His (4 page)

She didn’t trust me. Smart girl.

Taking a slow step back on her injured foot, she turned to run. I sprinted forward, and with a single fell motion caught her arm while I pulled the syringe from my pocket, jabbed the needle into her neck. There wasn’t a lot left inside, but I hoped it would be enough.

The batteries. I knew I had forgotten something. The damned alarm system, the most important thing of all. The electronic net that protected me. And I had gone and forgotten the batteries! Stupid spring cleaning!

Her delicate hands—librarian hands, I thought idly—clasped at the syringe, then at my wrists. The sedative was already beginning to work, and her nails scratched me only slightly. Soon she was limp in my arms.

I couldn’t believe it. All of the luck in the world, the opportunity of getting to kill early, all of my elation was gone. I cursed my own stupidity. Then I turned back to the task at hand: getting rid of her. My witness.

I lifted her up, her round curves soft and voluptuous against my skin. As I hefted her in my arms, I smelled her shampoo, a soft vanilla scent. It tickled my nerves and aroused me.

Lust, intervening.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind an interruption, but her presence raised some questions that I could not possibly ignore. She would be awake again, sooner rather than later, and I would ask her then.

Was it mere chance that she landed here outside of my window? Or was she part of some larger plot, a police investigation, maybe? The forest around me was black and quiet, but snipers could be closing in at any moment. I hoped that if they shot me, it would be in the head.

Calmly, then, accepting whatever fate came to me, I made my way back to the house, carrying her already-stirring body in my arms. No snipers shot me dead. Good. Excellent. Now there was only her to deal with.

The shadow swirled at the base of my consciousness.
You could kill her
, it said.

“No,” I whispered to myself.
Not an innocent.

You could keep her for yourself. Torture her. Keep her as a pet.

She moaned softly and I held her tight to my chest, feeling strangely protective. The shadow would not have her. Step by step I made my way to the front door, all the while listening to the dark voice that murmured terrible thoughts. There must be another way to deal with this.

Kill her. Take her, then kill her. Take her—

I shut the door behind me, closing out the darkness.

     Kat    

The world bled into my vision. Dizzy, I raised my head and looked up. I was in a hallway. The front door was right there. I was inside. Inside his house.
Oh, god.

“Wha… what?” I mumbled. I blinked hard, the dizziness making the floor under me fuzzy and indistinct. It was hard. Wood.

“Who are you?”

I turned my head to see Fabio standing next to me, his knife in his hand. Don’t be afraid, he’d said, and then he’d stuck me with something in my neck.

Well, I wasn’t afraid. I was fucking
terrified
.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. My hand shook in front of me as I shielded myself with one arm. My other hand was planted on the floor. Another wave of dizziness swept through me. How long had I been out? “I didn’t... I didn’t see anything!”

“Really? You were running quite fast for someone who didn’t see anything.”

“I didn’t!” I touched my neck and my hand came away with a small smear of blood. It must have been a needle. Something to paralyze me. My mouth was cottony. He leaned toward me and I cringed back. “Please! Please! I didn—”

“Are you with the police?”

I stared in blank terror at the knife he held in his hand. The sharp edge glinted in the dim hallway light. If I told him yes, would he kill me? Or if I told him no? I looked up to his face, trying to make out his features. He didn’t... he didn’t look angry at all. He looked calm. I swallowed. Maybe it was okay. Maybe I could reason my way out of this.

“Please,” I said, trying to speak calmly. “I’m sorry for trespassing—”

Big mistake. The man grabbed me by my hair and pulled me to my feet. I screamed and tried to reach for the door, but he jerked my head back against his chest, raising the knife to my throat.

“Shhh,” he said. I stopped mid-scream, my mouth still hanging open. The metal edge of the knife was cold as ice on my throat. If I shifted my weight, it would slice me open as easy as anything.
Ohnononono
.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” the man said. “But I will if I have to.”

“Please, no,” I whimpered. “Please—”

“No more talking,” the man said. “Just smile and nod for yes, or shake your head for no. Okay?”

I opened my mouth to say okay, then realized my mistake. I pressed my lips together and nodded slightly. The edge of the knife was sharp against my skin.

“One more time, then. Are you with the police?”

I shook my head no.

“Is your car out on the road?”

I nodded yes.

“Is there anybody else out there?”

I hesitated, then shook my head no.

“Does anybody know you’re gone?”

What would he do to me? Would he kill me if he knew somebody was out there looking for me? Or the other way around? I didn’t know, and I was so scared that I fell back on the truth. I couldn’t help the tears running down my face as I shook my head.

No
. Nobody knows I’m gone. Nobody knows I’m here. There’s nobody coming to save me.

     Gav    

Spring cleaning was my favorite time of year. Cleaning itself was glorious. The shiny sink, the gleaming floors. The bright windows looking out on the pine trees.

And in spring I allowed myself to kill early, before the shadow crept in on me and began to rot me from the inside out. I had
really
been looking forward to this kill, to getting rid of the shadow. And then she had to pop into my nice clean world and mess everything up.

I knew that I couldn’t let her go. That much was certain. But I couldn’t kill her either.

I mean, I
could
. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t cared about another human since I can remember words. I remember –vividly remember—the sensation of looking up at my mother, the sun behind her hair.

Then—darkness—looking down at her body.

After that, there was no caring anymore. Only numbness.

I could kill this woman; the difficulty comes from all of the attendant complications. Her car, for one. Her cell phone. If she turned out to be a cop. Or even if not, whether she’d told a friend where she was going. Whether she had an accomplice waiting for her at the road. Even as I held the knife to her throat I was checking off all of the things I needed to do.

All of the complications that she had brought to my nice, simple, serene life.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m as peaceful as Siddhartha, ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s only that the shadow builds around the edges like dirt on a glass table. It builds and builds, creeping inward, until it reaches the heart, and then the choice is simple.

I have to destroy or be destroyed. And I’ve always chosen the former.

Interesting, since I don’t have much reason to live. But I figure that neither does anyone else. So who’s to say I should be the one to go? I have to admit I tilt the odds in my favor when I weigh my lives against those of my victims. It’s easy to look through public records. Easy to find the rich men who have settled their abuse cases with fines instead of jailtime. It’s so easy to pick out the men who, like me, are capable of hurting others.

They’ve all been men. I’ve never captured a woman. Or killed one.

She might be the first.

     Kat    

“Alright,” the man said. The pressure of the knife eased up off of my neck. “Let’s go inside.”

He let go of me and gestured down the wood-paneled hallway. I choked back my sobs and took a step forward. My leg gave out under me as pain shot upward from my ankle and I bent over, clutching my leg.

“
Ahh
,” I gasped. It was almost completely dark in the front hallway, and I couldn’t see the features of the man anymore. I didn’t know whether he would cut my throat right then and there if I spoke, but I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t walk. I could feel myself beginning to have a panic attack. My pills. Where were my pills?

“It—it hurts,” I whispered.

“To walk?”

“I rolled my ankle.” The man gave a deep sigh. The knife twirled in his hand.

“Wait! I can crawl,” I said quickly. “Please. I’ll crawl. I’ll—”

“Come on,” the man said, reaching out to me. He pulled me to my feet and put one arm around my waist, holding me up. “I really don’t have time for this.”

I leaned on him and limped down the hallway. All the while, he held me tight against his body. It was terrible to think about, but it had been a long time since anyone had been so close to me, and the way that his hand wrapped around my hip... well, I couldn’t help what my body decided to respond to. The pressure of his arm around me was thrilling, in the most terrifying kind of way. I bit my lip as a new wave of pain shot through my leg.

We reached the end of the front hallway and turned into the main living room. I gazed into the house, expecting to see gleaming rows of torture weapons. Knives littering the floor. A bathtub full of body parts.

Instead, I saw a living room right out of the center page of Home & Living magazine, a log cabin that any millionaire might have owned. A leather couch in front of a huge fireplace. Brass radiators on the walls. Plush velvety rugs on top of knotted pine flooring. And, through the open door to the kitchen, a table where a man lay, bloody and groaning.

Okay, maybe that scene wasn’t in Home & Living.

He stopped at the end of the hallway in front of a closet and slid open the pine door. Inside of what I’d thought was a coat closet stood a rack of computer screens, showing every possible angle of the house and the surrounding property. The road, the gate. Three of the screens had a red blinking icon at the top that said
Warning: Intruder
in big block letters.

He frowned and pulled out what looked like a remote control. He opened up the back and tapped the remote. Four batteries fell out.

“Goddammit.” His voice was flat, but there was so much anger simmering under the surface that it might have been better had he yelled. He ripped open a fresh back of batteries with his teeth and replaced them, then tossed the remote control into the closet and slammed the door. Turning to me, I saw irritation written all over his face.

“Out of battery,” he said. “My audio alarm is out of battery. That’s why it didn’t go off for you. Great. Spring cleaning and I forgot to change the batteries.”

My mouth dropped open. That was it? If he’d changed a battery, I wouldn’t have witnessed a murder? Well, almost a murder, I reminded myself, as the man in the other room groaned again.

“If you let me go, I won’t say anything,” I said, my words rushing out in a flood of worry. “I didn’t see anything. I don’t know your name or who you are. I don’t even know who that guy is!”

“Why are you here?”

He stood facing me, his flat eyes accusing me. I gulped.

“I... I was curious. About the paper.”

He stepped forward so that our faces were only inches away from each other. I smelled him again, the subtle aftershave mixed now with sweat from his exertions. There was another smell, too, underneath all that. The smell of blood, coppery and bitter.

In spite of everything, I remembered the last time we’d been so close together, in the elevator. I remembered his fierce kiss, the passion that swelled up and tore my breath from my lungs. Even standing so close to him now, I felt the same terrible desire come racing through my body, turning me hot between the thighs. I knew he was dangerous, but my body didn’t care.

“Curious. You seem like a curious one.”

He looked at me like nobody else had ever done before. I was used to guys giving me a quick once-over, their eyes sweeping across my face and down my body in a blink. His eyes, though, caressed the lines of my face with a penetrating gaze that I could almost feel on my skin. He reached out and touched my chin, and I flinched at the touch, thinking of blood.

“Like a curious little kitten.”

His hand moved down trailing over the seams of my clothing. He touched my waistband, sliding his fingers around the back, over my pockets. He stopped and slid his hand into my back pocket. I held my breath, but he simply pulled out my car keys and put them in his own pocket. In my other jeans pocket he found the slip of paper.

“There it is,” I said.

“What? This?” He unfolded it and glanced down at the numbers. “Is this some sort of code?”

“That’s what I was curious about,” I said. My heart was pounding. Was he working for the government? Maybe he was a trained killer. Then there was no way he could kill me. I clung to that small bit of hope. “What does it mean?”

But he only raised his eyebrows.

“How should I know what it means? Looks like a bunch of random numbers to me.”

“It’s not... it’s not yours?”

Fabio shook his head slowly, peering at me as though I was the crazy one.

“But my friend told me—”

I cut myself off as I realized exactly what had happened.

Jules!

What did she say?
Maybe you can ask him to explain it to you.
Holy shit. She faked it. She faked a stupid secret note so that I would talk to him again. And it worked, better than she could ever have imagined.

Or worse than she ever could have imagined.

Jules, you have no idea what you’ve done to me.

“A mistake, perhaps?”

“My friend...” I choked on the words. “She wanted me to talk to you.”

“That makes more sense,” the man said, relief coming over his face. “Yes, more sense than you being with the police. Here I was thinking that they might be onto me! But no, it’s only... it’s only you.”