Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHILOH
Wait for me, California.
His words echo in my head, dancing recklessly with the memory of how warm his mouth felt pressed against mine.
Donovan really doesn’t understand the danger he’s putting himself in—I tried to warn him. I’m trying to warn him now by not waiting, by not showing up at his apartment while he sleeps, to let him know exactly what kind of man he kissed.
I want to give him a chance—a real chance—to protect himself, to change his locks, to keep me away… because I know now if I see him again, there’s no turning back.
Not with the taste of his bloody kiss on my tongue.
Not with the knowledge of the way he looked, pupils slightly blown, body lithe and perfect, while he looked down at me.
Not now that he’s worn my art.
There’s no turning back for either of us if he lets me in again. I might be a monster, but I’ll give him a chance to save himself… because I know the only thing I’m going to do is ruin him.
The problem is, I’m not sure if a locked door will keep me out.
At this point, I’m not sure if there’s a damn thing he could do to keep himself safe from the urges slowly swirling and collating in the depths of my chest. They reach out with greedy tendrils that make a home at the tips of my fingers and demand I paint.
Paint him.
But I know the cost, and as much as I want to… I don’t think I’m ready to bleed him dry, and I know I wouldn’t be satisfied with just a taste.
I need all of Donovan.
Which is why he needs to run, and why I have to find a way to give him that chance.
That way presents itself two nights later.
I’ve gotten a few texts from Donovan—a snapshot of his breakfast, him asking if I’m coming to his next game.
He nearly breaks my self-control when he sends me a shot of his helmet.
I can’t even look at the text that comes after, because I still have his key and I know I could sneak into his place in the middle of the night while he slept.
Donovan is so sweet he’d probably let me climb onto his bed and get on top of him. He probably wouldn’t question it if I had a knife in my hand.
The thought flashes behind my lids: me straddling him, blood on my knife, crimson smeared across his skin.
His hard body beneath mine, nude and freckle-covered and…
“Fuck,” I hiss, walking home from the class I just finished sitting in on.
I’m scheduled to help at the local art therapy center for a credit toward my degree starting next week.
It was all sad-eyed kids and broken teens, and I could barely pay attention to the administrator because I could see myself in their faces.
I could see everything that had led me to the thoughts I was having about Donovan, the urges that were nearly taking me over.
And I could see all the ways I’d ignored help and let myself become what I am now.
I turn down one of the darker alleys, my fingers digging into my pockets to ward off the cold.
It’s fucking freezing here, and the warmest thing I have is the hoodie I stole from Donovan.
I wasn’t going to wear that to an art class and fuck it up…
so I have on a thin jacket with the hood pulled up and a pair of dark gloves. It was the best I could do.
“Hey there,” a gruff voice rings out, and my fingers clench, wrapping around the hilt of the switchblade I keep tucked away at all times. “Little cold to be walking alone, isn’t it?”
I don’t stop moving when I speak. “Yeah, you think walking with someone magically raises the temperature?” I’m careful when I slip around another corner, my eyes flicking up to the buildings around me.
Old.
Abandoned.
This is already a run-down part of the city, and I don’t see a goddamn storefront or camera in sight. Just dilapidated walls and shattered windows. Empty eyes staring back at my empty soul.
Right.
“I think there are things you could do that would warm you up, sweetheart. Why don’t you let me show you?”
The feel of a touch on my shoulder is the only signal I need. I turn with my hands still in my pocket and face the man in front of me—he’s at least six feet tall, with greasy hair and sallow, pockmarked skin.
I can’t see the beauty in the lines of his face, but I can see the art in the way his eyes widen when I lean forward and flick the button on my knife, letting the blade spill out and into his stomach.
He lets out a groan, and his hands are rough when they wrap around my throat… but I’m faster when I raise my knife and stab it into the side of his neck. There’s precision in the movement, because I know exactly where to strike to make a person bleed out.
It’s fast—a hot burst that washes over my chest and soaks into the fabric of the only damn jacket I own.
I’d be more angry if I could take a breath, more angry if I wasn’t being drowned in the sight of the man’s eyes going wide, shocked, and then dull, as I bring the knife up and twist it into his sternum, searching for a home in the center of his heart.
He stumbles back, and I ride his body to the ground. This… this isn’t exactly what I wanted. I usually try to be methodical when I kill. Precise.
But we’re also in a back alley, and this guy looks like trouble.
And luckily, it’s cold enough that I have on gloves. Gloves and a toque, as Donovan would say.
He’s still breathing when I look down at him, wet gurgles that leave bubbles of crimson on his lips. I try to memorize the image of it as I bring my knife down again and again and again.
It’s messy and wild and will look like the attack of opportunity that it was, just not for the reason anyone would think. Chaotic. Messy. Impulsive. Violent.
Which is exactly what it should look like. I’m not even going to try to hide it, or it’ll look more suspicious. I just rifle in his pockets while his hands bat at me weakly.
He has a gun that he didn’t pull—idiot—and two wallets that aren’t his.
I steal the cash out of them and leave the gun beside him as he bleeds out. My gaze flicks over him one last time, memorizing the sight in front of me.
Body on the ground, blood pooling around him like a liquid lake, dragging him to his death. I can see it in my head, the outline of it on canvas as I watch his chest rise and fall…
Rise and fall.
Rise and fall… and then stutter and stop.
I tear my jacket off, balling it up to hide the liquid staining against the black, and shiver. I’m lucky I have on a thin black undershirt, or people would see the blood on my skin as I dart out of the alley and leave his body on the ground to freeze.
I ended up taking entirely too long to get home, so long that I’m worried the blood on the jacket I’m still clutching is frozen against the fabric.
I dump it into a pan in my studio and go to the bathroom so I can carefully inspect my body.
Other than red marks on my neck that might bruise from where he had his fingers around my throat… I’m fine.
The blood barely got through the two layers I was wearing, and the little bit on my skin wasn’t exposed to any open cuts.
I’m not usually so… sporadic.
The shower I take is so quick I don’t even steam up the mirror, so I catch a glimpse of myself as I walk past.
Pale, hair dripping against my skin, curls clinging to sharp cheekbones.
And I still look hungry. Even after a kill. Even knowing I have blood and an image in my head waiting for me… I still want.
And what I want isn’t art of a dying man whose name I don’t know.
Hours later, when I’ve carefully wrung the blood from the jacket and mixed it with shades of black and red, it isn’t a dead body on the ground I’ve painted.
It’s an angel lying in the snow, cradled in a sea of crimson.
It’s Donovan’s face looking at me from a watercolor ocean of blood that doesn’t belong to him, every bit of him perfect. He’s surrounded in a wash of red that’s the stain of my sins. The stain on my soul.
It’s gorgeous, and it’s all wrong.
I pull off the gloves I always wear when painting with this particular medium and throw them to the side while I stare at what I’ve done. Every bit of Donovan, from the curve of his lips to his freckles, is just paint… regular paint. But the blood around him, the flowers blossoming, the red wings…
It’s all me.
Blood and death and every reason he should have run from me the first time he saw me.
I let out a low groan and knock the canvas to the ground, stalking back out of my apartment. It’s late—too fucking late to leave, to finally show up at his door. But I can’t help it.
The image of Donovan painted in someone else’s blood is too much.
It’s every bit of proof I’ve ever needed that there was no giving him a chance to run. There was no hoping that I could be the kind of man who might let someone like Donovan escape from whatever darkness I was going to pull him into.
There’s nothing but the memory of his lips pressed against mine, tangling with the lingering sensation of a blade sliding into a man’s chest and the sting of the bruises at my throat.
Donovan has been doomed from the moment he slipped into that alley and I followed him… and I’m too tired to keep pretending that I’m not the monster who's going to drag us both to hell to get what I want.