“The bad news is, by the time they find out who’s behind all of these deaths, you’ll just be lumped in as one of the unfortunate victims. The good news for me is, they’ll never pin it on me. The good news for you is once the vomiting has passed and you’ve shit yourself a few times, after the blood vessels in your eyes have burst from straining, and you’ve wished for death a few dozen times, you actually will die, and by then it should be pretty quick. In fact, I’d say you’re about there now. Shouldn’t be much longer.”
Fear strikes me hard and fast, and with no other option, I reach out to my killer. If he has any soul, any at all, I can appeal to the man who made love to me so passionately that night in the hills, in that cabin. The man who would park outside my house at night and stare longingly into my bedroom window.
“Please…help…me.”
Declan stares down at me, and although his eyes are once again obscured, I can feel the coldness of his stare like ice cubes on my flesh. No help is coming. At least, not from him.
“You’re beyond anyone’s help now. Take comfort in knowing it will all be over soon.”
“Don’t leave,” I beg, desperation making me reach out, my fingers clawing the air between us. I can’t breathe!
“I must. Soon you’ll lose all faculties, and I’m not a total monster. If you must die, I at least want to preserve your dignity in your last moments by not witnessing the most shameful of them. You deserve that, at least. Think of it as a gift from Glenn. He would want you to leave this place with as little humiliation as possible.”
He’s mocking me. I know it. Declan is a terrible person. An evil man. “Go. To. Hell.”
Reaching into his shorts pocket, Declan pulls out a slim, silver case and pushes a button that releases the front. Selecting a long, white, cigarette, he sticks it between lips that I once relished kissing, that had once lavished my body, and, after exchanging the case for a stylish silver lighter, he strikes the flame and lights it.
Apparently, he isn’t as controlled as I’d assumed. He has at least one weakness, one flaw, and in what I know are to be my final moments on this earth, I pray it proves fatal.
As the cramps grow in intensity, and I feel the bubbling down low in my belly, I pray for a swift death.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Faith. I really did like you…once. But rest easy. Where you’re going, there will be no shortage of people like you, and one day…” He blows out a puff of smoke that’s quickly absorbed into the clear air. “…I’ll see you there,” are Declan’s parting words.
As my bowels release and my heart slams in a panicked rhythm against my ribcage, I watch Declan’s retreating form through watery eyes. If I could take it all back, knowing what I know now, would I? No. I’d just change a few details. But there were no certainties in death, except one.
Yes, I would see him again…in hell.
“It’s…a…date.”
The end.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for taking the time to read Deadly Deception! I hope you enjoyed this crazy journey with Declan and Faith as much as I did. I had so many possible paths to take with their story, but in the end, they took on a mind of their own and decided their own path. The only thing that remained the same was the ending, and, well, we know how that turned out. I honestly don’t think it could have gone any other way. Were you deceived? I know I was.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.C. Valentine is the USA Today and International bestselling author of the Night Calls and Wayward Fighters Series and the Forbidden Trilogy. Her vivid imagination and love of words and romance had her penning her own romance stories from an early age, which, despite being poorly edited and written longhand, she forced friends and family members to read. No, she isn't sorry.
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