Chapter 24
Atreus
Scoot. Scoot. Scoot.
Sweat droplets roll down my back, my neck, and my forehead while I scoot ahead inch by inch. When I finally reach the phone lying on the small table that she tarnished with her juices. Fuck.
I lean over as far as I can until the chair begins to topple, stretching the limits of the restraints as well as my body as my muscles tense. I groan in frustration and pain when I finally reach the phone with just the tip of my chin.
I manage to activate the screen and slowly but surely swipe upward with my nose, rubbing the screen until I find the goddamn call button and press the number for the station.
The phone rings.
Fucking finally.
But the balance between me and the chair is fragile, and I yell out loud when someone picks up only to fall headfirst onto the table and then the floor.
“Hello. Mr. Foley?”
“Fuck,” I mutter, face squashed into the floor.
“Sir? Sir, are you okay?” I hear Stacey, a front desk receptionist, on the other end of the line.
“I’m fine,” I rasp. “I need you to get someone to my house immediately.”
“What happened?” she says, typing something into her keyboard.
“I … Someone broke into my house and tied me up. It’s hard to explain. I need help.”
“Oh no, oh geez.” She sounds frazzled. “Okay, I’ll get Officer Jones to drive over to you.”
“Thank you,” I groan, trying to breathe through one nostril.
“You can hang up the phone now.”
“I would, but my hands are tied. Literally,” I reply.
“Oh, right,” she murmurs, clearing her throat. “Well, I will do it on my end then. If you need anything else, just call.”
As my lips part, the conversation is cut off.
“Just call,” I repeat, rolling my eyes.
Like it didn’t just cost me my entire reserve of energy to hop this goddamn chair over to my phone and swipe it into call mode with my nose.
I take another deep breath while trying to adjust my face, but I’m painfully aware of my junk flopping about freely through my zipped-open pants. I can’t do shit about it, and once that cop comes into my apartment, he’s going to have a field day, I’m sure.
Guess I’ll just have to suck it up.
After a good fifteen minutes, someone knocks on my door. “Mr. Foley? Are you there? You called us for help.”
“Yes!” I yell back as best I can.
“Can you open the door for me?”
“No, if I could, I wouldn’t have called!” I scoff. “I’m fucking tied to a chair.”
“Oh shit.” It’s quiet for a few seconds, then there’s rustling at the front door. “I’ll use a lockpick. Hold on.”
I breathe out another impatient sigh.
CLICK.
My door creaks open, and I turn my head as far as I can so at least one eye can catch a sliver of my entryway. He drops his bag and stares at me for a good five seconds, and the moment our eyes lock, my whole face turns beet red.
“Oh my God …” he mutters. “You’re naked.”
“No shit. Stop gawking at me and help me.”
I wriggle back and forth in the zip ties.
“Right, sorry,” Jones mutters, and he picks up his bag again.
He approaches and goes down on his knees beside me, rummaging through his bag until he finds a pair of scissors strong enough to cut through them.
The moment my hands are freed, I immediately push myself off the floor, tuck my junk back into my pants, and zip up. Officer Jones looks me up and down with a grimace on his face.
The embarrassment.
“I won’t ask how that happened,” he mumbles.
“She caught me off guard while I was getting undressed,” I lie, as I pick my phone off the floor.
“She?” he repeats.
I glance at him over my shoulder. “My stalker.”
He gulps. “Oh shit.”
My nostrils flare as I go through the movements of retracing her steps, starting with the fluids still stuck to my table. I swipe my thumb along and smell, the scent creating a hard-on once again, but I ignore the sensations.
My stalker forced me into submission … and I will make sure she pays the price.
No one barges into my home uninvited and takes me for a spin.
“Did you bring gloves?” I don’t wait for him to answer before I check in his bag and pull some out.
“Of course,” he replies while I put them on.
I walk into my bedroom and lean down to inspect the bed, carefully priming the sheets as they were before her intrusion, only to discover a singular black hair resting on the edge of my pillow.
Interesting.
“Call forensics. I’ll need them to run a few tests for me.”
“Yes, sir, I will,” Officer Jones replies, and he clears his throat. “But sir … have you been in contact with anyone from the station since this happened?”
I take in a whiff. My room still reeks of her scent.
Nauseatingly arousing.
“No, why?” I reply.
“Bob went missing. He was stationed at Spine Ridge,” he says.
“I heard.”
“But how? You were tied—”
“She played the voicemail while I was tied up.”
His face whitens the longer we’re talking. “It’s been an hour since then. The others can’t find him anywhere.” He tucks his stuff back into his bag. “I think he’s been killed.”
I pause and look up.
Now what would make him say that?
“Brown interviewed a couple of kids who were at a party at the Tartarus frat house, and they saw a car skidding away from the parking lot right after the time Bob disappeared.”
My pupils dilate.
Could they have taken him?
“Have Brown report to me first thing tomorrow.” I pull the gloves off and chuck them into my bin. “If an officer has been taken or worse—killed—that changes the game entirely.”
“Yes, sir,” Jones says, as he heads back out the door. “Do you need anything else from me? I was gonna go home to my wife, but seeing you tied up there …”
“I’m fine. Go home to Ginny. We’ll speak tomorrow.”
I stand in front of my balcony window and stare outside as Officer Jones closes the door and leaves me and my bruised ego alone.
That woman ran off the moment she heard the voicemail on my phone. She knows something, which means she’s involved in this mess.
And if she isn’t the killer I’m looking for, she’ll lead me right to them.
Orion
When morning comes, my body is still as sore as can be. It feels like I’ve been through the seven gates of hell and made it out alive.
I stretch while yawning, and immediately regret it as pangs shoot through my chest. The wounds nearly burst open again, and I hiss, then crouch like a spawn. The torment Sunny unleashed on my body was out of this world, yet the memory only makes me more elated.
I crawl out of bed and throw the blanket off so I can march over to my precious mirrors and gaze at my reflection. The cuts she left on my skin are like scratches that spell out her name.
She marked me.
She actually marked me.
This perfect skin is blemished by her incessant need to punish those who disobey.
And all I can do is smile.
Laughter erupts from deep within, and I twirl around to admire my newly acquired scars. They’re like tattoos but fiercer, and they make me feel invincible. God, is this what it’s like to be her favorite?
Well, maybe second favorite, considering there’s also Xavier.
My package twitches, and I groan with a mixture of pain and pleasure. My head immediately tilts down toward the cage stuck around my shaft.
I forgot that was there.
A sudden shriek from down the hallway makes me jolt up and down, and I swiftly grab a bathrobe from my closet to put it on. Mere seconds later, someone bursts through my door, and I shriek.
“What is this?”
Xavier stands in my doorway, completely nude, pointing at his junk like a chihuahua just took a bite out of it and is still hanging on.
“What?” I mutter.
“That thing won’t come off!” He keeps jerking the cage, but of course it’s no use. “HELP!”
I march over to him and slam my hand in front of his mouth. “Stop screaming.” He bites my finger, and I pull back, hissing in pain. “Have you gone insane?”
“I will if you don’t fucking tell me what I need to do,” he says, completely out of it.
“Are you still asleep or something?” I grab both of his shoulders. “Calm down. It’s fine.”
“What do you mean it’s fine? There is a metal cage stuck to my dick!”
“It’s a chastity belt.”
“A WHAT?”
I lean in to whisper, “She wants us to be celibate. For her.”
His eyes finally connect with mine, and I can practically see the lights spring on somewhere in that disheveled brain of his. The lack of sleep must’ve done a number on him.
“We belong to her, remember? She told us yesterday when she played with us and …” I shrug. “You know, forced us into submission to punish us for killing and getting rid of Bob.”
“Right …” he mutters, and I can see the little gears in his brain turning and twisting. “I remember now.”
“Great. Then you can stop panicking.”
He snorts. “Stop panicking, he says. Like it’s not absolutely crazy that we’ve bound ourselves to a serial killer.”
“Should’ve thought of that before you started stalking her.” I grab a new bathrobe from my closet and throw it at him. “Put this on. You can’t walk around like that, or people will talk.”
“How are we supposed to … you know … get this thing off?” he asks, slipping into the bathrobe.
“We don’t. She does. With a key.”
Panic seeps into his eyes. “So what, we don’t pee until she releases us?”
I laugh. “Of course, you can pee through it. You just can’t touch yourself.”
“But how?”
I stare at him for a second, wondering if he’s really asking me this. “You want me to show you?”
He winces. “No thanks.”
I purse my lips. “Then don’t ask dumb questions.”
His brows twitch. “Why are you acting like you’ve done all of this before?”
I smirk as I toss my voluptuous hair behind my back. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. Who knows?”
His brow rises. “Freak.”
“Hey, don’t act like I’m the only one who’s had someone—” I stop the second his skin grows redder and redder. “Oh my God. Stop. You’ve never had sex before?”
Xavier slams his hand in front of my mouth, shushing me multiple times. “Do not say that shit out loud. Not in this sex-crazed house.”
I snigger as he removes his hand. “Or what?”
“I will kill you,” he growls, glaring at me.
“Don’t turn me on, the cage makes it hurt,” I retort.
He narrows his eyes, then sighs. “Please …”
Wow. I’ve never heard him beg before. I kind of like it. “All right, fine.”
He breathes another sigh of relief.
“But only because you sound so cute when you beg.”
“Oh fuck you.” He slaps my arm.
“Be careful, my wounds might open up again,” I say.
“What? Wait a minute—” He rips open my bathrobe and gawks at the scabs littering my skin, like he suddenly remembered what we did yesterday. “Holy shit. She actually put her name on your skin?”
“It doesn’t hurt that m—”
“I don’t care how much it hurts. She marked you. Not me. You.” His voice breaks, and his face darkens. “She chose you.”
He averts his gaze, slowly pacing backward while his hands envelop his face, and the stench of dread filling this room doesn’t go unnoticed.
“She chose you too,” I say.
But he keeps shaking his head, and I can literally see the little gears in his head spinning out of control.
“All I ever wanted, all I ever did … was for her,” he mutters, as he sinks down on my bed.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t become all depressive now, that’s my job,” I say, as I grab him by the shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“She didn’t mark me like she marked you,” he replies.
“You wish to be in agony like I am?” I snort. “And I thought I was the mad one.”
“I don’t care about pain. I only want what she wants,” he replies. “That’s all I’ve ever craved. To make her happy.” He stares off into the distance. “But I am scared.”
“Scared of what?” I ask.
“Scared of how far I’ll go.” He sighs. “And that it won’t ever be enough.”
I nod a few times. “Understandable. After all, a woman of her caliber can never be pleased by just a single subby boy.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Do not call me that again, or I swear to God …”
I chuckle. “I thought you liked being her toy?”
His nostrils flare.
“You’re not the only one she turned into a willing slut,” I muse.
“Get to your point.”
“You were a virgin before she got her claws in you. It’s only natural to be a little scared.”
He sucks in a deep breath and sighs out loud. “She’s a bit terrifying.”
I laugh. “Just a bit?”
He smiles at me, and it warms my heart, even if I know it’ll only last briefly. It matters.
“I’ve killed for her,” he says.
“Yes, you did. And it probably won’t be the last time.”
“She has a list,” he mutters.
I narrow my eyes at him. This is new information. “Where?”
“Her phone.”
“You mean like a hit list? How do you know?”
“Because I snuck into her room and took a picture.”
My pupils dilate, and my jaw drops. “Wow. Living on the edge.”
“What?” He eyes me like it isn’t completely wild that he tried to rob a serial killer of her prized possession. “I just needed to know.”
“Obsessive. I like it.”
“It’s how I got in trouble in the first place. I tried to help, and it backfired because I fucked up.” He shakes his head. “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to make her happy.”
I sit down beside him. “Maybe we can.”
He glances at me. “How?”
I grin. “You have a list of all the men she wants dead. I say we help her out a little.”
His eyes narrow. “You truly have a death wish.”
“And proud of it.”
“She told me she doesn’t—”
“If we don’t mess it up, we can help her. Together.”
His eye twitches when I say that word.
“Maybe that’s why she wanted us to bury the hatchet,” he says, licking his lips. “So we’d kill for her. Together.”
“You’re just saying all this because you want her to kill you for going against her wishes,” he says.
“And you’re in agreement because you want to help her so badly you don’t care if it gets you killed.”
“Touché.”
“So are we friends now?”
He sucks in another deep breath. “Fine. You can be my friend.”
I wrap my arms around him and hug him tightly, and he shoves me away. “That’s enough, Navarro.”
“Aw … you got me a nickname already. Cute.” I wink.
He rolls his eyes and gets up. “I might end up killing you before she does.”