plopped down next to Alicia, startling her and causing her to shrink away.
He rubbed a hand lovingly over her voluptuous ass as she quivered in fear and began to sob.
'Talk to me. Tel me what to do,' he said, staring deeply into her terrified eyes.
'Let me go. You should let me go right away before you do something you'l regret.'
'If I let you go I'l just find another woman.'
'Then turn yourself in. They have people who can help you.'
'Doctors? Psychiatrists? They'l just lock me up with this hunger stil gnawing at me each and every day. That would be torture. No, I need to find a cure, another cure, a different cure.'
'Joe. Listen to me. You have to let me go, Joe. You can't keep me here. They'l catch you.'
'You're right. I can't keep you here forever. I'm going to have to go after him. But I'm taking you with me.
Alicia had no idea what the man was talking about, but it didn't sound good.
'You have to go after who?'
'Damon Trent. He's the one who made me what I am. I have to find him. Destroy him. In order to destroy the curse.' Joe sat down and told Alicia everything and she listened, not just in order to gain his confidence and trust, but because she was legitimately curious. The story he was tel ing was unbelievable, but by the time he was done he almost had her convinced.
'So you believe that this Damon Trent guy passed on some type of virus to you when he molested you and that's what's causing you to change?'
'It's changing me into a kil er! And if I don't find him then you're going to wind up being my first victim.'
As much as it chil ed the blood in Alicia's veins to hear that he was thinking about kil ing her, she was encouraged by the fact that he hadn't murdered her yet and also by the fact that he didn't want to. He didn't want to hurt her. It was that virus inside him making him crazy. It sounded ridiculous when she repeated it to herself now, but when he'd told her about the correlation he'd found between the werewolf and vampire legends and the evolution of the serial kil er it almost made sense to her. If he could just find and kil that fucker that infected him then he'd be cured and he'd let her go and maybe they could even go out again sometime once he was normal.
Alicia knew that she was being a fool.
Why would she want to go out with the guy who chained her up and bit her nipples off and was more than likely going to murder her?
Because you're a sex-addict, her subconscious answered back.
The likelihood of him curing himself by plunging a stake through the heart of a serial child murderer was so remote it was crazy. Stil, it was the only thing she had to hang her hopes on.
'I'l help you.'
'What?'
'I'l help you find him… and kil him.' Joe stared into Alicia's eyes for a long moment. He saw an honesty and a trust there that was almost childlike. There was loneliness there too, and a need-the need for love. He reached out and stroked her long curly black hair and leaned in to kiss her.
As Joe's lips touched hers Alicia screamed at herself: Bite his lips off. Bite off his fucking tongue! Kil Him! Kil Him!!!
Instead, she returned his kiss. Their tongues dueled and danced and Joe lovingly caressed her beautiful body, careful to avoid her savaged nipples, which were stil raw and tender. He kissed her throat and sucked the sweat from the hol ows of her col arbones. He licked the salt of her tears from her cheeks and brushed his lips against her eyelids. He sucked her bruised lips and kissed the tip of her chin. Then he laid her down and removed the leg spreader from between her ankles, slipping off her restraints and kissing the chafed and torn flesh beneath, shivering at the meaty metal ic taste of her blood.
Joe stroked her buttery caramel thighs and Alicia moaned in appreciation. She tried to tel herself to fight him, to kick him off and run for her life, but he was so big, so strong. She doubted she'd have had a chance of overcoming him even for a second and she was enjoying his touch, enjoying the emotion in his eyes, in his soulful moans, and delicate caresses. As much as she hated to admit it, she was fal ing for him. She gasped as he lowered his weight on top of her and parted her thighs, entering her with cautious probing thrusts.
He lowered his head to the nape of her neck and she stiffened, momentarily certain that he would bite her again, tear out her throat like a vampire. But when he raised his head there were tears in his eyes.
'I love you, Alicia. You have to help me.'
'I wil. Ipromise.'
That night they made love, gently, softly, sweetly. They gave and took, exchanging pain for pleasure, solitude for solace, and when they were done they held each other and wept for both their lives.
Chapter Fifteen
Damon was towering above him as eight-year-old Joey rounded the corner on his BMX bike. The overweight high school dropout stood in the middle of the sidewalk in his Windy City Deep Dish
Pizza delivery uniform, his van idling at the curb, and the passenger door swung wide. He leered coyly at little Joey with a lecherous scowl on his face and a cruel gleam in his eyes. His smile was even more threatening. It was the predatorial rictus of a hyena approaching weakened prey.
Joe tried to steer around him but the fat teenager stepped right into his path, teenager stepped right into his path, causing Joe to slam on his brakes and skid out, nearly flipping over the handlebars. He was just about to cuss the chubby loser out when he felt the boy's fat fingers close around his throat and lift him from the bike. Joe tried to cal out, but he could get no air in or out of his lungs. He pinwheeled his arms and legs in the air as if he were trying to swim away from an onrushing shark as the boy carried him across the sidewalk and into the idling van. The fat kid smel ed like pepperoni and ammonia.
That's the last thing Joe remembered thinking before the van doors slammed shut, sealing out the midday August sun and the joyful cries of the kids playing just yards away in the park.
Joe woke up with his fist clenched tight around Alicia's throat. Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets, her tongue lol ed stupidly from her mouth, and her complexion was turning the prettiest turquoise blue. He jerked his hands away from her neck and jumped back, scooting to the other side of the bed, startled by what he had done. Alicia was gasping and choking as she sucked air back into her depleted lungs. Joe was breathing hard with sweat bul eting down his face.
'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I-I was having a bad dream. I didn't mean to-I mean, I didn't know what I was doing.'
'You almost kil ed me! You're crazy! Oh my God! You're fucking crazy! Heeelp!
Heeeelp!!!'
Joe shook his head in exasperation and reached down to pick up the restraints from where he'd tossed them on the floor. He seized one of Alicia's legs and slipped the leather cuff around her ankle. This time she did try to kick, to fight back. She aimed a kick at his face and her heel caught him in the jaw as he reached out for her feet, causing his head to spin and his lip to split open and run red. Joe barely seemed to notice. He grabbed both of her ankles and flipped her over onto her stomach.
Joe's breath caught in his throat as that perfect ass rol ed into view, wobbling temptingly in the moonlight. The hunger came rushing upon him urgent and insistent. He sat on Alicia's back as she continued to scream and struggle, seizing her ankles and placing the leather cuffs and leg spreader back between her ankles. Then he turned and cuffed and chained her wrists again as wel.
'Noooo! Nooo! Don't do this!'
'I said I wouldn't hurt you and I won't-not if I can find the cure.'
Joe trussed her up, reinserted the bal gag into her mouth and reattached her to the chain hanging from the ceiling before he hurried out of the room.
