Page 22 of Hunt Me

I need to sleep soundly for once.

“Did you get Percy’s text about the arsonist?” he asks just before I tell him to get out. I’m done talking for now.

I nod my fist. ‘Yes.’

He sighs, then sets the cat down at the open door, and she runs off like this is the last place she’s ever wanted to be. “Be ready to draw a little blood. Whatever he found out about it, he was fucking pissed.”

My mouth waters. It’s the one thing I’ll miss when this is all over. The blood. It’s life. It’s death. It’s a stark contrast to everything it touches. I like the way it feels when it’s warm and fresh beneath my fingers.

“I’m always ready,” I tell him, which is also true. Maybe in a few years, I won’t be. After our lives settle into something other people would consider normal, maybe I’ll forget what it was like to grow up the way we did. To lose my mother young, to have a father who cared more about shaping us into what he wanted instead of letting us figure it out on our own.

But for now, I’m still the person our father raised me to be. Careful. Calculating. And ready to kill if I have to.

And sometimes when I don’t.

“I have somewhere to go tonight,” I tell him. “I’ll be there…when…when…” I breathe out slowly. “When it’s time.”

I suddenly hate that he’s in my space. The feeling rises in me almost out of nowhere, and I take a deep breath, trying not to whine as I exhale. Words are getting harder. He needs to get out before I slip into a meltdown.

He reads the room and moves toward the door. “Call me if you need me.”

I wave him off, and the moment he’s gone, I flop down onto the bed and bury my face in the silk. It’s not as nice as coffin lining, but for now, it’ll do.

I let it comfort me as I drift, thinking about tonight and the look on Denver’s face when he finds my gift. I can’t wait to see it.

And then, when I get the chance, I will taste him the way I’ve been desperate to.

6

DENVER

The shameI felt in the cemetery carries over into the next day. I will die with the knowledge that I was going to let a man I don’t really know, but am mostly stalking, fuck me in a church cemetery.

Right on top of dead bodies.

If I believed in hell, that’s where I’d be going. In a handbasket, decorated with a huge, fancy bow.

I sigh as I push my way into the back room of the club, lugging a bag half my size along with me. I just came from teaching two classes back-to-back, so I didn’t have time to go through it, but lugging around a heavy bag is probably a decent cardio workout, and it’s been a while since I’ve gone to the gym.

‘You okay?’ Rene says when he sees me stumbling through the door.

I nod and then shrug, feeling humiliation slither up my spine. I can tell from his expression that he knows the look on my face has nothing to do with what I’m carrying.

‘Fine,’ I manage to sign without dropping anything.

Rene steps toward me and takes my bag from me, one of his eyebrows arched up. Deaf gossip or not, I refuse to tell anyone what happened with Arhe.

I’m so fucking embarrassed. I was left over a grave with my ass out, panties on display, like a fucking chump. Like the dipshit who believed the super-hot guy who is fluent in ASL was actually coming back for me. He probably left me out there as punishment for all the stalking.

I move toward my vanity table when suddenly my eye catches on something unfamiliar. Something that sticks out like a sore thumb amongst my wigs and makeup. I peer closer, almost afraid to touch it because something in my chest tells me that it wasn’t just dropped here by accident. This was a deliberate move.

The wilted, dying flowers are a message. My heart speeds up, my body growing warm. What the fuck is this?

Is it some kind of threat?

Rene’s phone flashes, so he sets my bag down and moves to answer his FaceTime, killing part two of my plan, which was to ask him to see if there is a note.

Damn it.