Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Adrian
For weeks, we stayed like that, not telling each other anything, not admitting any feelings. It was like a bubble; time didn’t drift on, opinions didn’t matter.
None of the things we’d done to each other counted; nothing mattered at all apart from existing, drifting through each day far from the outside world. Penelope and I didn’t even look at each other, acknowledge what a sick, fucked up world we’d created together.
We tried to heal, mind and body. On our own, but together. We ate all the food in my kitchen, slept and stayed silent. Dishes stacked up, grime layered over everything, silence reigned through us.
For over two weeks, we didn’t say a word to each other, but we spent not a moment apart. Our bubble was tight, stretching no more than a few feet, like if either of us stretched it too far, it would burst and all that shit could flood back in.
Penelope treated her pussy once a day, pulling away the bandages in front of a mirror to check on the wounds, dabbing antiseptic where she needed to. I never helped, watched her work, but offered no hand. She was more healed each time, and it didn’t piss me off like it should.
I stopped responding to anything outside of my body. Switched my cell off so no messages would come through, so I wouldn’t know what was happening with the prison or with the hunt for Penelope. No contact from my mother, the warden, even Penny’s sister.
A message from Lacey asking if anything had progressed in finding her sister waited for me when I turned my cell off.
I said nothing. To no one.
As far as anyone else was aware, I was missing now too. Life didn’t exist outside of these walls. Only this sick bubble Penny and I resided in.
Because as soon as I let it, I would have to confront the fact that I was letting her live, that I was going against all my planning, all my goals, just to spend more time with her. With this sickness, this dark, feral cunt who had burrowed herself into my skin. My soul.
But I wanted to figure this shit out, needed to. No. If I killed her now, it would be unfinished. An incompletion.
So, together, we existed, waiting for the moment to come when we were ready to take the next step.
For as long as we could, we just survived, fed our bodies with the little food I had, washed our damaged flesh and healed, rested side by side.
But over the last few days, it had started shifting, changing, my little killer pulling away again, turning from me as we slept, shutting the door when she showered. And when I woke on my own, her side of the bed cold, I knew this day would be the one that was different.
I dressed in some sweats and went hunting. I didn’t have to go far. She was in my living room, a pile of photos around her, scattered, legs crossed, brow furrowed as she studied my memories.
“Hello,” she said, her voice husky, gruff from under-use. She coughed and tried again. “Hello, Adrian.”
I cleared my throat before speaking. “Penelope.” I nodded to her in question, my eyes lingering over the photos she’d obviously gone digging for. “What are you doing?”
She winced. “Trying.” She lifted the photos, some of me and Jake. “I’m trying, and I’m fucking failing. Because Adrian, I don’t care. I killed this little boy. I ended his life before his dreams could come true in his adulthood. And I don’t care. I’d do it again.”
Tears flooded her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
Comfort. That’s what she needed. But all I wanted to do was bring her pain for her words. She deserved no comfort.
In the two weeks we’d healed side by side, I’d given her none. Just my silence, my cooperation, but not my comfort.
“All I can think about is how I didn’t even remember his name,” she continued, her voice still strained. “I killed him, slit his throat, Adrian, and I wasn’t even sure what he was called. I’m sick.”
Heart aching, I fell to my knees beside her. “You are sick,” I told her. “And I will end that sickness soon. That is a vow, little killer.”
“So why not now?” She looked up at me. “I made a promise in my head. That my death would be yours to claim. But you haven’t taken it. For weeks, I’ve laid at your side, slept there, expecting every night not to wake up.”
“Because it’s not good enough, nothing I can come up with is good enough.”
She sighed, moved her hand to my cheek and stroked the stubble growing there.
Something near affection flashed in her vision, and we did have that.
We had a connection, deep and untenable, harsh and unwanted.
I fought it, she did too, but since the second I’d laid eyes on her in that prison, we’d been on this course. Connected in our disgrace.
Through all the shit we’d committed, all the horrors I’d put on her body and she’d put on my mind, something bone deep and unshakeable had festered like a bacteria and glued us together.
I leaned into her touch, turned and kissed her palm. “I’ll be ready soon,” I muttered.
“You swear you promise?” Her voice was soft, naked for me, and the urge to take her washed over me.
I dropped my gaze to her body, her heaving chest and her quivering lip.
“Adrian…” she said my name again, in that begging, soft way she sometimes did. And I found I’d missed it, missed the sound of her voice as she begged, in pleasure or in pain. I needed to hear it again. Yes, this was the day things would change, the day we would come out of limbo.
That promise I made, for the first time I questioned if I could keep it.
The further she burrowed under my skin, the harder it was to commit to ending her.
I wanted to. But I also craved her. So when would that balance strike?
When would the moment hit? It wasn’t now.
I didn’t want her death yet; I desired more of her pain first.
I leaned down and kissed her on the mouth, soft, no tongue, just a meeting of mouths to let her know I was here.
She sighed, her hands coming up around my neck to pull me closer to her. We shifted, her falling onto her back, me crowding over her.
Our touches roamed, and I let her feel me, wherever and however she wanted. This wouldn’t be soft, but for a moment it could be.
The little sighs and squeaks that fell from her throat were intoxicating, delicious. I kissed her harder, snaking my tongue against hers, pushing for more as her legs wrapped around my body.
“God, you’re maddening,” I muttered into her mouth between presses of our lips. My cock thickened in my sweats, the imprint pressing into her core.
She was almost healed there now, still tender, with scabs and scars, but that didn’t matter. The pain and pleasure always mixed so beautifully with her. Her pussy was my sick painting, my promise.
“I want you,” she breathed. “However you’ll take me.”
I kissed her again. “I can’t—” I started. “Can’t do it normally.”
“What is normal anyway?” she asked, tilting her head, holding both her hands on my jaw, demanding I look at her, study her. “Do whatever you need to do.”
“It’s not as fun if you want it, little killer.”
She laughed, wicked and booming, then squirmed out from underneath me, standing on unsteady legs. “I’ll run, then. Make me not want it first. Scare me, Darling, sir, whatever the hell you want to me called.” She paused, staring deep into my damned soul. “Try and scare me.”
On my knees, I grabbed her hips, held her steady to me, and looked up at her. “You’re going to run?”
“I’m going to get away from you,” she said, nodding, her eyes shuttering as we stayed there, me prone on my knees, her risen above, staring down. “I don’t want this.”
And she did. She turned and fled, her bare feet slapping the floor as she disappeared out of the apartment and into the theater. My cock throbbed. Were we pretending here? Had I reached this point where I could play with her?
It was wrong. I was wrong for this. Fuck.
“Penelope!” I bellowed, rising to stand, darting to the door, but I paused at the entrance, where my jacket hung, where underneath, on a table, my baton, my gun, my fucking keys sat. She’d taken none of them.
I swiped the baton and followed the little killer out into the theater. Through the maze of corridors, I hunted her down, following clues. A bang that way, a scuffling sound the other. Stretching my detective muscles for the first time in ages.
She was in here, hiding, waiting me out, building the delicious tension that she believed I craved.
She thought we were playing still, that when I caught her, I would just fuck her and pretend, come close to killing her but not send her over that edge. And I might. I might fuck her and lay her down in my bed, sated and damaged some more.
Or her very final breath would be mine.
And to be honest, I didn’t know which one of me she would get.
The one fascinated with her, obsessed with her body and with making her squirm.
Or the one who needed to see her insides painted over the walls, wanted to relish in her murder.
It was dangerous, playing this with me. But I think she knew that.
It wasn’t truly a game; she was pushing it, making it happen.
“Penelope!” I shouted her name once more, banging the baton on the walls as I strolled, the impact vibrating the dilapidated building.
From somewhere, a light laughter rang out. She was fucking nuts, acting like we were kids at a play park. But again, maybe we were. I didn’t think I’d know for sure until she was underneath me again.
Fight, fuck, kill. Time would only tell.
It was in the theater that I realized I had caught up to her. She wasn’t on the stage, but I could just sense her. She was in here somewhere.
I trawled through the seats, line by line, looking for her curled up body, listening for a giggle or a huff of breath, even a wince of pain. She was always in pain these days, never far from bleeding or bruising.
“Penny…” I breathed her name, hoping to elicit a reaction.
And it worked. I got one. A shuffle of feet above my head. Slowly, I looked up.
She was on the balcony.