his serial killer brother to hide your very recognizable ass. That’s not normal behavior. That’s… your behavior. He’s as screwed in the head as you are.”

Warmth spread through my chest like someone lit a candle in there.

“He didn’t have to,” I whispered. “He could have given me away.”

“Exactly.” Lucas gestured wildly. “But he didn’t. He chose the fun path.” He gave me a pointed look, topped with a fake victorious smile. “Congratulations, you found yourself a matching brand of insanity. If you didn’t nearly kill him with experimental drugs, I’d call it romantic.”

“Almost kill is a strong term,” I mumbled under my breath, earning another look full of incredulity from him.

“He was in a coma for three days and foamed at the mouth. That qualifies.”

“Don’t remind me.” I shook my head, disturbing the pictures of Dorian’s cramps and convulsions.

Silence settled between us. It was heavy but not suffocating. We shared too many secrets to sit comfortably in dark spaces for long.

“I destroyed everything,” Lucas repeated, quieter this time. “If they search my place, they’ll find nothing.” He turned to me, his face contorted with concern. “But Malin knows someone was there. He knows someone outsmarted his system, even if it was just for a few minutes. That bruises his ego. Bruised ego in a psychopath equals disaster. We need a plan before he starts putting faces and names together.”

“He already started,” I exhaled, swallowing. “He said he smelled a female perfume. I need to destroy it.”

Lucas put his face in his hands.

“Great. Fantastic,” he whined through his fingers. “So not only do we have a genius killer on our asses, his nose works, too.”

“He doesn’t know who I am,” I replied stubbornly. “I will erase every trace and connection. And don’t forget that Dorian didn’t give me up.”

Lucas peered at me from between his fingers, blinking as if he wasn’t sure of what he was seeing.