A smirk creeps across my lips. “You think I’m pretty.”
“I literally just said not to let the Watson thing go to your head. It applies to your prettiness too,” Sloane says with an epic eye roll, one of her eyelids twitching. “Besides, you already know it.”
My smile grows a little wider before I hide it behind the edge of my glass. Our gazes stay locked until Sloane finally breaks the trance and looks away, a hint of color infusing her freckled cheeks. “Well, you got to Bill Fairbanks before I could,” I say, “so I think we’re even.”
Sloane’s eyes widen, her thick, dark lashes fanning toward her brows. “You were after him?” she asks as I give her a single nod and lift one shoulder. It used to irk me that I lost Fairbanks, even if it was to the Orb Weaver, who I’ve considered something of an idol. But now? Meeting the woman behind the web? I would lose to her again to see the way it lights her eyes with pride. Maybe even more than once.
The edge of Sloane’s bottom lip folds between her teeth as she tries to anchor her wicked grin against their sharp edges. “I had no idea you were hunting Fairbanks.”
“I was tracking him for two years.”
“Really?”
“I planned to take him the year before you got him, but he up and moved before I had the chance. Took me a few months to find him again. Then, low and behold, bits of his body were strung up in fishing line with his eyeballs gouged out.”
Sloane huffs, but I can see the spark that flashes in her tired eyes. She sits a little straighter, wiggling in her seat. “I didn’t gouge them out, Butcher. I plucked them. Delicately. Like a lady.” Sloane sticks her finger in her mouth, pressing it against her cheek as she wraps her lips around it only to snap it out with a pop. “Just like that.”
I snort a laugh and Sloane gifts me with a beaming smile. “My bad.”
Sloane turns her grin to the table before the nerves seem to creep in, and her gaze flits across the room. She takes a few fries, her eyes still shifting over the patrons and exits, before she pushes her plate of ribs toward the table edge.
She’s going to take off.
And if she does, I’ll never see her again. She’ll make damn sure of that.
I clear my throat. “You ever heard of a series of murders in the national parks in Oregon and Washington?”
Sloane’s attention snaps back to me with narrowed eyes. A faint crease appears between her dark brows. A little shake of her head is the only response she gives.
“The killer is a phantom. A prolific one. Exacting and very, very careful,” I continue. “He prefers hikers. Campers. Nomads with few connections in his hunting area. He tortures them before he positions each body facing East in heavily forested areas, anointed on the forehead with a cross.”
Sloane’s thin mask falters. She’s all predator beneath, scenting a trail. I can almost see her thoughts spiraling in the confines of her skull.
These details are tracks any talented hunter can follow.
“How many kills so far?”
“Twelve, though there could more. But it’s been kept pretty quiet.”
Sloane’s brow furrows. There’s a spark in the green and golden depths of her hazel eyes. “Why? For fear of spooking the killer?”
“Probably.”
“And how do you know about it?”
“Same way you knew who the Beast of the Bayou was. I make it my business to know.” I wink. Sloane’s gaze snags on my lips to rest on my scar before dragging back up to my eyes. I rest my forearms on the table and lean closer. “What would you say to a friendly competition? First one to win gets to kill him.”
Her back rests against the vinyl booth cushion as Sloane drums her chipped, blood-red manicure on the table. She gnaws on her chapped lower lip for a long, silent moment as she lets her attention flow over my features. I feel it in my skin. It touches my flesh. It ignites a sensation I’m always chasing but am never quite able to grasp.
There’s never enough risk to scare me. There’s never enough reward to satiate me.
Until now.
The drumming of her fingers stops.
“What kind of competition?” Sloane asks.
I flag down the waitress and motion for the bill when she catches my eye. “Just a little game. Let’s go for ice cream and we can talk it through.”
When I face Sloane once more, my smile is conspiratorial.
Wicked and wanting.
…Devious.
“You know what they say, Blackbird. ‘It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,’” I whisper. “And that’s when the real fun begins.”
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3
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VENTRICULAR
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SLOANE ONE YEAR LATER…
The need.
It starts like an itch. Irritation beneath my skin. Nothing I do releases the constant whisper of it in my flesh. It crawls into my mind and doesn’t let go.
It becomes pain.
The longer I deny it, the more it drags me into the abyss.
I must stop it. I’ll do anything.
And there’s only one thing that works.
Killing.
“I need to get my shit together,” I mutter as I glare at my burner phone for the fiftieth time today. My thumb slides over the smooth glass as I scroll through my short text exchange with the sole contact.
Butcher, it says beneath the photo I chose for Rowan’s profile—a single, steaming sausage on the end of a barbecue fork.
I decide not to unpack the various reasons I chose that picture and resort to visualizing myself stabbing him in the dick with the fork instead.
I bet it’s such a pretty dick too. Just like the rest of him.
“Jesus Christ. I need help,” I hiss.
The man on my stainless steel table interrupts my busy mind as he fights the restraints that bind his wrists and ankles, his head and torso, his thighs and arms. A tight gag traps his pleas in his gaping, fish-like mouth. Maybe it’s overkill to strap him down so thoroughly. It’s not like he’s going anywhere. But the thrashing of flesh on steel irritates me, stoking the itch into a biting torment like talons that scrape at my gray matter.
I turn away, phone in hand as I scroll back through the handful of messages Rowan and I have exchanged in the last year since the day we met and agreed to this admittedly crazy competition. Maybe there’s something I’ve missed in our limited conversations over the last twelve months? Is there an indication of how this game is supposed to play out? Some way I could be better prepared? I have no fucking clue, but it’s giving me an epic headache.
Wandering to the sink, I take a bottle of ibuprofen from the shelf and set my phone on the counter as I tap two pills into my gloved hand, reviewing our text messages from earlier in the week, even though I could probably recite them from memory.
I’ll text you the details on Saturday.
How do I know you’re not just going to get a head start to win this round?
I guess you’ll have to just trust me…
That sounds dumb.
And fun! *Gasp* you do know how to have fun, right…?
Shut your face.
My PRETTY face, you mean?
…ugh.
Saturday! Keep your phone handy!
And I have done exactly that. I’ve kept my phone clutched in my grip for most of the day, and it’s now 8:12pm. The tick of the huge wall clock, which is truthfully only mounted on the wall facing the table to further torture my victims, is now torturing me. Every tick vibrates through my skull. Every second scorches my veins with a pulse of need.
