An ache blooms in my chest, like a bruise that won’t heal, the fiery pain becoming a familiar companion. Thoughts of that night assault me. Of Alex as he touched me in a way no other man had, of how I could feel his need for me, feel his emotions, feel an intense connection to him.
He told me he loved me.
“He’s the enemy,” I say under my breath, a reminder that I can’t lose sight of what he did. He tortured me for almost a month. He altered the chemistry of my brain, for fuck’s sake.
And yet, on the nights when it’s the hardest to sleep, when the sickness pits out my stomach and I curl into myself and I can’t decipher the difference between anger and heartache, I reach for his shirt. The one I keep tucked on the side of the bed, the one I grabbed when I raced out of the burning cabin.
The one that still carries his scent of sandalwood and aquatic cologne and some indefinable masculine fragrance that belonged only to Alex.
I wear his shirt and, on some subconscious level, the comfort that closeness brings is enough to chase back the darkness.
The acrid smell of fire coats my throat, making it raw. I swallow hard. As I find my way back onto the path, I notice a shiny glint up ahead near the gate. The sun catches on the gleaming object, and as I get closer, a shiver rocks me.
I kneel down and swipe the dirt away with a shaky hand to uncover the pewter cover of Alex’s pocket watch.
My heart knocks violently against my rib cage as I unearth the watch. The glass face is missing, the glass shattered and left discarded in the dirt. The gears are crushed and the hands no longer tick.
A strange eeriness settles over me at the silence, the world suddenly too quiet, too still.
Alex destroyed his timepiece right before he smashed every clock in his twisted dark room and set fire to his cabin.
In doing so, he set me free. But really, he only locked me inside a different kind of cage.
I rub my thumb over the engraving, the one Alex’s sister had inscribed, before I clean the dirt out the best I can. I stand and slip the watch into my pocket.
Time haunts me.
The internal ticking of Alex’s clocks is the soundtrack to my nightmares.
I’ll get out of here. And when I do, Alex, I will hunt you down. I will end you. Through the hollow expanse of time, my words echo around this place filled with death and despair to come back to me in severe clarity, a vow I swore to Alex.
I will find him.
I will have my revenge.
But first, there’s someone I need to meet.
2
Target Practice
Alex
I have loved to the point of madness.
I never fully appreciated the meaning of Sagan’s verse until I crossed paths with Blakely Vaughn.
She changed everything.
She changed me.
I’m no longer the same man, reformed on a molecular level.
Even my cells crave her, to be connected.
I find myself reciting the verse every time an image of her comes to me. The way her teeth sink into her bottom lip so teasingly. The way she crosses her long legs, knowing just how seductive she is. The way she stares straight through me with those bottomless, sea-green eyes, down to the rotten marrow in my bones.
I never felt more alive, more out of control, then when I was around her. Normally, that would terrify me. Loss of control goes against everything I stand for. But with her, it was easy to allow my primal, wild beast to revel in base pleasures.
She makes me weak, but also stronger than I’ve ever felt.
I trace my fingertips over the sketch of her face, infusing Sagan’s words into my system the way she infuses my whole being.
She is maddeningly a part of me now.
Mind, body, soul. My obsession consumes me from the inside out. Like the Carrion beetle burrowing to feast on decay, my necrotic matter called to her, and she devoured my rotted humanity to resurrect a new man.
I wasn’t strong enough for her then.
But I am now.
No matter what she professed at the river, I know the truth. She tried to deny what she felt—truly felt—when we made love under the fall.
But I felt her wilt in my arms. The strong, stubborn, unbreakable Blakely shattered beneath me. She broke against me as we came together, melding two souls into one. A sublime collision of lust and longing, and pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
Her emotions scared her. She’d never experienced them before. I had never experienced anything like her before. We connected on a plane above morals and judgement, and that’s what frightened her.
She’s fallen in love with her villain.
The mad scientist she loathes. Her tormentor. The one she envisions when she smashes her fist into the punching bag, and the one she thinks about when she touches herself.
And, oh, she’s so painfully beautiful in her torment, in her confliction, the denial that festers her once-impenetrable resolve. I’ve seen what’s under that hard layer, and it’s vulnerable and tender and starved.
And it’s mine.
Using my thumb to smudge the shadowed contour along her jawline, I blow away the lead debris, mindful not to impact her lips. Captured in perfect lighting under an illuminated marquee sign, her lips are flawless. Her features divine.
A single moment stolen.
I give myself credit, I’ve been patient. I watched her the other night as she waited to cross the street. The whole city abuzz around her as she stood motionless. A lost soul amid a sea of strangers all bustling with energy. And Blakely, arms crossed around her trim waist, trying to disappear in the stream.
I’ve been watching for a while, monitoring her progress, cataloging her setbacks, waiting on the sidelines to intervene. Her life is very different now. Blakely no longer lurks in the shadows targeting victims for other people’s revenge. Like standing beneath that brilliant sign, she’s been thrust into the light, forced to interact with the world.
Since I returned to the city, I’ve been studying her cautiously, warily, the way I should have done before. Instead, I jumped in on impulse, too excited by the prospect she held. The lure to be pulled in by her gravity too compelling.
No more rash decisions. I need verifiable proof the procedure worked, not my biased assertion of what I witnessed during our last moments together. That, and the fact when I was faced with my demons, I made the reprehensible decision to destroy my lab and all my work.
It takes time to rebuild. And to rebuild better. If I can prove the results, then there is no guilt, no reason to feel anything other than pride at my accomplishment.
So I destroyed the research lab at the cabin, all the evidence, thereby allowing Blakely to believe I was destroyed also.
How else would she have been able to return to her life?
Once I have concrete, factual findings, I will atone for my sins with her, but I have no plans of spending the remainder of my life in prison. And I won’t let Blakely, either.
I admit, the second I realized the treatment was a success, the scientist in me was tempted to go directly to her. Eager to run tests and compare data, to study and map her neural pathways like Theseus exploring the labyrinth.
But really, the truth is far more sinister.
I’m not the hero slaying a disease.
I’m the monster in the center of the maze.
The selfish, needy man in me just wants her. To see the look in her eyes when I appear in her life. Alive. With the realization that I’ve come back for her.