Page 48 of Shadowface

My stomach twinges at him saying her name. “I’m not discussing this with you, Xander.”

He chuckles in his deep voice, and I can hear Bianca in the background. “Who are you talking to?”

“I’m talking to Lincoln. Did I say you could speak, Bianca?”

Bianca mumbles something, and I can imagine her sitting on the floor in front of his feet like a good girl.

I close my eyes and think about the last thing I remember from the rave, every crystal-clear moment of it until it turned dark. Her tight body, how she fell into me, her blind faith in me, her body blooming with desire. I enjoyed every moment until he fronted. When I woke up, his fingers were in her cunt. When I regained awareness, I had zero control over my body until after he burned her. And now his insidious presence is inside me like a worm.

I push up my glasses, which slipped off my nose. “I’ll see you later, Xander,” I tell him, which means he’s won, and I will finish up early tonight.

I hang up on him before he has a chance to respond and click on Summer’s contact.

SF: Hi, baby.

She takes longer than I like to respond, which makes my jaw tick as I read the opening sentence of her paper. My eyes shoot right to her thesis statement, and I have to admit, I’m impressed.

A few minutes later…

Summer: Quit texting me, or I will go to the police.

A smile forms on my lips and I rub my chin. Her feisty attitude is adorable, but if she hasn’t gone to the cops by now, she won’t, especially not after what Mikael did with her. She showed up to class on Monday as if nothing happened at all, confirming my suspicions about her.

SF: Are you mad at me? I was hoping you would thank me for making you come all over my hands.

Summer: You took advantage of me. Last I checked, what you did is assault. Let alone threatening to slice my throat out and burning me.

My recollection of the events are fuzzy, but I wouldn’t put it past him to say that.

Summer Landry is the only reason Mikael’s mind hasn’t disintegrated into ash. She’s the only thing keeping him alive after years of me trying to dissolve him and placing him in a tiny bottle.

He hates most women, but she brings out a special level of depravity, evident from the condition he left her in on the wet and dirty floor.

I sense a flicker in my mind’s eye, a taunting laugh, and I shove it aside, pushing him down as far as he can go.

Not right now…

If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy her skin on my hands as much as I did. How badly I wanted to feel how tight her cunt was, or how much it hurt not to fuck her on that dirty wall, completely soiling every ounce of her perfection.

Even if I’m a sociopath, my dick still works, and the desire he has for her bleeds into me.

Fucking her was never the plan for me. But now I have an opportunity to get inside her mind and prove she is the monster I think she is.

I skim through her 2,000-word essay, finding her writing voice remarkable. If I didn’t know it was Summer, I’d almost think it was her father behind these words. Her analysis is complex, which I’m not surprised about, given her genetics and her extremely intelligent study partner. Still, she didn’t do her research; she didn’t use a single external source, which was a requirement for the assignment.

I mark it as an F, and write insufficient sources in the feedback section before I press submit, smiling to myself at finding the one loophole I can use to fail her again. Failing her a second time will get her attention and will finally get her into my office.

I pick up the phone and dial her number. Texting is fun, but I want to hear her voice. She picks up after one ring, as if she was waiting for me to call.

“What do you want?” Her tone is snippy. I lean back in my chair. My nostrils flare, and an erection immediately presses against my pants. Images of blood penetrate my mind.

His responses, my awareness.

It makes me smile.

The reason I’m in charge is because I am more rational and law-abiding in terms of my emotions. Unlike normal people, I don’t experience emotions myself. When Mikael has them, I analyze and suppress them. It’s like witnessing someone else’s suffering. I can perceive the emotion and acknowledge its existence, but since it doesn’t affect me directly, it’s difficult for me to empathize.

“I want to know what you’re wearing,” I tell her. It’s not what I want; I want to see if I can make her take her clothes off. I want to see what I can make this girl do for me. I want to humiliate her, protect her, keep her alive, and study her.