Page 36 of Mutual Prey

“That’s my good girl,” he praises, running a finger up and down my spine. “Now, don’t you want me to tell you why your Daddy wanted to kill you?”

“I don’t believe you,” I mumble against his chest.

“Why the hell he decided to adopt you after finding you in some alleyway murdering a guy? Why the hell a grown man would decide to adopt a serial killer seventeen-year-old? It wasn’t because you’re a hot piece of ass. Though you are, baby.”

“It wasn’t… like that,” I mutter, then gasp when his fingers work themselves toward my bottom, and start stroking up and down my crack.

“Mhm hmm. Well, anyway. He knew who you were. The daughter of the brilliant scientist who invented the drugs that would cause her own downfall. He knew she was given theD.”

“Shut up, Finn.”

“Hey, I didn’t invent that name! She got the D, didn’t she? And he realized its effects would transfer through to you. And when you were born… well, you were just a baby. You didn’t have anyone to fixate on. Just a dead mother and a busload of dead people. You were born right in that bus, weren’t you?”

“How the hell do you know all this?” I ask, trying to look up at him, but he keeps me pressed to him, and his fingers go back to rubbing up and down my crack. It’s oddly relaxing.

“Shh. I had five years to find out everything there was to know about you, Cass. I know you spent most of your life without purpose. Without a fixation, and it was driving you insane. You were going around killing random people, and it was only a matter of time before you got caught. So your daddy adopted you. Gave you a fixation. A list of people who had wronged your mother. Taught you to use your violence in a way that would keep you safe. Didn’t he, baby?”

“Ye-e-s,” I moan, giving in to the relaxing massage, which isstarting to make me horny again. “Yes, he did all that…”

“But it wasn’tyourlist, baby. It washis. He didn’t give a shit about your mother. He was wronged by Devil—the same thing happened to him that had happened to your mom. They stole an invention of his. So he usedyouto get back at them. And he was going to kill you when you’d served your purpose. When you’d finished your list.”

This time, when I sit up, he doesn’t try to stop me. I glare at him, searching his face for some sign that he’s lying, but I don’t find any.

“That’s not true,” I hiss. “He wouldneverdo that to me. Besides, I know what all of those people did, specifically—”

“Allof them?”

“Well, most of them… some of them.”Cotton. Jud Hart.Many of them. But not all.

I only knew what two of those four people did—the four people I was planning to blow up in the gymnasium.

“Sure, you share some of the same list,” continues Finn, lazily going back to my nipples now that my ass is unavailable, since I’m sitting it firmly on his thighs. “After all, there’s only one department at Devil that steals scientific inventions. There’s bound to be some overlap. But your list and your daddy’s lists aren’t identical. Seems to me you should be going through it and… rearranging it.”

Gone is the feeling of hopelessness. Pure panic takes its place. “It’s not true. Itcan’tbe true.”

“Think about it. Don’t I know everything there is to know about you? By the way, I also have a funny theory aboutyou.”

I cross my arms and regard him with the kind of glare that usually reduces people to a pile of mush. He only grins, though.

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I say icily.

“Well, here goes anyway.” He interrupts himself to pry my arms apart so he can go back to touching my breasts.

“You’re really fucking obsessed, you pervert,” I snap. “Aren’t you able to go a single second without touching me?”

“Nope. I told you, I’m addicted.” He pulls me to him and closes his teeth around one of my nipples.

“Ow! Finn!”

He licks over the hurt, and then palms my tit with his hand again, freeing his mouth to speak. “I think that despite what you told me at that party in high school, that one party you went to—you weren’t drunk at all.”

“Finn! That’s not true!”

“Want the D, baby? Tell me the truth, and you’ll get the D.”

“I donotwant your cock, you fucking pervert. It’s so microscopic anyway—it’s not the bribe you think it is.”

“Hmm.” He pushes me off him so that I’m on my hands and knees.