Chapter 1 #2
“The name,” I say, keeping my knife positioned between his fifth and sixth ribs.
“Cupid,” he gasps when I apply more pressure and cut him. “That’s all I know.”
“What does he look like?”
“I don’t know. I swear. I never saw him.” He whimpers when I press in a little bit more. “He sells on campus. Everything is untraceable.”
“How’d you pay?”
“I used crypto.”
I step back, hearing the relieved sigh Drew gives and not bothering to tell him this reprieve won’t last long.
“How did a preppy little fuck like you get the number for a drug dealer who’s smart enough to keep his identity hidden?”
For a split second, Drew forgets about the pain he’s in and looks offended, like I’ve insulted his manhood by not believing that he runs with the tough, drug-dealing crowd.
“I overheard someone bragging outside of class one day. He was talking about how he’d slipped a pill into some girl’s drink and then had her for the night.”
“You mean raped her for the night?” I clarify. “Call it what it is.”
“Fine, he raped her for the night, and he never got caught because the girl couldn’t remember anything the next day. He just dumped her off at her dorm before she could regain consciousness and got away with it.”
“And you thought that sounded like an easy good time with no repercussions?” I ask.
He nods. “I went up to the guy and asked him where I could get some of the pills. He sent me a link to an invite-only channel.” Drew pauses to catch his breath, and I remind myself to be patient and resist the desire to stab him again while I wait.
“I sent a message that I was interested, paid in crypto with a burner wallet, and then a bot sent me the location for the drop.”
“Where was the drop?” I ask, fisting his hair to lift his face back up when his head starts to drop.
“The university’s gym, locker number twenty-three. They sent me the code to open it, said I had thirty minutes to get it, and then the whole fucking thread just disappeared.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Yesterday,” he says, and I shake my head at him in mock disappointment.
“Just couldn’t wait to get out there and start raping, could you, Drew?”
“It’s not like that,” he insists.
“Right.” I point my knife at his flaccid dick, smiling when his skin turns a sickly shade that closely resembles the corpse he’s about to become.
“You’re a romantic,” I tell him, not bothering to hide my sarcasm.
“You bought date-rape drugs because you wanted to woo her, this unattainable woman who wants fuck-all to do with you. You figured you could show her one hell of a time, even though she’ll be passed out and won’t remember a second of it, and then she’d fall madly in love with you the next time you see her on campus? That about right?”
“No,” he says, and I’ve never wanted to cut someone’s tongue out so badly in my life. “I just wanted her, okay? She wouldn’t give me the time of day, and I wanted her.”
“Now we’re getting to the truth of it.” I nudge his dick with the blunt edge of my knife, and his body jerks in fear. “I hate to break it to you, Drew, but this tiny dick of yours was never going to convince her to give you the time of day.”
He looks like he wants to yell at me, to defend his tiny cock and his skills as a lover, but whatever he sees in my eyes has the words dying before they can pass his lips.
“Tell me the name of the guy who got you the invite,” I say.
“His name’s Tom Sullivan. He’s a member of Alpha Psi Rho. That’s all I know about him.”
“And Alpha Psi Rho is?” I ask, because I know fuck-all about Greek Life at some fancy university.
I can tell Drew likes having the upper hand, and I let him enjoy it as he says, “The Alphas are one of the oldest frats on campus and the most popular. They throw the biggest parties and are always surrounded by the hottest girls.”
“And yet they still need to render them unconscious before they can fuck them?”
“Whatever,” Drew says. It’s obvious he has a sweet spot for the frat house, and I don’t want to piss all over his man crush, so I let it go.
“Was there anything else in that gym locker when you picked up the pills?”
He shakes his head, blood and sweat dripping onto the floor with his movements. “No, just a baggie with three pills. That was it.”
“What happened to the other two?”
Some color returns to his face as he blushes and says, “I dropped one on the floor and lost it. I put the other two into her drink.”
“Reckless,” I tell him, “but not all that surprising that you fucked it up.”
“Are you going to let me go now?” he asks, and I bite back the laugh I want to give. “I told you everything I know, and I haven’t seen your face. Just let me go, and I won’t say anything to the police.”
“I already told you I’m killing you. I don’t make idle threats.”
“But you don’t need to,” he whines.
“But I want to,” I counter. “And before you can call me a psycho again, I want to remind you that the only reason you’re hanging from these rafters in front of me is because you decided to use our club to drug someone.
That’s it. I don’t give a fuck about your pathetic life and the shady decisions you decided to make.
All I care about is what you did once you set foot in The Red Room. ”
I tap the blade against his shaking chest. “That’s when you became fair game to me, Drew.” I watch his head sink forward, the hope finally starting to drain away as he begins to understand that he won’t be leaving this warehouse alive.
“I bet you’re wishing you’d gone to a different club.
” I don’t give him a chance to respond. Instead, I get to work, sinking the blade in between his fourth and fifth rib so I puncture his lung.
Drew screams at the pain, and then quickly changes his breathing to sharp and shallow as he realizes that each breath he takes is going to come at a price.
Sweat beads on his face, dripping from his temples as he wheezes and gasps.
I step back so I can see everything. I use dummies at home to train with, but they don’t move like people do, they don’t make noises, and they sure as fuck don’t bleed.
This is far more entertaining.
I push the skull mask up so it rests on my head like a baseball cap, not wanting anything to obstruct my view. Drew’s eyes widen when he sees my face, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as pink, frothy bubbles fill the corners of his mouth.
Grabbing a metal chair, I set it a few feet in front of him and sit.
With a push of a button, I start the timer on my watch and wonder how long this will last. The stab to his chest was about four inches deep, but I’d done it on his right side so I wouldn’t hit his heart.
Still, there are a lot of blood vessels in there, and it’s very possible I nicked a few.
Leaning back, I keep a tight grip on my knife and rest my hands on my thighs so I can watch the show.
Over the next several minutes, the gasps turn to wet coughs, blood froths on his lips before dripping to the floor, and his skin turns a grayish-blue color.
Every breath he manages causes a pleasant whistling sound with the exhale until eventually his hands and feet start to twitch as his eyes glaze over.
I break the silence and say, “I’d ask if you have any last words, but I really don’t give a fuck.”
He groans and then lets out another whistle of an exhale before his neck grows slack and his head falls forward.
I give him a few more minutes, knowing death isn’t usually as quick as it appears in movies.
The best things in life can’t be rushed, so I wait and watch, and as soon as I hear the last exhale, I match it with one of my own.
Something shifts in the room, a subtle knowledge that I’m the only one with a heartbeat in this barren warehouse.
Death can be felt. Anyone who’s ever been around it knows this, and I’ve been around it a lot.
I’ve become attuned to it, and I don’t need to press my fingers against Drew’s neck to know he’s no longer alive.
Forty-three minutes and sixteen seconds. He’d held out longer than I’d thought he would.
Before I can call someone to come and get rid of him, I get an alert on my phone.
Glancing at the screen, I grin when I see my sister’s motorcycle pull up outside.
I can immediately tell it’s her because no one else looks as tiny as she does while riding.
She’d be pissed to hear me say that, but when you’re barely five-one and you work with a bunch of muscled men, you tend to stand out.
I watch Mia punch in the code from my screen, and seconds later she’s barreling in with a big smile on her face.
Unlike our older sister and me, Mia got Mom’s auburn hair and hazel eyes.
The pink streaks she’s dyed into it do nothing to hide that.
She also got our dad’s love of piercings and tattoos.
The small diamond in her nose sparkles when she gets closer and turns her head so she can get a better look at the dead man hanging in front of me.
“Wow, you showed some serious restraint tonight,” she says while eyeing his body, and then she scrunches her nose up and looks at me. “You cut his nipples off? Seriously?”
I laugh. “It got his attention, and then he just looked stupid with only one, so I evened it out.”
She steps closer to the body, doing a slow walk around him to examine him. No one fully understands me, but Mia comes closest, so I’m not surprised when she sees the stab wound to his lung and pieces it all together. “How long did it take him?”
I tell her the time, and she nods her head. “I would’ve guessed a smaller number.”
“He surprised me, too. He was useful before he died, though. Some guy who goes by the name of Cupid is selling roofies on campus. He has a smart setup, one that I would never be able to track, but I know Niki will be excited to hear about it.”
Mia smiles at the mention of our hacker cousin. “He’s going to love this.”