8. Giselle
GISELLE
I check behind me three times before I reach my door.
The deadbolt slides home with an unsatisfying clunk.
I double-check the windows, splash cold water on my face, twist Serena’s earrings, and let the sting anchor me before taking them off and dropping them into the swan-shaped jewelry dish beside the sink.
It’s the only beautiful thing in this whole apartment.
In bed, I stare at the ceiling, counting cracks and flecks of paint until my vision blurs. I try to focus on the facts, but the details won’t stick.
All I can see is my blue-eyed stalker.
The arrogance of his posture and the certainty of his smile.
I hate how it makes me feel. Not just the fear, but the pulse of something else. Something hot and low in my belly. Something that wants to meet his stare and not look away.
I can’t be feeling this. I’m not allowed.
He’s a killer. A murderer. And now, an obsession I can’t shake.
Eventually, sleep comes. Not the real kind, but a guttering half-dream and half-vigil. I’m in an endless labyrinth. All the signs are in Cyrillic. And every corridor is empty.
Except for his eyes hunting me in the dark.
In my dream, my feet move faster until I’m running.
But it’s not fear that drives me. It’s the urge to catch him, and to let him catch me.
And when he does, I want to feel his strong fingers digging into my flesh as he pulls me against his body.
I want to taste the sear of his breath hot against my ear.
Hear the dark laughter in his voice as he pushes me head down with one hand while the other starts tugging at my pants.
The sky isn’t even hinting at light when I snap awake, clutching the bedsheets like a lifeline while my heart detonates in my chest. There’s no noise. No movement.
Just a heavy silence.
But something’s wrong.
I know it the way an animal knows an earthquake is coming.
I reach for the pistol on the nightstand and slide from under the sheet in a single practiced motion until my feet land silently on the hardwood.
My eyes scan the room and find it empty. Keeping the pistol tight to my chest and my finger on the trigger, I slide along the wall to the door.
First, the closet. I swing it open fast and sharp, barrel leading, eyes tracing the line from floor to ceiling. Clear. Bathroom, living room, kitchen: all clear. I test the deadbolt on the front door.
Still locked.
Nothing is out of place. Yet everything is wrong.
I should feel stupid but safe. Instead, the hairs on my arms are standing straight up, and the sense of violation, like something is here with me, is so thick I choke on it.
No , I tell myself. Not something .
Some one .
Making my way to the bathroom, I lay my pistol by the sink and wash my face while avoiding my reflection in the mirror.
Because every time I look at myself in the mirror, I still see myself as a memory: younger, happier, less coiled and venomous.
I see my hair in the braids that Serena loved giving me, treating me like her little doll.
A sigh of relief tumbles from my lips when I see that the earrings are right where they’re supposed to be. I take the left one first, roll it between my thumb and forefinger until I find the chip in the stone.
Serena was always losing one of anything that came in pairs. That there are two earrings for me to wear should be the closest thing to a miracle.
If I still believed in miracles.
I’m about to put them on when someone pounds on the door, three blows so violent they vibrate the glass in the medicine cabinet.
All the nerves in my body spark at once. My hand reaches for the gun and the earrings make a small, sweet clink as they drop back into the dish.
The gun is steady in my grip, even though the rest of me is pulled as taut as a bowstring. I flatten my back against the wall, reach up with my left hand, and gently thumb open the deadbolt, and ease the door open half an inch.
There’s no sound outside. Just the low hum of someone’s television down the hall and the lingering echo of the knock. Heart pounding, I peer through the gap.
There’s a plain, unlabeled cardboard box sitting right in the center of my welcome mat.
Otherwise, the hallway is empty.
I sweep the hall with the muzzle of the gun and step into the open. My skin crawls. Every nerve ending shrieks at me to close the door. To run. To do anything but stand here exposed.
The box isn’t taped shut. There’s no writing, no return address, no sign that it’s a package from anyone but the void. Careful to keep the gun up and ready, I crouch down and nudge the lid aside with a toe.
And see a pair of severed hands.
I fight the urge to vomit. Years of training and desensitization be damned.
Because even from here, I recognize the tattoos.
These are Ivan Tupolev’s hands.
One is holding a cell phone, the cheap burner kind you buy at gas stations. The screen is black. I shouldn’t touch it. This is evidence. It’s a man’s hands, for chrissake .
But I already know there won’t be any prints. My stalker isn’t that sloppy. And if this is evidence, it’s evidence of something he won’t want anyone else to investigate other than me.
That’s why I kick the box inside my apartment when I hear the main entrance door bang shut, audible even from five floors up. For once, I’m glad the landlord never fixes anything around here.
My stalker must still be close by.
I rush down the stairs and don’t stop moving until I burst out the door onto the street.
The sidewalk is empty except for yesterday’s trash and one dead pigeon doing its best impression of me: sprawled, eyes open, no answers. No movement in the parked cars. No twitch at the blackout windows of the apartment building across.
But I know better.
I know he’s here.
He wants me to come out so that he can see me.
A car door slams, somewhere behind me, and I whirl, gun up, finger curled. It’s just a taxi, the driver emerging with a cigarette and a thousand-yard stare. He glances at me holding the pistol, and then looks away. Just another predawn in New York City.
I turn in a full circle, scanning every doorway, every alley, every car. Still nothing. Just the quiet, and the heavy stare of a world that doesn’t care if I live another minute.
“You don’t scare me,” I shout. The words sound ridiculous under the sky starting to turn bright, but I say them anyway.
I want to believe them.
I stand there, waiting. I know he’s watching.
Sunrise edges out the darkness, and sunrise slowly gives way to daylight.
Maybe he’s gone. Maybe he’s still here.
Doesn’t matter. I’m here too.
When I get back to the apartment, the world is on fast-forward. At first, everything is as I left it: the threadbare rug, the unmade futon, the picture turned away, the cardboard box just inside the doorway.
But then I feel the breeze caressing my face like a lover’s hand, and I see that the living room window is wide open. The curtains are pulled aside.
He was in here!
The realization hits me low in the gut, like a punch that drives all strength from my knees. I force myself to move, sweeping the apartment a second time. This time, every shadow comes alive. I check under the bed, the shower, the cabinet under the kitchen sink, every inch that a human might fit.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I come back to the window and search the sill for scratches, footprints, or any other sign of forced entry. But all I find is morning chill and the smell of something faintly sweet, like a bakery.
I slam the window shut, drop the latch, and triple-check the lock.
Goddamn it!
My blue-eyed shadow was here. I know he was.
He clings to me like the smell of smoke. He wants something from me, but I don’t think he wants my fear or my life. I don’t think he even really wants my body.
Or, at least, not only my body.
He wants my soul.
I put my gun on the kitchen counter, next to the phone. The only thing I want to do right now is to make the world make sense again. Sighing, I go to the bathroom to finish what I started.
And for the second time in less than a week, my world spins away from under my feet.
Serena’s earrings are gone.
My hands hover over the swan-shaped dish with its naked neck bent elegantly over the bowl. Cold panic flares in my chest.
The earrings aren’t there, but the dish isn’t empty.
There’s a single red rose lying diagonally where my sister’s earrings used to be. The stem juts out over the sink and it’s pointing straight at the window like he wants to mock me about how easily he came in and out.
He traded something holy for something profane and marked his territory the same way a predator might. He’s telling me that he knows me—what I value, what I mourn, and what I can’t let go of.
And he’s promising me that this won’t stop anytime soon.
I want to scream, to punch the mirror, and to run until my legs give out.
Instead, I reach for the rose, hand trembling.
The petals are soft, almost velvety, and not a single one is bruised.
The straight cool stem has been carefully clipped of all its thorns so that it won’t cut me when I pick it up.
He did this with deliberate care.
Eyes still burning, I lean against the sink. The anger is there, but it’s twisted up with something sharp and hot and dangerous.
Fear.
And the fear isn’t clean.
It’s laced with a sick, involuntary thrill. He got inside without a sound, left without a trace, and took the one thing I swore I’d never let go of.
My fist tightens. The petals crush and bleed onto my skin as I close my eyes and let the feeling eat me alive. Violation, terror, and a disgusting pulse of excitement flood my veins all at once. A hot and heavy shudder rushes through me
He wants a reaction. He wants to see what I’ll do.
Fine.
I lift my chin, square my shoulders, and make a beeline for the box in the living room. A second is all it takes to peel the cell phone out of Tupolev’s dead grip, and I find that it’s already on and fully charged. All it needs is a thumbprint to unlock.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to have gotten my fingerprint somehow,” I murmur, speaking to him like he’s right beside me. It feels like he is, a feeling both deeply violating and exciting in its derangement.
I press my thumb against the screen but it doesn’t unlock.
And that’s when I know what he wants me to do.
I reach into the box again and notice that my stalker gave Tupolev some fresh tattoos. Letters carved as neatly as the ones he left on MacDougal.
On left hand: He dared
On the right: to touch you.
If I didn’t already know how personal this was, that would have convinced me. My stalker saw Tupolev slap my ass, and that pissed him off.
The question is: did it piss him off on principle, or is it because he thinks that he’s the only one who gets to touch my body?
Something tells me it’s the latter.
The moment that thought crosses my mind, it sends a sick pleasure spidering across my nerves at the same time that my pride screams in protest.
Unlocking a phone with a dead man’s hands is certainly a novel experience. Whatever else I can say about him, my stalker is imaginative.
Ivan’s thumb unlocks the phone to reveal neither apps nor wallpaper nor any notifications. As soon as it unlocks, it starts vibrating with an incoming call from a private number.
My hands shake. Ordinarily, I might wonder how he knows that I just unlocked the phone, but I’m not stupid. Of course he knows. He’s been watching me. He’s still watching me. He has to be.
I rush to the window and look out.
The street is coming to life, but I don’t see him anywhere. I don’t feel him anywhere. And as crazy as it sounds, I know that I’d recognize him anywhere, even if he’s standing in a crowd at Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
I answer the phone.
“Good morning, little viper.” his voice is deep, low, and amused.
It vibrates with something I don’t want to name. Each syllable sends another shiver tingling down my spine until it pools somewhere deep inside of me.
My mouth is dry. Of course he sounds like this.
And the way he says little viper like I’m something precious and dangerous all at once. Something amusing and something to be toyed with at his leisure. For his pleasure.
“You killed him.”
“I did you a favor.” The voice betrays a smile. “He would have done far worse to you.”
“Why his hands?” I’m trying to keep my own voice flat, but the tremors are back as I wait for him to confirm what I know already. The momentary silence is filled with fear, revulsion, and curiosity.
And excitement.
“I told you, little viper. Because he touched you. That’s not allowed.”
I close my eyes, and swallow. “You know I’m a cop.”
“I do. Convenient, isn’t it? Gives you more latitude than a civilian.”
I force a laugh and it sounds like glass in my throat. He’s not wrong. I never wanted to use my “latitude” , but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
“You took something from me,” I say. “Why?”
“To see if you’ll lie for me, little viper.” His voice shrugs. “And I think you will.”
I can’t breathe. “You want me to betray the department?”
“I want you to trust your instincts.” The voice is almost gentle. “They’re better than you think.”
I grit my teeth. “Did you kill MacDougal?”
A brief, exhaled laugh burrows into my ear and straight to my thundering heart. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Because you wanted me to.”
The phone shakes in my hand. “People wish death on people all the time, but they don’t mean it.”
“You did.” I can hear his grin widening.
He’s having the time of his life, isn’t he? I’m falling apart and he’s taking advantage of it. I want to hang up on him. But if I do, I won’t hear that deep rumbling voice at my ear anymore.
It pisses me off how much I want to keep listening to his voice taunting me, goading me, and calling me little viper like I belong to him already.
I don’t deserve any of this.
“Who are you?” I put some fire behind the words with my best cop voice. I have no idea how many more questions he’ll entertain. I need to make the most of this call.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it fucking matters,” I snap, turning away from the window and pacing the perimeter of the room. “You’re in my life. My apartment. My?—”
I pause before I give myself away.
“My head,” I finally say.
“Hmm.” He rumbles by my ear and I hate how much I like hearing it.
“What do you want from me?”
The pause is so long I think he hung up. But then he replies in that deep, silky voice. “You, little viper.”
The line goes dead and no matter how much my senses try to tell me I’m alone, I know better now.
I don’t think I’ll be alone again for a long, long time.