He steps into my path to barricade me from the door. “You can’t deny what just happened between us, what I know you felt—”
“The only thing that happened was the need to get my rocks off.” I glance around the bathroom floor. Finding his pants and white undershirt, I scoop both up and fling them at him.
He catches his clothes, the pant leg smacking his face, which gives me more gratification than it should.
As he slides his leg into the pants, careful of the enflamed skin around the watch, he says, “It’s not safe without me.”
I arch an eyebrow, any argument I could make unnecessary as I stare at his leg to make my point.
He’s the danger.
Everything Alex touches, he destroys.
“You need me,” he says.
“I need you to get out of my way.” I push against his bare chest, frustration thrumming hot and impatient along my nerves.
His hands circle my wrists, his fingers aligning with the bruised imprints he put there. “Blakely, there’s no other choice. An actual deranged, psychotic serial killer is upset with the fact that we connected him to an investigation.”
“Your investigation. Your bodies,” I clarify. But what he’s saying resonates, leaving ice in my veins to replace the lingering heat.
“Our bodies, baby. You’re a killer.”
The realization is quick and smarting, like tape being ripped away from skin. I’m tied to his murders because he made sure to connect me by copying the MO of Ericson’s death. Which makes it look not so much like an unfortunate, random mugging.
“Oh, my god, you sick fuck. I couldn’t figure out why you were targeting my revenge marks. Why you weren’t disposing of the bodies. You did it to link us together. Some twisted union your demented brain thinks will…what? Unite us?”
He doesn’t deny my allegation. “Your targets were meticulously vetted,” he says in defense. “I could’ve wasted days or even weeks searching for new subjects.”
“So it was a matter of convenience,” I say, sarcasm layered thick in my tone.
A flash of annoyance passes over his features, and I twist my forearms free of his grip. He knows something more—he’s keeping some vital piece from me.
“I have a plan,” Alex says, but my thoughts are too far away to really hear him.
I’m searching the memory of my conversation with London for anything that was said, anything that was hinted to or—
I yank my tote around and open it. I plunder through the bag until I unearth my billfold and unzip the side compartment where I placed London’s business card.
A confused expression crosses his face as I flip the card over and hold it up to the florescent light. “That fucking bitch,” I say.
The card stock is too thick to see through, but I note the weight, then I tear it in half.
A small computer chip, like the tracker we used on the prostitute to mic her, is hidden between the thick card stock.
London bugged me.
I’m not sure if she can hear what we’re saying, or if it’s simply a GPS device, but I’m certain she’s been spying on me. I told her about Alex killing his subjects with the experiment. Then Grayson shows up to torture Alex.
Wordlessly, I stalk to the broken stall and grab a wad of tissue, then proceed to wrap the chip. “Until I can learn more.” I crumple the paper to muffle any potential feed and bury it in my bag.
“I’ll analyze it properly later,” Alex says, arrogantly making the assumption we’ll be together.
I hold his gaze for a long beat. The weight of the shifting tide crashes down on me, and I’m trapped in his undertow.
Who is my enemy?
Should I run? Escape Alex? Escape the murders, the killers, and all the dangers suddenly hunting me?
Before Alex entered my world, I never ran from anyone or anything. But I already tried to run once, and I couldn’t escape him. This time, I have to face my fears.
I don’t know why London felt the need to spy on me. Maybe she gets off on interfering with her patients’—or prospective patients’—lives. Or maybe she’s simply a pawn in a deranged trap orchestrated by her patient. Maybe we’re all being manipulated.
Whatever the truth is, it doesn’t change what we have to do—what I have to do.
I feel the warmth of Alex’s touch as he takes my hand in his. “You’re coming home with me.”
11
Lovesick
Alex
When a serial killer threatens to eviscerate you and feed your entrails to his pet fish, you start to evaluate your life choices.
By examining at a microscopic level, I can trace every decision and path taken, and the intersecting events, that create the perfect formula.
It’s when I back out enough to examine the picture as a whole that chaos theory comes into play—the irregularities within my system that couldn’t be foreseen. As always, the system’s destination is decided very delicately by its starting point.
Had Blakely never contacted Dr. Noble, then it’s likely Grayson wouldn’t know I exist.
Had I never entered that night club, I never would’ve found Blakely.
Had I been less selective and chosen a subject sooner out of my typical selection pool, I never would’ve been tempted to enter the club in the first place.
I can keep tracing the path backward, noting each incident that brought us to this point, but there’s a lesson in chaos: Chaos theory proposes a paradox, as it connects two familiar notions that are viewed as incompatible.
By any rational observation, Blakely and I are an incompatible notion.
And yet, she tore through my systematic world to obliterate me wholly.
She is the paradox.
Like the swing of a pendulum, her velocity and force is what I measure every need and aspiration by, and if I can only have her rage and hatred, then that is how I’ll accept her. Having a piece of her is more consuming than any shallow connection.
Because I know we haven’t yet reached our ending destination.
Like all systems, time is the variable that facilitates change.
And that anticipated change is a tense warning in the air around us. Having her in my space feels threatening, like at any moment she can shred the fabric of my feebly constructed world to decimate me.
Tonight proved she holds the power to do just that.
With her unstable emotions, she’s a liability to more than just me; she’s a liability to herself.
Instead of my selfish endeavor to repair my ego, I should’ve been engineering a compound to help regulate her neurotransmitters until her brain chemistry equalizes.
Since I have no ability to reverse time, I can only start from where we are now.
“You’re sleeping in my bed,” I tell her, as I clear the clutter off my desk.
Since Grayson is apprised to the location of both our places, it seemed only logical to utilize my previous unit. I have no doubt Grayson is aware of this residence also, but it’s marginally safer, equipped with an alarm system and less entry points.
Blakely limps toward the closet and removes a fleece blanket, then tosses it on the beige sofa. “I’ll sleep here.”
A fiery thread curls beneath my skin. I rub the back of my neck to ease sore muscles and my growing irritation. We’re practically war battered from fighting and fucking—maybe more so from the fucking—and still she refuses to admit the truth of us.