by Katie May
“We need to figure out why Mikey was targeted,” I say—though it’s only a half truth. I don’t add that I need to find the list of names who rented out my clone.
Frankie gives me a pointed look as he rifles through papers adorning one of the counters.
“I love the smell of freshly brewed sex on this fine morning,” Mason purrs, and I honestly can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“Nothing beats that enticing aroma. Sure to start any day off with a bang,” I add with a wicked grin.
“Why are you so cute?” Mason asks, dancing towards me and pulling me into his arms. He spins me around, my feet hovering above the disgusting, sex-slicked/sweat-slicked floor.
“Less spinning. More looking.” Vin, of course. He’s holding a piece of fabric between his thumb and pointer finger with a horrified look.
Smirking, I tap Mason’s shoulder until he obediently puts me down, and I skip to Vin.
“That’s a bra,” I say slowly, as if he’ll have trouble understanding such a concept. He stares at the abnormally large red lace with horror before turning towards me. One thing is certain: that bra did not go on Clone Me. My boobs are big, but that bra must belong to a giant.
“I know what a bra is,” he stutters, throwing the offending fabric down. I screech, covering my face with my hands and curling away.
“Be careful!” I hiss, peeking through one eyelash at the bra.
“What? What? Why?” Vin swivels his head in both directions, searching for what has startled me. I point a trembling finger at the bra.
“Don’t you know that we usually keep bombs in there?” I ask. He stares at me. “Our bras are our weapons. I know my cups can serve as Bazookas as well.”
Silence. He blinks at me wordlessly.
“Don’t you wonder why we always take our bras off when we go to sleep? Or when we’re in the safety of our own home?” No answer. “It’s because we no longer need the protection. And the last thing we want is to accidentally explode ourselves when we go to sleep.”
Completely silent, Vin turns on his heel and walks away.
“Don’t try to do that joke with Hux,” Jack says from behind me with a timid smile. He wears a pair of spandex gloves as he sifts through a pile of garbage. “He’ll demand we make all your clothes into an arsenal.”
“Who said I was joking?” I reply seriously.
Now, it’s Jack staring at me with an unreadable expression.
Changing the subject, I tentatively ask, “Is he here? Hux?”
Jack sighs, returning to his task once more. “He’s around. I mean, I can feel him in my head. But sometimes, he…goes away.”
A metaphorical bucket of ice water is thrown onto my head. And I do mean the bucket, not just the water. It hits my head, rendering me momentarily speechless with horror. I work to regain the ability to speak, to function, to do anything other than stare at Jack like an imbecile.
“It’s nothing to worry about…”
“Nothing to worry about!” I screech, garnering the attention of Mason who is closest. He flashes me a worried look, but I nod to reassure him that I’m okay.
But I’m not. Okay, that is. The prospect of Hux going away completely...it terrifies me. Numbs me. It leaves me unsteady and disoriented, as if the lightest brush of wind could blow me away completely.
I care about Hux. A lot.
“He probably does it on purpose,” Jack reassures me quietly. “He sometimes likes his space. Silence.”
Jack removes the spandex gloves one at a time, shoving them into his pocket. Venturing a step closer, he pauses when he’s an inch away from me. Quickly—so quickly that if I were to have blinked, I would’ve missed it—Hux’s trademark smirk pulls up his lips.
“What did my damn brother do to make my precious treasure so upset?” The ire in Hux’s voice makes his accent more pronounced, but the anger is clear enough.
I’m so fucking relieved that I sag against him, briefly resting my head against his muscular chest. I feel him stiffen beneath me before he releases what sounds like a contented purr.
“Shit! Sorry!” I say, coming to my senses. I push off of him and take a step backwards, my knees hitting a low table. Hux has a dopey, blissful smile on his face.
“My precious treasure is allowed to hug me whenever she so desires.”
“Awww! I knew you loved me!” Mason sings, eating up the distance between us and throwing his arms around Hux. Hux lifts his eyes to the ceiling as if asking for patience.
“You have five seconds before I remove your dick, feed it to you until you’re performing oral on yourself, and then roast your balls over an open fire. One. Two. Five.”
Mason pulls away with a rather girly squeal.
“What happened to three and four?” he demands.
Hux flashes a malevolent grin, teeth shining in the dim lights.
“I really wanted to cut off your dick.”
As Mason runs away from a pursuing Hux, hiding behind an annoyed Vin, I turn towards Frankie who is bent over a sheet of paper resting beside a now opened vault.
Nodding towards the vault, he explains, “The bastard had the passcode as one, two, three, four.” Frankie slides his hands into his pockets, carefully avoiding my gaze.
“What is it?”
He blows out a breath.
“I found the list.” When I quirk a brow, he continues in a hurried whisper. “The list of people who paid for…”
“A ride in my choo-choo train,” I supply. When he remains silent, head still bent over the slip of paper, I extend my hand. “Can I see it?”
Silence.
I’m not even sure he’s breathing.
Finally, he releases another long breath and holds the paper out to me. Most of the names I don’t recognize—at least for now. You can bet your ass I’ll hunt down each and every one of them and serve them their-own-cock-sundae.
But there is one person who signed me out more than the others. Almost every single day.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, glaring at the name. “Is this correct?”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.” Frankie still won’t meet my eyes. His hands are gripping the table so tightly I can see his veins. “I’m not a violent person, Violet. But seeing all those names...Violet, I know some of those people. I’ve talked to them. And to know that they…” His lips press together in a thin line as he attempts to regain his control. “I’m going to kill them.”
“After I question them,” I say, my eyes fixed on the one familiar name written in elegant scrawl. “Then, we can tag team murder them, okay? Talk about a bonding exercise.”
But first, I need answers.
Chapter 31
Violet
The men on the list are not murderers.
Just sick fucking perverts.
I make my way down the list with Frankie, my teeth gritting together the longer I’m forced to endure the jabs said by bigoted pieces of shits.
The current guy we’re talking to has slimy brown hair, chocolate eyes, and large bat-like wings protruding from his back. Some type of demon, I presume, though the man—Teegan—insists he’s bat man. Two words. Not capitalized. No relation to the other, more famous Batman.
His eyes flicker from my breasts to my face and then back to my breasts. I’m beginning to think that my boobs have some type of magnet in them. This is the sixth guy who hasn’t been able to look away.
Don’t murder him, Violet. Don’t murder him.
After that helpful mental pep talk, I smooth my features and level him with an indolent stare.
“So you admit that you, um, partook in activities with my sex clone?” I ask, and I notice Frankie’s grip tighten on the armrests.
“If you meant did I bang her? Yes. Yes, I did. I’ve always wanted a piece of vampire bitch ass.”
Before Frankie can stop me, I’m out of my seat and pounding my fist into his smug face. He releases a guttural roar, hands raising to fend me off.
�
��You.” Punch. “Fucking.” Punch. “Asshole.”
His face is a canvas of bruises and blood. Livid eyes peer back at me through the mess that is his face. I may have gone a little overboard. Again.
I’m a solid six-for-six.
“I did it fucking once!” Teegan hisses. “Just to see what it was like. It’s like fucking a celebrity.” His dark gaze slides to Frankie. “And it was fucking amazing.”
Frankie’s face remains blank, eyes bored behind his thick framed glasses. Only someone who knows him well enough can see the banked fire just beneath the surface, the inferno seconds from exploding.
I tug on Teegan’s head until his eyes are locked with mine. He struggles, releasing a string of curses, but I stop him with a blast of my power.
Persuasion usually only works after I’ve just fed. As such, I’ve been carrying around a bag of disgusting human blood. It’s not nearly as potent as Jack’s blood or Vin’s, but it will have to do. It’s not like I can ask them. What could I say?
“I’m going around questioning the men who used my body as a sex doll. Can I use your blood to enhance my persuasion power?”
Yeah, because that would go over well.
“Stop fighting,” I whisper, pushing my allure into each succulent word. Teegan instantly stops fighting, body slackening underneath mine. Sort of like a flaccid dick.
Huh. Maybe that’s what Teegan actually is. Maybe he’s a penis monster.
“Did you kill all those students?” I ask, pushing the command into his mind. I conjure up images of Ali, Blowy, and Mikey so he knows exactly who I’m talking about.
“No,” he answers softly. Dreamily. His eyes have taken on a glazed quality.
“Do you know who did?”
“No.”
My fingernails dig into his arms until blood is drawn.
“Why did you pay for that doll of me?” My words are an unintelligible growl, all of my anger and hurt flowing through those words. Teegan swallows harshly. He knows something is wrong, knows that he’s the prey in this situation, and yet he’s helpless to stop it.
“Because everyone hates you. Dracula’s fucking daughter. Can you blame me for wanting a taste of the bitch’s cunt?”
Overcome with anger, I punch him in the face once more. Hard. He falls over unconscious.
“They’re all useless.” I stalk towards Frankie, rubbing Teegan’s blood on my skirt. “They’re all just fucking perverts, not psychopathic murderers.”
“But we did learn something,” Frankie points out, his analytical mind turning the information over and over again in his head.
I laugh humorlessly. “That the entire fucking school wants to see me dead? That everyone hates me?”
His eyes shine with soft understanding, and I realize that he understands better than anyone what I mean. While Vin and Mason are both immensely popular, Frankie is more reserved. Before me, he didn’t have a lot of interaction outside of his clients. Even with those men and women, he looked at them like science experiments instead of human beings.
We’re both lonely and secluded. Hated. At least now we have each other.
“We still need to interview the last name,” he says slowly, carefully. His eyes gauge my reaction.
I freeze, turning away from him to stare at Teegan’s fallen body. Mechanically, I bend down and toss him over my shoulder. We’re lucky we asked him to meet us in an empty classroom after classes have been let out for the day. I couldn’t imagine carrying his heavy ass across campus—and definitely couldn’t imagine the gossip that would transpire if the students saw me carrying what looked like a dead body.
“I’ll handle it,” I say, waiting for Frankie to open the door for me. The halls of the school are quiet. I’m not used to it.
“You should stay with us at the house,” Frankie persists, moving to stand beside me and keeping one eye on the body slung over my shoulder. “It’s not safe.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“But—”
I spin to face him fully, hoping he can see the sincerity in my eyes. Hear it in my dogmatic words. “Frankie, please. I’ll handle it.”
His face is conflicted, but after a moment, he nods with a defeated sigh. If it was Vin, Hux, or even Mason, they would demand that I submit to their every whim.
But not Frankie.
He trusts me. Trusts my judgement. I need to take poison to the sudden surge of butterflies fluttering about in my stomach.
We move silently up the staircase and to the upper floor. Frankie plugs in the combination on the keypad, and the heavy metal door swings open.
A voice whispers from the shadows, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Barret,” I call with an eye roll. There’s a pause, and a moment later, Barret appears in front of me, green hair slick with blood.
“Another present?” Barret says, eyeing the body over my shoulder with an excited gleam in his eyes. Cal appears a second later, angrily scrubbing at his sleeve.
“I got blood on my sleeve. Blood. Do you know how hard blood is to get out of clothes?” he complains.
“You’re still perfect, Cal,” I say with an eye roll. I learned early on that I needed to constantly appease his inflated ego.
Cal beams.
“You’re perfect as well. Ohhh! What’s this? Another one? That’s the sixth one in an hour.” His expression darkens suddenly, and his eyes narrow into slits. “Are these men that you keep bringing here hurting you?”
I shrug. “Something like that.”
I may or may not—depending on how you look at it—have been bringing the men on the list to Cal and Barret for...um...reformation. Therapy. Whatever you want to hear.
Frankie snorts at my understatement, and Cal’s eyes widen in understanding.
“Okay, give him here.” Cal takes Teegan’s body from me. “Can we kill him?”
“We talked about this,” I say slowly. “No murder. No lasting scars. No maiming. Just scaring.”
Cal’s eyes flare brightly. “But if he’s hurting you…”
“Hurting? What? Who?” Barret demands, refocusing on the conversation. I love Barret, I do. He’s the sweetest man in the world...but he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, if you know what I mean. Half the time, I’m not even sure he’s paying attention.
But when he flexes his biceps intimidatingly, I know he would make a dangerous foe. Fortunately, he’s firmly in the “friend” category.
I don’t want the Boogeyman as an enemy.
“No murder,” I state one last time before turning on my heel and retreating the way I came from.
I hear Frankie whisper something that sounds like, “Make them all eat their own shit,” before he joins me.
And then the Boogeyman’s low, chill-inducing voice, “I’m coming for you, little boy. You can’t hide from me.”
Five masculine screams follow. Soon, they’ll be six.
What can I say? Karma’s a bitch.
Chapter 32
Violet
By the time I’m back in my room, I’m exhausted. My body is leaden and tired, and all I want to do is curl beneath the covers and sleep for eternity.
It takes convincing, but Frankie reluctantly separates from me at my dorm room. I can tell he isn’t happy about it—lips pressed into a straight line and eyes narrowed—but he doesn’t fight me. Instead, he reminds me that their house is a short walk away and that I’m welcome anytime.
That declaration gives me the warm fuzzies, and I can’t stop the stupid grin from lighting up my face.
My smile instantly fades.
Cynthia sits at her desk, mechanically removing both her eyes and nose. She’s still dressed in her trademark flowing white gown, a combination of a night dress and a wedding dress.
“I still can’t decide what I’m going to be for Halloween,” she says conversationally as I move to sit on my bed. I eye her cautiously as I kick off my shoes and curl my legs up underneath me. “I’m debating between a sexy bunn
y and a sexy leprechaun. I know, I know. There’s not much of a difference. But I’m trying to decide how good I’ll look in green. Would it dry out my skin? Make my hair pop?” When I remain silent, she lifts an eyeball up to stare at me. It’s unnerving, to say the least, to stare at a face with only lips and sockets while she holds a wet eyeball in her hand. “Vi! Answer me!”
“Why’d you do it?” I ask softly, ripping my gaze away from my roommate and friend.
“What do you mean?” She places first one eye and then the other into her drawer. “Take out my eyes? Because I hate looking at your ugly ass face.”
“I saw Mikey’s records,” I begin, voice still a whisper. What is this feeling blooming from my chest like a spiderweb? Is it...is it pain? Heartbreak? I don’t like it.
She lifts her head up. “The warlock who died?”
I nod, despite the fact I know she can’t see me. “That doll in the wardrobe…” My shoulders hunch up to my ears. “The records said you checked her—me—it—out numerous times. Why?”
I wish she had her facial features in. She takes the definition of blank face to a whole new level. The only indication she even heard me and hasn’t removed her ears yet is the slightest twitch of her lips.
“I see.”
Without another word, she moves to her feet and grabs her eyes and nose from the drawer.
“That’s all you’re going to say?” I demand, jumping to my feet as well. “I just discovered you bought my sex clone more times than any other student, and you say ‘I see?’” I attempt to imitate her voice, but I’ll be the first to admit I took some creative liberties. When she doesn’t answer, methodically grabbing more of her belongings and shoving them into her backpack, I move to block the door. “Well? Do you have, like, a crush on me or something? Is that it? Was it revenge?”
My mind is scrambling to come up with a plausible explanation. I thought...well...it seems naïve now, but I thought we were friends. Has it all been a lie?
