35. Lucky Night
~ CAIN ~
I knew that fucking priest got in her head and gave her a conscience. If he put out her light I’d take a knife to that fucker.
When I listed the Bible in the kit, I thought she’d buy one at Walmart. I never expected it to send her to church—how had I missed that part of her life in my research?
Easy… I’d been so fascinated with her, I got sloppy. Which was all the more reason I needed to turn around and go home.
But I kept driving, my phone open on the dash, watching her tracker progress as she drove, shaking my head and cursing the whole way. But I didn’t speed. I couldn’t. No way was I fucking this up by getting pulled over.
I needed to let her get home and think the day was done. Start to relax. She needed to have given up on seeing me today. Because she couldn’t be allowed to think she could just text me and I’d come running. That wasn’t how the hunt worked. Lucky for both of us, I’d already decided to come for her tonight.
But she was having second thoughts. She never got the words out, but I knew it. I could feel it. Especially knowing she sent that message when she left the priest.
Confession was a bitch. And I was mad.
This wasn’t the way to start a hunt. It was dangerous because it clouded my vision. I knew that. But I’d given up fighting the urge to keep her. I’d accepted my obsession.
One way or another, she was going to belong to me forever. And if that meant I had to remove that fucking priest, well… it could be arranged.
I smiled grimly and came to a full and complete stop at the stop sign. My mother would have been proud.
I circled the car around the little shopping mall a few miles from her house until I was sure she’d gotten home, then I drove very carefully to her neighborhood.
I didn’t usually invade the home so soon, but we needed to talk, and I needed to make sure we wouldn’t be interrupted. When I was just blocks from her house, I parked in the shade of that big tree again since it wasn’t dark yet, and checked my kit. I wouldn’t get out of the car until it was dark, but I needed to be close in case—
The little blue dot on my phone screen that was her car suddenly started moving again. I cursed and grabbed it, heart pounding because she wasn’t supposed to move. Where the fuck was she going?
She better not be going back to Vigorí. I hadn’t killed that idiot who’d tried to take her yesterday even though he deserved it. He better not tempt me a second time. I was beyond any kind of mercy.
Then I realized that dot was coming around the corner a couple blocks from where I was parked—she was going to pass me!
I didn’t hesitate, just flipped my car seat back so it laid flat and I was completely out of sight from the street. My breath came faster and the hair on my arms stood up as I heard the rush of her vehicle passing a minute later.
She was right there.
Shit.
It was torture watching my phone until she’d gone around the corner further down the street and was out of sight, then I sat up and got the car going, working hard not to drive like a crazed man because I didn’t need to keep eyes on her to follow her.
Where the hell was she going? And why had she gone home, then not stayed there?
Five minutes later she was stopped at a light and I was getting dangerously close because of the light sequence. But it didn’t matter, she’d get a green before I got to that block.
Except, she didn’t.
As I drove down the street, staying in the flow of traffic, her dot didn’t move, even though we were creeping up on that block… I kept my hood up and tried to sit normally in my car as I got closer and closer—cursing when I realized she’d stopped at a gas station and I was going to drive right past her.
I didn’t even turn my head, but I caught sight of her car parked in one of the slots for people using the convenience store as I rolled past and kept going two more blocks before I turned off the road to watch until she started moving again soon.
It took every ounce of will not to follow closely, but I couldn’t risk her catching sight of me, so I waited until she was more than a mile away, before I followed, and stayed well away until the car had stopped again, this time in a neighborhood park.
My skin began to prickle. Had she somehow figured out that I was hunting her and come here because she wanted to run?
And did that mean it would be a fun hunt, or did I need to turn around?
She’d thwarted me once already—dummy number, or not, she’d gotten the upper hand the last time I actually hunted her. And last night…
Last night had been a shitshow.
I needed to know that she was okay, and watching her run was a great way to make sure she wasn’t lying about… who the fuck was I kidding. I wanted to hunt her, chase her, take her down because she was a fucking prize.
I smiled.
It wasn’t the first time I’d had to hunt in a new area. This would be fun.
I made myself stay to the speed limit until I reached the little park and could roll past just to see where she was.
Her car was parked alongside the road, right where the suburban homes opened up to a park that was probably about an acre, and hedged in trees. There was a playground for little kids at the front, some picnic tables and benches, and a big grassy area behind it all that stretched to the trees hiding residential fences lining the back.
And a lone figure sitting on the top of a picnic table just behind the playground area, with her back to the streets.
My heart panged as I drove past because she looked so small, hunched over like that, watching the sunset fade over the trees, drowning in baggy clothes which made me frown.
What was going on? Had the Priest gotten to her? Or was she just bored?
She was out of sight in moments and I was reminded that I needed to formulate a plan.
Take her now?
Or leave her alone?
Making her wait would show her she didn’t have control. But if she had too much time to think, she might send me the safe word.
Fuck.
~ brIDGET ~
The minute I got home that itching in my skin got worse. And it definitely wasn’t because of Ronald this time.
I’d barely made it to my bedroom before I changed my mind, grabbed a couple things, then turned right back around and stormed out to the car again.
I wasn’t prepared for Vigorí , and frankly, wasn’t sure I wanted to try that again. I’d pissed Cain off with wanting to change the rules, so he wasn’t going to show. Sam would try and convince me not to let Cain hunt me anymore… there was really only one choice. Because I needed to sleep tonight and get rid of this tension.
So I drove to the little convenience store a few miles away, bought a bottle of cheap, sweet wine, and took it to the playground.
I’d said after last time I got drunk I wasn’t going to do it again. It always made me feel like crap, and my heart banged around too much for the crappy hangover to be worth it. Especially when hangovers included Art putting me in front of psychos like Ronald.
But it was also true that last time I got drunk I put that post on the forum where Cain found me.
So it wasn’t all bad.
I would be good tonight. I wouldn’t drink all night. I wouldn’t even drink that much.
Just to make sure, I only took enough cash with me to buy the one bottle, then I drove to the little park that wasn’t too far away because if I sat with my back to the road, it was just grass and trees and the sunset, and I could kind of pretend I wasn’t so lonely. Just choosing to be alone.
The effect was kind of ruined by the rumble of cars passing behind me, but at least they were never there for long. Suburban dads coming home from work, soccer moms driving their kids back from sports. As the darkness descended, warm lights would pop up here and there from the houses where people were together and eating and talking and fighting and…
God, I sounded like such a wilting flower. Even I didn’t want to listen to me. Was it any wonder no one else did either?
Which was when I remembered Gerald, and how I’d hung up on his office earlier today and I knew he’d be freaking out. I hadn’t even looked at my phone since then, so, as I climbed up onto the picnic table and plonked my ass down on its top, I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at my notifications.
Then I winced.
Two missed calls from Gerald’s office, one from his personal cellphone. Three voicemails. And who knew how many texts, because the notification icon was multiplied.
Yeesh.
I cleared all the notifications, didn’t read any of them, just pulled up Gerald’s cellphone contact and tapped the message icon.
ME: I’m fine. Its not what you think. You’d like the priest I talked to today. He sounds a lot like you. I’ll be there next week.
My phone buzzed as I put it back in my pocket, but I didn’t look at it. I couldn’t deal with Gerald’s careful wisdom tonight.
I had to figure out what I was going to do. Because talking to Sam had been a bit of a wake up call. He hadn’t said anything I hadn’t heard before. But it had helped me clarify what I was feeling. And that wave of frustration that washed over me when Cain wouldn’t even listen to what I wanted to change…
I sighed and twisted the top on the wine bottle and opened it to take a swig, wincing at the terrible, overly sweet flavor. But that immediate, warm rush of the alcohol was a balm. I took another swallow, then two more, and my head gave a tiny little lurch.
Good.
I didn’t want to do this sober.
Gerald had been telling me for years that I processed by talking. And that if I was trying to make a decision, I should say everything I was thinking out loud. To an empty room.
I figured an empty park was just as useful. Except it made me feel a little nuts to just talk to nothing, so I stared at the ground and pretended my mom was sitting there, listening.
I could still remember what she looked like.
I didn’t know how she’d feel about all this, because obviously she’d been attracted to dangerous men, too. The most dangerous.
But she’d been weak, too. Weaker than me. I thought.
Was I fooling myself?
There was no way to know.
I took a deep breath and another swig of the wine, but this wasn’t going to stop being stupid, so I needed to just do it.
I cleared my throat and imagined that she was sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up and her arms around them, looking at me.
“I don’t want to live anymore,” I murmured quietly so there was no chance I’d be overheard by a suburban kid whose life hadn’t been ruined already. “But I also don’t want to die.” It was true. And I hadn’t admitted that to Sam because I knew he wouldn’t let it go if I admitted he was right about that part. Plus, I wasn’t really clear on how I could feel both of those things at the same time. Which was why I was sitting here, drinking wine, and talking to a blade of grass like a crazy person. “I’m afraid all the time. And I’m lonely. And… I feel like the only people who like me are the ones who are even more fucked up than me.” Like Cain. “They’re the only ones I can really be myself with. But they scare me.”
I pretended they didn’t. Gerald had called me on that once, telling me he knew I wasn’t quite as “unperturbed” by the dark people I surrounded myself with as I pretended.
I’d asked him if the snooty attitude was genetic, or something he’d cultivated.
We’d moved on.
“I want Cain to hunt me,” I murmured. “But… maybe I don’t want him to kill me. Except, what’s left if—”
“Sounds like it’s your lucky night.”
I dropped the bottle of wine so that it clunked on the seat under my feet and bounced, spraying cheap sticky red liquid all over my sweats, but I didn’t even care.
I started to whirl, to look, because that voice was right next to my ear, but I was already being pulled backwards off the picnic table by those thick, steel arms.
Cain was here, and he was snarling.
Maybe there really was a God.