Chapter Two
Selena
T he knife glows in the rays cast by the standing lamp. The man holding it turns it at an angle, eyeing the blood that's coating the edge. Sanford, the source of the blood, is limp on the floor.
Holy shit. Holy shit.
I can't help it; I run my fingers over my throat, checking to be sure he didn't slash me too. He moved so fast, he COULD have cut me, and I wouldn't have known. My nostrils flare, I'm trying to get my breathing under control, but my body is rebelling.
And I can't stop staring at Sanford.
I'd planned to kill him... but seeing it happen, the aftermath, isn't what I imagined. There are knots in my guts that won't unwind. I press my palm on my belly as if the lumps can be felt on the surface.
Focus... I'm in danger here.
The mysterious man pulls out a cloth from the pocket of his long jacket. It reminds me of a duster, except for the hood, which I now see is actually part of a hoodie layered beneath. He's turned so I can't see more than the side of his jaw and tip of his nose.
Maybe he's forgotten about me. He's busy with the body, I can get to the door and get out.
"Stop." He says it as firmly as someone cracking a stick over their knee. "Don't move. You've caused enough problems for me."
"I have?" I laugh anxiously. "I don't even know who you are or what's going on."
"Exactly. You stepped into the middle of something you shouldn't of." He shifts, suddenly facing me. He seemed small when he was crouched in the window, but now that I'm sitting on the bed, he's taller than a mountain. His brown eyes stab into me, and it hurts like he's using that knife of his. He begins cleaning it with the cloth. "Tell me your name."
"Why should I?" I taunt. I stepped into something I shouldn't of? So did he, and I'm pissed that he's thrown off my plan. "You don't get to boss me around."
His head cocks to the side. The lamp light reaches into the hood, revealing his features fully. His jaw is defined, the edges squared off, perfectly symmetrical. Hair darker than an artist's charcoal pencil curls across his forehead and temples. I swallow at the sight of him. After doing such an ugly thing like murder, I expected him to be more frightening. Not to say he isn't scary—he definitely has me on edge—but are killers allowed to be this handsome?
He takes a step toward the bed; I scoot higher up it until the headboard is against my shoulder blades. "Tell me your name," he says again.
"Give me a good reason to."
"It would help the police identify your body."
My skin goes icy.
"Or," he sighs, "maybe making you vanish is easier. I hate leaving a trail, makes people not want to hire me again."
Hire him? Little neurons in my brain connect. "You're an actual hit man," I whisper. That means someone besides me wanted Sanford dead.
His left knee settles on the mattress near my feet. On impulse I tense up, ready to drive my heel into his face if he gets closer. But he stays where he is. Just watching... waiting... probing me in a patient way that says You aren't in control here. "Your name. Now."
"Polly."
"Try again."
He has a top tier poker face. I don't know if he heard me scream my name earlier, or if he's guessing, but I slump against the pillows. "Selena. What about you?"
"You're not getting my name. You don't need it."
My heart is twisting inward on itself. "You're really going to kill me."
He glances at Sanford's body as if to say are you shocked by this? "Did you rent this room under your real name?"
"No, I paid in cash," I say quickly. "I'm not an idiot."
"If you went through with shooting him, what were you going to do with his body?"
"Leave it here."
"Along with all your DNA? And the camera footage showing you entering the room with him? Blood splatter on your clothes? Gun powder residue, which would be hard to explain away once everyone came running at the sound of a gunshot?" His attention is on Sanford as he coldly lists off all of my mistakes.
That cockiness is going to be his mistake.
Bracing my hands on the bed I throw myself forward, reaching for the knife in his grip. Once I get it, I'll have a way to defend myself.
He shifts so suddenly that I fall forward into the air, grabbing at nothing, the carpet coming toward me at nose-breaking speed. "Oof!" I grunt from the impact of his arm around my waist, throwing me back onto the bed with enough force the springs jostle, the headboard smacking the wall. Anyone in the room on the other side would hear the sound.
His weight settles on me, one knee on either side, a hand on my throat. It's a firm, relentless grip, his fingers creating a cage that doesn't choke but is impossible to escape from. I'm breathing rapidly, my throat pressing again and again into his palm like a trapped bird. I can't read the look in his narrowed eyes. Anger? Intrigue?
"You," he whispers darkly, "are too confident in yourself." He turns the knife in the air by his ear, never breaking eye contact. "Did you think if you took this, you'd be able to use it on me?"
"Yes," I rattle.
He blinks. A faint smirk grows across his lips. "You couldn't even pull the trigger on someone you hate."
"I could have," I argue. "You got in the way."
"You got in my way," he growls. Tension crinkles his eyebrows. He bends closer, his chest brushing mine; his scent invades me, choking me more than the hand on my throat. It's almonds and smoke and extremely pleasant. "This world, my world, isn't a place for girls who dress up like cartoon characters."
"Don't talk to me like I'm stupid," I croak.
"You're naive. And you're not murdering anyone."
"I will... next time."
His hand loosens on my neck. "Next time? There is no next time."
"Why, because you're going to kill me on this bed?" My boldness has been brought out by him mocking me. I'm pissed at myself for hesitating to shoot, I don't need this random stranger rubbing my nose in it. "Fine. Do it." I grab his wrist, forcing his hand tight across my throat. "You're right, you're in charge here. I can't get away. Do whatever you like with me."
The way his eyes widen has my heart jumping.
Did I shock him by egging him on? Is that the key to surviving here?
Praying for a way out of this, I dig my nails into his skin. "You've gone all quiet," I murmur, making myself smile. My guardian angel loves me because my lips don't twitch one bit. "Maybe you're the one who can't do it."
He studies me for a long minute. His hand loosens; I'm thrilling with excitement, but instead of letting go, he wraps his fingers in my pink hair, tugging me upwards. I cringe, but he has enough of my hair by the base that it doesn't hurt—much. "Killing you here would make things too messy for me. I prefer to be treated like a ghost, not a serial killer."
"Ah!" I wince as he guides me off the bed by my hair. "What are you doing?"
"Getting out of here. You're coming with me."
"Wait—wait wait. Out the window? Are you joking?"
He lets go of my hair and grabs my wrist, swiping the curtains out of the way of the wide open window. He positions one of his shoes on the ledge. "It's not that high. The fire escape will insure we don't break any bones."
Craning my neck I see "not that high" is still twelve feet. The wind cools across the sweat drying on my face; I swallow uneasily. "This is a bad idea."
"No, that would be going into the hallway. Did you forget about the cameras I mentioned?"
A prickle goes up my spine at the reminder. I'd worn a costume to help disguise me, I hope it's enough to make the footage useless. "Alright, lead the way."
"So you can turn around and run out the door the second I can't grab you? No, you go first." He starts to force me out the window. I grunt, resisting because I don't like the way the fire escape looks.
"Easy, easy!" I argue, clinging to the window frame for dear life. "Just give me a second to get myself together!"
"Heights or prison, it's not a hard choice."
He shoves me again—I grip harder. "Why are you worried about me getting arrested?" I hiss, digging my right heel into the wall, making a wedge. There's a fleck of blood on my boot. Sanford's blood.
Of course!
It hits me, then; he killed Sanford, not me. I could report him to the police. I'd get away from this mess with clean hands.
This killer...
He's afraid of ME.
The revelation takes the tension from my muscles. He leaps at the opportunity, shoving me out the window. I fall onto the fire escape and it rattles under my weight. I'm about to scream, but his hand muffles my mouth. "I can tell you're thinking of trying something clever," he whispers in my ear. "My advice is to smother that unreliable sense of hope and climb down this fire escape."
There'll be time to think of my next steps later. For now, I nod my head. He releases me, letting me grip the rusted handrails of the fire escape. Slowly I make me way towards the ground. The final rung hangs five feet above the pavement. "What now?" I ask.
"You fall."
Grimacing, I wring the bottom rung with both hands, crouching until one boot dangles freely in the air. The sensation makes my guts whirl around; I ignore it, trying to lower my other leg even as my brain screams at me that I'm going to die if I fall.
Something compels me to glance over at the parking lot. The girl from the booth line, the one I helped not lose her money to Sanford, gawks at me. I'm sure I'm quite the sight dangling as I am. The lot is full of cars and wandering people, but she's the only one looking.
Great! She can call for help and save me from this guy!
The second thought is sharper and heavier.
If he notices her noticing us, he might kill her in order to cover up his trail. He said he preferred being a ghost. Getting spotted by a random onlooker would ruin that.
Our eyes lock. Please, I silently plead with her, shaking my head, Look away. Pretend you don't see.
She twists her whole body around, pointedly staring in another direction as she weaves between the different cars until I lose sight of her. If she read my mind or just decided to stay out of it on her own, I've got no clue. All that matters is she's safe.
Releasing the rung, I land heavily, bending my knees to absorb the impact but doing a poor job of it. The hit man lands a second later. He's more graceful, his coat hardly flapping; he doesn't grunt like I did. "This way." He scoops my hand in his, forcing me to jog to keep up with him.
"The parking lot is behind us," I say.
"And?"
"Didn't you drive here?"
"Of course," he sighs. "My car is down this alley."
"Don't say it like that."
"Like what?"
"Your tone, it's smug and gross."
His eyes snap at me. "Did you park your car at the hotel?"
"No, I took an Uber and had it drop me off a block away."
He stops short, staring at me with a crooked grin. "All that effort to not leave a trail and you still got caught on those cameras."
My cheeks grow red; I rip my hand from his. "No one will recognize me. I'll dye my hair back to blonde." Ripping the tiny crown off my head, I throw it and the red cape on the sidewalk. "I was probably one of twenty girls dressed as Perona."
"Dressed as who?"
"Perona, she's from an anime."
Curling his lip, he shakes his head. "What are you, six years old?"
"Why, you kidnap a lot of kids?" He actually looks legit offended. "I'm twenty-one, and you still haven't told me your name."
"Do I have a reason to?" Hardening his eyes, he swoops an arm around my shoulders, pushing me into the nearby alley. Across the other side, on a cracked street with overloaded dumpsters butting against the loading dock of a restaurant, sits a silver Subaru. It's such an understated car that I don't grasp it's his until he opens the driver's side door. "Get in."
I don't have many options, but I consider them anyway. This might be my last chance to get away from him. Once I'm in his car, who knows what he'll do. Wasn't the main piece of advice about kidnappings to never get in the car? To scream and fight to insure someone hears so they'll see what's going on?
My pulse is rapid enough that I feel the vibrations in my teeth. Do it. Scream. The cops will come, or someone in one of these buildings will hear and they'll record it with their phones, get his license plate, or just... just...
"Jamison."
"What?" I startle.
"My name," he says, shoving me through the driver-side door, all the way cross to the passenger side. "It's Jamison."
I'm too stunned to gather myself before he shuts us inside. The engine rumbles, the car exiting the alley and onto a back road behind a row of warehouses, and I've barely straightened up in my seat. "You did that on purpose."
"Did what?" he chuckles dryly.
"Told me your name to catch me off guard."
"If you'd screamed," he says, looking straight ahead, never at me, "I would've had to kill whoever saw us. Consider other people's lives before you act, Selena."
He drawls my name, reminding me that he has it the way I now have his.
The only other thing that we've shared is the murder of a man.
I picture Sanderson sprawled lifelessly on the carpet, his neck split apart like an open letter.
"When do you think they'll find his body?" I ask.
"Hopefully not for a few hours. Nobody saw him go into your room but me."
I tuck my chin against my neck in horror. "Wait, you saw that? Were you watching me the whole time?"
Jamison darts a quick look at me before eyeing the road. "We'll be driving for a bit. Make yourself comfortable. Put on some music, whatever you like."
I don't touch the radio.
He was watching me.
How long was he watching me?
It's funny to think how frustrated I was when he wouldn't give me his name. It seemed like such an important bit of info, but now it means nothing. I have a hundred more questions.
But he hasn't killed me yet.
I guess I'll have time to work on getting answers.