Page 30 of Unhinged Cain

“Ouch,” I yelled and jumped back from the counter.

Jorge came running from the front sitting area, and I was positive he was going to fire me, but instead, he undid the sleeves of my shirt and pulled them up to look at my arms.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I will be. I’m just so embarrassed. I can’t believe I did that.” I looked up at the man on the other side of the counter. His face was blank of all emotion, but his eyes were hard, holding a look I couldn’t decipher. “I’m really sorry, and I seem to be saying that a lot tonight.”

He blinked a few times as if coming out of a trance. “I’m just happy you’re alright.”

“Why don’t you go tend to your arms and head on out? We were about to lock up anyway. I can finish making the customer’s orders.” Jorge laid his hand on my shoulder, and for the second time, he acted like more of a mother than my own mother would have in this scenario.

“Thanks.” I locked eyes with the sexy stranger and offered a smile. “Have a good night. It was nice meeting you.” Turning, I slipped into the back and made a direct line to the changing rooms.

I ran my arms under the lukewarm water, then plunked myself down on the bench to stare at the red marks that hadn’t blistered, thankfully. My phone dinged again. Groaning, I pulled it out of my back pocket. Ignoring the million and one messages from Peter, I tapped the screen and stared at the clown’s face.

I was officially losing my mind. I’d been dreaming about this man, and now, I’d subconsciously added a very similar image of his tattoo onto my phone. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shook my head.

Maybe I could talk my dad into letting me fly out sooner than the end of my semester. I could help with the new baby and figure out my new career path. All I knew was that I needed to get out of this place. It was making me nuts.

CAIN

“I don’t understand what she ever saw in this guy. His name is Peter. I mean, can you imagine being called Peter your whole life? That’s just opening yourself up to cock jokes. It’s almost as bad as the name Dick.”

I sat up and stared at the detailed line I’d just finished and wiped the area with a towel to remove the dripping blood before moving on.

“He does have money, so that could be the attraction, but I don’t think so anymore. It may have been at one point.” I paused in my conversation to complete the center of the complicated flower I was creating, and Karen’s body winced, almost ruining my design. I stood in a rush and glared down at the woman, her eyes wide with fear.

“What did I say about moving?”

She whimpered as tears streamed down her cheeks, making the blue mascara she was wearing run. “Do we need to have another discussion about the rules?”

Karen’s head slowly moved back and forth as much as the head strap around her forehead would allow. I sat back down and stared at the flower that now had a tiny imperfection in the middle and ground my teeth together.

“So about Peter. I can admit he’d be classified as hot in that pretty-boy-prep-school way. But the guy is not very nice to anyone, and based on his texts to Kirby, he is extremely controlling with her.”

I thought about all the messages I’d read. In fact, they were what spurred me on to step into the café in the first place. Peter was an emotional abuser and very controlling. The fact that Kirby wasn’t begging him not to be mad or telling him she’d run right over to his house were the only reasons that had stopped me from driving over to his fancy condo and slitting his throat.

This possessive sensation was new and stirred the darker, more out-of-control side of my personality. It was the side of me that was kin to Abel, and it was the side that I worked hard to keep pushed down. That side of myself was unpredictable and had almost gotten Abel and me caught a time or two. It was completely fascinating that it was Sunshine pulling this out of me.

The next flower was complete perfection, and I gave Karen a moment to prepare for the next cut as a reward.

“What do you think, Karen? Do you think they sound like a good match to you?” I said, not expecting an answer, and one didn’t come. “I also learned that she’s smart but doesn’t apply herself when it comes to her schoolwork, according to her mother. Her mother is already an FBI agent and seems a bit emotionally depraved. You know, the overbearing, in-your-face type? I think I can use their damaged relationship to my advantage.”

I wiped away more droplets of blood and began carving the centrepiece, which was going to be an eye. And not just any eye but one of Kirby’s. An image from the café and her yelping as the hot coffee spilled all over her arms kept dancing around inside my brain. My cock instantly hardened. Her scream was as unique and beautiful as the rest of her. I rolled out the tense muscles in my neck as I took control of the unusual emotions.

“So tell me, Karen, why do you think I’m drawn to this girl? Other than her obviously unusual eyes, what is this visceral reaction attributed to?”

She lay there perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling. If it weren’t for her chest rising and falling, I would have thought she was already dead. I smacked my hand on the table beside her head, and her body jerked as another muffled sob came from behind the ball gag in her mouth.

“It’s not nice to ignore people, Karen. Do you not have any manners? I suppose not. That is why you’re on my table, after all.”

She turned her head as much as the restraint would allow her to look at me, and I stared into the plain, shit-brown eyes that did nothing for me. There wasn’t even a fleck of another color—no gold, green, or even hazel. Her eyes were completely and utterly uninteresting, just like the rest of her annoying existence.

“Foook, heee eeels foook.”

I rose a brow at the woman and reached forward to undo the ball gag impeding her speech. “You may try that again.”

“She feels stuck.”