41. Scared Off
41
Scared Off
Move in. With Victor. His silky voice and firm grip almost convinced me. My knees wobbled, especially at the sight of a beautiful, sparse interior. But this wasn’t my home. It was my first time here.
I stuttered over a laugh. “We’ve been dating for two weeks, and now you want me and Jinx to move in with you?”
“Yes. At least until we settle this situation with Sam. You need somewhere safe,” he insisted. “Then, after that…”
I tugged him through the door. “Did you even ask your sister?”
“No. It was spontaneous.” He shut the door and pressed me against it. “Perhaps love has made me irrational.”
“Victor.” I pushed his chest and smiled. “Do you only confess your feelings in crisis situations?”
“Move in, and I’ll swear it every day. Crisis or no crisis,” he said.
Fuck, that was tempting.
I twisted my fingers around his silver chain. “We have expedited other areas of our relationship, and you do show me you care…”
“I’ll show you anything you want.” He leaned closer and glanced at my lips. “Just say the word.”
At last, he’d shown me more of his heart and his mind. Now, I had a taste for all of him.
Delight beat in my veins like a war drum on the verge of celebration. I tilted my face and closed my eyes, arching upward to meet his lips.
The intercom sparked alive with Zero’s voice. “Ahem. Just a reminder, we do have cameras in the common areas.”
“Oh my god.” I laughed and covered my mouth.
Victor twisted around to give the black orb in the corner of their high ceiling a sour look. “Thanks, sis.”
“You’re welcome. I’m still digging up info on this Sam kid,” she said.
I tugged my outfit into place. “Great. Any help is appreciated.”
My phone rattled off its ringtone. Cursing, I silenced it and checked the screen. Sam’s number flared up, and I had to stop myself from flinging the phone across the room. “Oh my god, he’s calling.” What kind of teen called instead of texted?
Victor stepped closer, the light from the call glaring off his dark eyes. He looked like he wanted to reach into the phone and dismantle the boy on the other end piece by piece.
If I was plunging into darkness, I wouldn’t be alone there. The monster in my chest screamed, turning the liquid fear in my veins to ruthless depravity.
I wasn’t going to hide from one bad teen. Hopefully, I didn’t have to go to the police. I was going to make Sam run from me.
“Find me somewhere creepy.” I locked eyes with Victor, then answered the phone. “Hello, Sam. Do you like scary movies?”
Victor furrowed his brow, his lip turning up at my brazen throwback to our first conversation.
Sam’s voice trembled through my speaker. “Um, not really.”
I smirked. That meant he didn’t know his way out of one, unlike me.
Victor led me down a stairwell, sparing dark looks over his shoulder. Each step groaned with anticipation.
I cradled the phone against my cheek and turned up the volume so my spider man could hear. “You prefer to get your thrills by stalking girls with pretty smiles?” I asked.
Sam squirmed enough to make his seat squeak. “I wasn’t—I thought you told Victor I wasn’t doing that.”
“That was before I saw the security footage, and before you showed up at my house, and before you started calling me.” I ducked into a dark abyss. Twisted creature silhouettes waited on the far side of the wall. “I think you were hoping to catch a show of me and Victor enjoying each other’s company in theater thirteen.”
Sam made a small noise in the back of his throat. “I…I don’t…no.” He huffed. “I called to check on you. Besides, looking isn’t a crime.”
My tone flattened with dark humor. “Depends how you do it. We all burn for something.”
Victor pulled a chained string. It clicked. A bare bulb illuminated the grooves of his shoulders and the spare parts crowding the basement: robot arms and machine husks. Widow prototype red eyes gleamed in greeting. Tools hanging on the wall doubled as torture devices. This was the perfect backdrop for the scene ahead. I gave Victor a thumbs up and kissed his cheek.
“You don't have any reason to be upset with me.” Sam huffed. “I mean, Victor kind of did the same thing.”
I rolled my eyes and dragged my hand down Victor’s chest. “I talked to Victor. He let me know he was there. I gave him my address and phone number, and we made plans to see each other. How did you get my information?”
“The VIP database,” he mumbled.
“Not the same, then,” I said.
Victor squeezed my hand. His phone buzzed, and I gestured for him to get it.
“I-I still don’t think it’s that bad. I mean, I could press charges against him for throwing me around like that,” Sam said.
“Oh, you can?” I chuckled. The balls on this kid.
He softened his voice as if he was super thoughtful instead of a creep. “But I wouldn’t sue him if you didn’t want me to.”
“That’s one of many things you shouldn’t do,” I warned, sitting on the workbench.
“Is there any way we could meet?” he blustered. “You know, I think you could convince me. Although I still don’t think you should be with someone like that.”
I crossed my legs. So, we could add blackmail to the list of reasons we should slap him upside the head.
“Let’s play a game.” I said, channeling a serial killer with a moral code. “This or That. If you answer three questions, we can video chat.”
“Um, okay. It’s a start, I guess," he said.
This guy hadn’t seen enough horror movies.
Victor narrowed his eyes on me, a silent question: Was I sure about this?
I nodded. Between the two of us, we had it. “First question: Freddy or Jason?”
“Uh, I don’t know them,” Sam said.
I gave Victor a long-suffering look. This kid didn’t know the classic flicks? There’d been dozens of Friday the Thirteenth and Halloween movies.
Victor gave my knee a sympathetic squeeze and sat beside me so I could see his screen—a conversation with Zero, including some stuff she found on Sam: grades, family tree, and addresses.
I hooked my leg over Victor’s lap, where he held it. “They’re famous villains,” I said. “One’s a burned husk with knife-hands and the other wields a machete and a hockey mask.”
“Oh, right. I don’t know. Jason?”
I poked Victor’s calve with the toe of my boots. “He’s famous for his endurance. He never stops, you know? Neither do I.”
“Nice.” Sam chuckled.
“Well, neither does Victor,” I said.
The other end of the line sped into silence. Had I finally shocked him?
Victor’s lip twitched up. He traced the inside of my knee, sending shivers to my core.
We could be very bad.
“Once we want something, we commit to the sin. I’m sure you understand,” I said.
Shaky breathing filtered through my speaker. “I guess.” He wasn’t stupid enough to miss the thinly-veiled threat. Victor was my man—and we’d bury a body over embracing a stalker’s.
“Are you ready for the second question?” I sat up to read Victor’s phone better.
“Um…”
“Parents or police?”
“What?” His voice tightened like he’s been struck by lightning.
“Who should I send all of this evidence to?” I rattled off his parents’ names and numbers.
His voice peaked incredulously. “What the— How did you get their information? Did Victor give you my emergency contacts?”
“Nope. You’d be surprised what you can find on the internet. I also have your address. That’ll come in handy if we go the police route to file for harassment," I said.
“I’m not harassing you,” he shrieked.
“Let’s examine it from another perspective, then,” I seethed, my pulse pounding in my ears like a war drum. “You’d be fine with Victor waiting outside your house? What if he cracked open your dorm room door when you were with a lady-friend or taking matters into your own hands?”
Victor shuddered and tightened his grip on my leg.
I injected more poison into Sam’s brain. “Would you be unnerved if he showed up at your next job to ‘check out the merchandise?’ What if he followed your car, then called and texted you, asking to see you alone since he could hurt the people you care about? Imagine you’d never had more than surface-level, passing conversations before that. Would you be creeped out? Scared? Intimidated?”
Sam let out a shuddering breath. “I… That’s an overreaction. You’re spinning everything I did.”
Victor typed out a few college names and pointed to them.
I nodded. “Maybe college admissions officers will feel the same way. They’ll probably skim right over the restraining orders on your application. You’re young. You’ll make mistakes. Your GPA is average enough that you might sneak in.”
Victor kissed my shoulder. The pride in his eyes threw fresh meat to the monster inside of me.
Sam’s voice broke. “Jesus, Kat. I just wanted to see you. I didn’t think… I’m sorry if I scared you.”
Apologies didn’t count when they included the word, ‘if.’
I twirled my necklace. “So, which do you pick?”
“No,” he wailed. “I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?”
“I want you to admit you crossed a lot of boundaries,” I snapped.
“Okay," he snapped.
“I want you to commit to therapy and stop being a creep.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he cried.
“Prove it to me. Lose my number, stop stalking, and become an upstanding member of society. Because if I hear or see anything shady—”
“Please don’t send them anything,” he sobbed. “I promise, I’ll stop. I won’t even go to the mall anymore. Please.”
“For now, I’ll believe you,” I said, sliding fully onto Victor’s lap. “Would you like to answer the last question?”
Sam whimpered: a good sign he’d taken our conversation seriously.
Victor grabbed a few spider prototype legs and wore them like claws. He walked them up my body with little pin-pricks of anticipation, then tapped the underside of my chin to draw me closer for a kiss.
I grinned and reached for the light bulb chain. “Trick or treat?”
Regardless of what Sam chose, it was sure to be a scream.