I can’t wait to show Charlotte my knife. To leave its wet, cross-hatched marks over her pale skin.
I will take her to my hunting lodge. I’ve wanted to since the day she kissed me. But it’s not the right time. It must be snowing, and from the reports I receive in my emails, the first snows haven’t fallen yet.
Pushing the thought of her soft skin and those big, expressive eyes from my mind, I climb out of my car and head for the apartment block. I don’t bother about keeping the rain from my head—I love the feeling of those hard drops slamming onto my face. The cold and the wet keeps me on edge.
His name is on the label for apartment twelve. How fucking stupid.
I buzz.
He answers.
I don’t say anything.
He lets me in any way.
People are so careless. That’s why I have nothing more in common with this man than his fixation with my Charlotte.
I’m careful. I’m intelligent. And, as he proves a few minutes later, I care so much more for Charlotte than he ever could.
Chapter Fourteen
The rain waters down my tears until I barely taste them. I should have my hood up, but the sting of the cold drops are the only thing stopping me from returning to my apartment and ending it.
Everything.
The first few days, I didn’t miss the peonies. Not one bit. But before the end of the week, their absence became a black void in my mind.
If I’d had friends, I would have turned to them for comfort. Had my parents not died a few years ago, I’d have called them.
But I have no one. Charlotte Ash is alone in this world, and as the days dragged on that black void began consuming the tattered shreds of my soul until there was nothing left but a hollow vessel, waiting to be filled.
Try as I might, however, nothing fills it.
I shouldn’t be out this late at night, but I’m hoping the diner is still open. I’m hoping I can take a seat, order something, and it will fill me. Even though I can’t taste anything, hunger still gnaws at me.
The street is empty. I’m the only one who’s dared to come out on such a shitty night.
Until I hear the splash of footsteps behind me.
My heart leaps into my throat, strangling me. I speed up, but my pursuer keeps pace effortlessly. I don’t dare look back in case the sight of my stalker makes me freeze up. Instead, I scan the street ahead for help.
But there’s no one to help. No buildings to dart into. Just solid brick walls left and right. One stationary car a few yards up the road—unoccupied.
I can’t run. Not yet. I’ll just start a chase. But if I could slip out of sight and then sprint away...?
The element of surprise is all I have.
And when I see an alley mouth gaping black ahead, I take it.
The splash-thud of my footsteps is all I can hear. That and my own frantic breathing.
I’ve lost them.
Relief washes over me—even icier than the rain hurtling down into the narrow alley.
But it vanishes an instant later when I realize the darkness ahead isn’t an empty void like me. There’s substance to it.
I barely get my hands out in time. I crash into a wall, the bricks scraping over my palms, slicing deep. I spin around, already knowing what I’ll see.
A silhouette watches me from the mouth of the blind alley. It watches me for long, rain-pounding seconds, and then moves closer. Not hurrying. Just walking.
The closer they get, the tighter my chest becomes. The more my fingers dig into the bricks behind me, as if testing their solidity.
And then I recognize him.
Gideon Fyre.
My relief is nothing but a brief, warm wave. Because the closer he gets, the more real he becomes. Memories of him fill my mind, mocking me for feeling hope.
I’m trembling by the time he stops in front of me.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” I wish my voice didn’t quaver.
I also wish I hadn’t left my apartment tonight.
“I have a present for you,” he says.
I try to scowl at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Gideon reaches into his pocket.
My heart climbs up my throat, followed by a rush of warm, acidic bile.
This is it. It’s finally over.
I squeeze my eyes closed so I can’t see the knife or the gun or whatever it is he’s going to kill me with.
Light bathes the back of my eyelids. I struggle to keep them closed, but finally, they pop open.
I’m staring at a cellphone. There’s an image on the screen. For a second, I have no idea what I’m looking at.
And then the bile that was sitting in the back of my throat, kept in place by my pounding heart, gushes into my mouth. I turn my head, puking violently onto the filthy ground beside me.
"He’ll never hurt you again, Charlotte. He’ll never touch anyone ever again.”
My stomach contracts, but there’s nothing left. All that was in there was that one burst of stomach acid—I haven’t eaten in days. I push myself up using the bricks as support and lean my head back against their rough surface.
“And now it’s my turn?” I whisper.
Gideon cocks his head. A strange smile plays on his lips. “You don’t recognize him,” he muses quietly. “It’s understandable. Death changes everything.” He looks at the phone, then juggles it in his hand. When he turns it to face me, I instantly look away, squeezing my eyes shut with a terrified whimper. “Look at him, Charlotte. Who do you see?”
Gideon needs to be humored. Perhaps, if I do what he says, he’ll let me go. So I look. And I do my best to forget that the image I’m looking at is a severed head. Gideon helps—his finger is obscuring the bottom of the image. I’m left with a view
