Chapter Five – Abby
When Ezra swaps places with Royal, I can’t help but say, “So, about Royal. Two things. First: what’s with him? He’s not a very talkative guy, is he? And second: what’s with his name? Is Royal his real name, or is it some code name? Is your real name Ezra?”
Ezra seems to be in a better mood than Royal. He meets my rapid-fire questions with a dimpled grin of his own, his blue eyes twinkling. Now that he’s not wearing the D.D.K. ensemble, I can see the tattoos lining his arms, both of them. Sleeves made of all different designs.
He’s hot. They all are, really.
“Royal is his real name, yes,” Ezra says. He sits a bit closer to me on the couch, only a single cushion away, not putting as much distance between us as Royal did. “And you have to forgive him. It’s been a long night. Or, morning, I guess.”
Crap, yeah. It’s technically morning. I stayed up all night. Well, if you don’t count when I was chloroformed. That’s a gray area I’m not too well-versed in, I’ll admit. My head does feel a little better now than it did when I first woke up, so there’s that. Small victories.
“None of us were expecting you to fall out of the closet while we were, uh—”
“Killing a guy?” I offer. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to have company, either. To be fair, though, there was a huge spider. Otherwise I would’ve stayed in the closet and let you guys do your thing.”
Their thing being killing and cutting a guy up like his corpse was meant to be a puzzle. Still a weird thing to think about, but with what I do, what I was hoping to accomplish last night, well… it’s like looking in a mirror. A big, masculine mirror.
“Royal said you guys don’t kill women. Is that true?”
The look Ezra gives me tells me Royal wasn’t lying, and his words back him up: “It’s true. Not to change the subject, but did you ever make that list? When Royal gets up in a few hours, one of us can run out for whatever you need.”
“You guys don’t have, like, day jobs or something?
Or are you three here all the time?” If they don’t have day jobs, either they come from money or…
or they have to get their money elsewhere.
Being that they’re a team, I do have to wonder if there’s more to the team than just Ezra, Royal, and Hawthorne.
“Plotting your escape?”
I shrug. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”
The way Ezra looks at me with those bright blue eyes makes me squirm a bit, almost like he knows I’m full of it.
Trying to run would be stupid, and I might be many things, but I’m not stupid.
If these guys are this successful as D.D.K.
, they’ll be able to track me down and find me no problem, and next time they might not be so nice about it.
I mean, the chloroform wasn’t so nice, but who can blame them for being careful? I get it. I ain’t mad about it.
So why would I try to run? I’m willing to see where this goes. Hey, maybe they could teach me a thing or two about killing. They clearly know a lot more about it than I do, and I am always willing to learn.
“Sorry,” Ezra says with a grin. “We’re here all the time, unless we’re out and about. Hawthorne rarely leaves the house, though.”
“So he’s the brains behind this whole operation?”
“In a way, yes. He’s good at computers. He helps us get to know our targets before we strike.
He’s…” Ezra trails off, almost as if he’s unsure of how to go on.
“…he can be a little awkward at times, but he’s a good guy.
You don’t have to worry about him, or any of us.
You don’t seem too worried about it, but I want you to know we won’t hurt you. ”
He sounds so earnest about it, it’s kind of sweet—in a weird way, of course. This whole situation is messed up, but I don’t feel like screaming and running away, so there’s that. Then again, even if the situation was a million times worse, screaming would be the last thing I’d do.
The men I go after like it when you scream. I’d never give anyone the satisfaction.
I smile softly. “It’s so strange, especially after seeing you and Royal dismember someone, but I believe you.”
“What were you doing there? If you weren’t someone Brock hurt, what’s with the bag you brought?”
“How do you know it was my bag and not Brock’s?”
Ezra gives me a knowing look. “Brock was a certain type of guy. The things he liked to do weren’t legal, but they also didn’t involve a kill kit like that. Trust me, I know a kill kit when I see one, and that bag didn’t belong to Brock. It was yours.”
No point in denying it now, but still it feels bizarre to me to admit it to this guy.
He presses me, much like I was pressing Royal earlier, “Were you there to kill him? If he didn’t hurt you, then… did he hurt someone you know? Were you there for revenge?”
Look at him, trying to put the pieces together.
He’s close, but being he’s a stranger, I don’t feel like spilling my guts to him, much like they don’t want to spill all their secrets to me.
It’s been hours. Maybe the truth will come with time, or maybe it won’t.
I honestly can’t see what the future holds anymore.
When I don’t say anything, he goes on, “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable. I get it. I get it more than most people, I think, but for the record: anyone in this house would get it. I think the four of us have more in common than you think.”
Hmm. He might be right there, but until we’re all comfortable sitting in a sharing circle, the jury’s out.
“Hawthorne will want to know, though, so don’t be surprised when he comes to you with a thousand questions. He doesn’t like the unknown.”
Then I guess I better have a thousand answers that aren’t strictly truthful, huh?
Ezra must sense that I don’t want to keep talking about this, so he pulls out his phone and says, “Why don’t we work on that list, hmm? I can text it to Royal once we’re done with it.”
I guess it’s as good of a thing to do as any. Besides, I will need some things if I’m going to live here for the foreseeable future. Call me crazy, but I don’t feel like wearing these black clothes forever. Same bra and panties for eternity? Uh, no thanks.
We go down the list, starting with bathroom essentials.
I get very specific when it comes to my body wash, shampoo, and facial soap.
There are a few particular scents I’ve been sticking to since my teenage years, plus with my hair, the type of shampoo you use really does matter.
Certain shampoos just strip out the color and leave you with an ugly mess.
Since Royal will be going out, I also specify other things I’ll need to keep my hair in tip-top shape. Making hair masks myself saves some time when it comes to going to a salon. Somehow I don’t think these guys will let me out to get my hair done, so it’s all on me to keep it looking fresh.
Hair dye, plain hair masks, some powdered bleach and a bottle of developer. Stuff you have to go to an actual hair store to get. I’m sure Royal will love going there, but it’s a necessary part of my upkeep, assuming they want me to stay as I am and not revert back to my more natural state.
You know, the natural color of my hair, something I haven’t seen in years. I’d like to avoid that, if possible.
We go through everything, including food I like. You know, the little snacks that keep you sane throughout the day. Being stuck here in this house, I imagine I’m going to be snacking an awful lot.
The last thing we do is clothes, and that’s where things get a little awkward. For some reason, it didn’t dawn on me until that exact moment that a man—a stranger, pretty much—will be out in the stores picking my clothes.
My clothes. All of them. Shirts, pants, pajamas, and everything underneath.
“What, um, what size are you? When it comes to, uh, you know…” Ezra actually blushes when he asks, and then he points to his own chest.
I’m not the kind of person who gets all modest about things, but maybe it’s the way he blushes and refuses to actually say the words out loud. Maybe it’s contagious blushing. Either way, I totally blame him.
“I’m a thirty-six C,” I say as I look away, fighting the blush and totally failing. Maybe I wouldn’t be blushing if Ezra wasn’t so attractive. Heck, maybe seeing him and Royal kill Brock primed me to feel certain things I shouldn’t.
Realistically, they’re killers. But so am I. Things aren’t as cut and dry as they would be if we were all normal people with normal, non-murderous hobbies.
“Okay,” Ezra says as he types the details into the message.
“And is there, uh, any particular style you want? Or color? Or…” With the way he’s stumbling over his words, you’d think he’s a boy in middle school or something, not a near-thirty-year-old serial killer.
It is strangely adorable, even if it is making me flustered, too.
“Surprise me,” I end up saying, and the moment I do, I realize I might end up eating those words. How well can a serial killer pick out bras? Guess I’m going to find out.
All he does is nod and finish typing out the message. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that message; it’s a long-ass list. Whenever Royal goes out, he’s going to be out and about all day, assuming he actually gets me everything on said list.
Right then, my stomach rumbles. It rumbles loud enough that both Ezra and I hear it, and I give him a sheepish look and say, “Guess I’m hungry. You guys have cereal or something?”
“We have some, although I can honestly say we are fresh out of Lucky Charms,” Ezra references my favorite cereal from the list. “We also have eggs. I can whip up something warm, if you want. I’m not a fantastic cook, but scrambled eggs I can definitely do.”
It isn’t every day you get offered a meal from a serial killer. What else can I say besides “Eggs it is”? Nothing, because I’m totally curious how well this man can cook eggs.
Eggs are one of the simplest things to cook, but you’d be surprised at how often people screw them up, especially scrambled. Too runny? Gross, not done enough. And if you overcook them, they get all hard and nasty. It’s a delicate balance.
Ezra gets up, and I follow him into the kitchen to watch.
The kitchen is a large, spacious room with ample cabinet space and a nice, big island where the glass top stove is.
The island is so large that the other side of it has four bar stools tucked under its counter, and it’s one of these stools I sit on while I watch him work.
Watching a man cook you breakfast just hours after you witnessed him dismembering someone is something else.
Soon enough he slides a plate of eggs and toast in front of me, complete with a fork, and I dig in. He has his own plate, but he watches me take my first bite before he goes for his. The moment those light, fluffy, warm eggs hit my mouth, I am in heaven.
I don’t really like eggs, but when they’re done right, they’re perfection.
Add in just the right amount of salt and pepper and you literally couldn’t get a better breakfast. Not undercooked, not overcooked.
Everything is just right. I devour everything on the plate so fast I inhale it, which Ezra notices.
“So I take it my eggs have your stamp of approval?” Ezra asks as he gathers some onto his fork.
“They do,” I say. “I know you said you aren’t a chef, but your eggs are delicious.” I’m seconds from asking if he can make anything else when someone else joins us in the kitchen—Hawthorne—and he goes right to the coffee maker and pours himself a cup.
Judging by how the coffee is already brewed and half-gone by the time he fills his cup, I have to assume he’s been nursing the coffee all night. You’d never know just by glancing at him, though. If he stayed up all night he wears the exhaustion well.
Hawthorne wears a different shirt than he wore when we first met.
This one is a dark maroon, the color of dried, scabbed-over blood.
The sleeves are down to his wrists, and the ends of it are neatly tucked into his slacks.
Every single button is together on the shirt, all the way up to his neck.
He looks like he’s going to a job interview or something.
The only somewhat messy thing is his black hair, but that could just be due to the unevenness of its gentle waves.
It’s barely long enough to rest on the top rim of his glasses.
“When you’re finished, I’d like to see you in my office,” Hawthorne says, pausing only to take a sip from his mug before he wanders off.
I watch him go, and then I look at Ezra. “Was he talking to you or me?”
“You,” Ezra says, and he says it without a second thought.
“What do you think he wants?”
“Probably to talk to you about the same stuff I was asking you about last night. He doesn’t like unknowns, and right now, you’re the biggest unknown we’ve ever had.
” He leans on the island a few feet away.
“Hawthorne is smart. Don’t lie to him. It’ll be better if you tell him whatever he wants to know. ”
“If I tell him everything, will he tell me everything? That’s fair, isn’t it?”
With a sigh, Ezra says, “It might be fair, but… you have to understand that we’ve been at this for a long, long time. We didn’t get where we are today by not being careful.”
“Not sweeping the house before you guys went after Brock doesn’t seem like you guys were all that careful.” Maybe not the best idea to bring that up again, but whatever.
Thankfully Ezra doesn’t take offense. He just grins at me and says, “To be fair, we don’t normally run into people hiding in closets with their own kill kits. Last night was a first, I’m assuming for all of us.”
All I can do is sigh. “Guess I better get it over with, then.”
He pushes off the counter. “I’ll walk with you up. Don’t worry about the dishes, I’ll clean up while you’re with Hawthorne.”
I get to my feet and follow Ezra out of the kitchen. We head upstairs, and all the while I wonder what exactly Hawthorne wants to discuss. I doubt he has everything already to lock the house down, as he mentioned before; I didn’t see any deliveries while I was on the couch with Royal and Ezra.
Which means he wants to know about me.
We stop in front of the room that must be his office, AKA the only room that wasn’t included in the tour I received earlier.
Ezra glances between the door and me before he says, “Like I said, it’ll be easier if you just tell Hawthorne whatever he wants to know.
Good luck.” With that, he leaves me to presumably clean the kitchen.
And that, in turn, leaves me to speak with Hawthorne alone.
I’m not exactly what I’d call nervous, but at the same time, I am a little uneasy, mostly because I know Hawthorne even less than I know Royal and Ezra.
See: not at all. He’s an unknown, just like I’m an unknown to him.
He gave off awkward vibes earlier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s like that all the time. It could be a ruse, an act.
Only one way to find out.
I bring my hand to the doorknob and head in.