Chapter Twenty – Reese
I debated long and hard about this. It is a part of me that most would shy away from, but I have faith in Wren.
I don’t think she’ll turn her back on me once she knows the full extent of the darkness inside of me.
Granted, I don’t plan on telling her exactly what my mazes entail, but seeing as how she was comfortable enough to come to me about Logan, I figure I owe her this much.
The choice, ultimately, should be hers.
Later that night, I pick her up at eight. She comes out of her house, bundled up in a winter coat, much like she was the night I met her at the cemetery. Once she’s in my car, she leans over the center console and I meet her halfway, pressing my lips against hers.
It was torture, seeing her earlier and not being able to pick her up, pin her down on my desk, and take off every layer of clothing she had on. Damn near impossible to resist the urge I had to run my lips over every square inch on that body. I managed, just barely.
Only after the kiss does she say, sweetly, “Hi.”
I grin. “Hi. Maybe we should do that again, to make up for earlier, when we couldn’t.”
Wren doesn’t argue. She leans over to me again, and I bring my mouth to hers a second time. This time, the kiss is longer, the fire burning bright inside us both. We kiss like we haven’t tasted each other in ages. I could feel those lips of hers on mine all night and never tire of them.
Alas, there is something I want to show her… and it isn’t the tingling cock between my legs.
I labor to pull my mouth off hers, and then I get us onto the street. She’s quiet for a few seconds, and then she asks, “Where are we going? You said you had something you wanted to show me, but you didn’t give me any hints about what it is.”
Tossing her a glance, I reach over to her and take her hand in mine while keeping one hand on the wheel. “That’s because it’ll be easier to show you and then explain. If we do the other way around… things might get complicated.”
It’s evident she has no idea what I mean, and for good reason. I don’t think anyone would automatically assume I have cameras in places I shouldn’t and a life-or-death maze built in my basement.
I don’t always have them in my basement. There are half a dozen properties scattered around that my family owns that I’ve commandeered every now and then for my mazes. It’s always good to have variety. Can’t reuse the same old maze every single time.
This time, however, I’m doing something a little different. This time I’m letting Wren decide what I do. After she brought up her cheating ex earlier, I figured it would be the perfect time to show her, to explain some things, to really get everything out in the open.
Well, almost everything. There are some deadly secrets in my family that must remain so.
“You can’t give me a single hint?” she pouts.
“Nope. Patience, Wren, and I’ll show you.”
She’s not too thrilled with being in the dark, but she has no other choice, so she doesn’t try to argue with me. We simply hold hands while I drive us to my place, and when I pull into the driveway and into the garage, she tosses me a knowing look.
She thinks I brought her here for sex. I mean, that could happen, after, but it really depends on how this next part goes. It’s not going to be what she thinks.
I lead her in the house by the hand. Together, we go upstairs, and we end up in my home office, a room I did not show her the last time she was here. I don’t turn on any lights, but once I let her go so I can type in the password to my computer, she’s too curious to keep silent.
“What is this?” she asks. “What are you going to show me?”
My computer boots up, and before I dive deeper, I turn to face her, blocking most of the computer screen’s light with my body. “Remember when I said, at the cemetery, I’ve been watching you a while? I wasn’t lying. I meant it.”
“Well, yeah, obviously.”
With a shake of my head, I step towards her and slip my hands beneath her jacket, to her waist. “That’s not what I meant. Let’s just say there are things I know about you that you don’t know I know.”
That finally gets her to give me a strange look. “What do you mean?”
“Like, for instance… I already knew Logan saw you and invited you to mic night. I also know he came before and tried to mend things with you when Sloane and Elias were not home.”
“How…?” She is so utterly confused, and it’s so utterly adorable.
I bring her to my computer and go for the software hooked up to the cameras at her place. I open one of them and reveal the living room, where Logan sat down with her and handed her that flyer.
She stares at it with wide eyes as the realization hits her, and I tell her, “There are many things I’m good at. Watching people is one of them.”
It’s a long, tense moment before she swallows and turns her gaze away from the screen, angling those shadowed eyes up at me. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Since the beginning.”
“So you know—”
“I know everything. I knew about your plan to get Logan to sing again with you. It’s why I was there that night.” Softer, I add, “I knew there was something special about you. I had to watch you, learn more about you.”
“So you snuck into my house and put cameras everywhere?”
“Not everywhere. I didn’t touch the bathroom or Sloane and Elias’s rooms. The kitchen, the basement. I stuck to where I thought you’d be most often.” Waiting a moment, I say, “I told you there were other parts of me, darker parts. This is one of them.”
Wren lets out a long breath. “I can’t believe I never noticed. I can’t believe Sloane never noticed.”
“Yes, I was worried about that. She is… she has a bit of darkness in her, too, as does Elias.”
It’s a while before she asks her next question: “I assume I’m not the first person you’ve watched like this?”
“The first person I’ve watched that I don’t want to put in a maze, yes. You are the first I’ve watched for myself.”
She’s smart enough to pick out one single word. “Maze?”
“I make mazes. I like to test people. I find they often show their true colors when they’re faced with what they believe might be the end. After all, what’s a maze without a few dead-ends?” I reach for her hair and tuck some of it behind her ear, and she lets me do it, which I take as a good sign.
She’s not running away from me screaming about how crazy I am, so that’s a win.
I don’t tell her I put Logan in a maze. I figure she needs to make her mind up on him all on her own. This little show-and-tell isn’t about Logan, anyway. No, it’s about the other asshole she brought up when she was in my office earlier.
“You,” I say slowly, “are not the only one I’ve been watching.
” I reach around her and pull up a different camera, one of the cameras I hid at Mike’s place.
And, what would you know, Mike himself is on the screen, hunched over his desk in the far corner of the room, doing something on his phone while eating a Hot Pocket or something.
I don’t like seeing him, and neither does Wren, based on the gasp she lets out right then. “Mike,” she whispers, almost in disbelief, and then she turns her gaze toward me again. “Why are you watching him?”
“I wanted to know more about the asshole who hurt you. Before I bring anyone to one of my mazes, I like to learn their routines, peer inside their heads as much as I can.”
“These mazes you keep talking about… do people sometimes not make it out? I can’t imagine people are happy with you if they reach the end. You should be in prison or something, at least for kidnapping. Even if your family has money, you can’t do anything you want.”
“You’d be surprised at what money can get you in this country,” I say. “But as to your question… would it scare you to know that sometimes people don’t make it out?” Sometimes is a bit of a stretch. More like never, before Logan.
She doesn’t say anything right away, but her eyes return to the screen, to her ex-boyfriend. I let her think it over, don’t rush her. When she finally speaks, she asks something I’m not expecting, “Did you ever think about putting me in one of your mazes?”
“It did cross my mind in the beginning, but that thought quickly changed into something else. I do want to take you somewhere, but I don’t want you in one of my mazes.
” I dip my head beside hers and breathe her in.
“I told you I want to take you to the woods somewhere, somewhere private, and let you run from me, and when I catch you…”
I don’t need to elaborate on what I’ll do. She knows. She knows, and that’s why she shivers and leans back against me.
“You’re taking this well,” I remark as she turns her eyes back toward the screen.
“Yeah, I am.” Even she sounds amazed at her response to this whole thing.
“I don’t know why. It’s weird, it’s creepy, and totally illegal.
” Wren quiets as she must grow pensive. “I should want to get out of this house and away from you as quickly as humanly possible—but I don’t. I still feel good with you.”
Now that is music to my ears. I admit, I was concerned at the possibility she would not react well to this information. I always knew there was something special about her, something that called out to my inner darkness, but I never imagined quite how well we’d fit together.
Wren puts it together like a jigsaw puzzle: “So, I’m assuming since you have cameras on Mike, you’re going to put him in one of your mazes?”
“I thought about it, but ultimately, I think that decision should be yours. If you don’t want me to, I won’t, but if you give me the go-ahead, I will leap at the chance.” And somehow I don’t believe Mike would succeed where Logan did.
“Hmm. That’s kind of sweet—again, in a weird, illegal kind of way.” She splits her time between gazing up at me and glancing at the monitor, at Mike. Her no-good, cheating ex who broke her heart before last semester began. In a way, her following heartbreak with Logan was all his fault.
I will respect whatever she wants, whatever she tells me.
As difficult as it will be to leave Mike alone, if that’s what she wants, it’s what I’ll do.
A part of me already assumes that will be her answer; though we connect on an insanely deep level, I don’t see her being bloodthirsty at all.
She’s different than me in that respect.
After a while, after a long bout of pensive silence, Wren gives me her answer: “Leave him alone. I don’t want to see him or think about him.
I want to leave him in my past, where he belongs.
” She turns away from the screen and faces me, angling her head back and causing her long brown hair to fall back.
“How often do you take people and put them in these mazes?”
“It’s not as though I do it often,” I tell her. “It’s not a weekend activity or anything, but I have done it more than a handful of times. These… urges run in the family.”
“Your brothers have these same urges too?”
“No, theirs are much different than mine. We each took to the darkness in our own way.”
She studies me. “Do you have to do this? The mazes, I mean. Would you lose your mind if you didn’t do them?” It strikes me how genuinely curious she is about the entire matter, how calm she sounds as she discusses it with me. She truly is a remarkable girl.
And perfect for me in every way.
“I can hold back when necessary, if that’s what you’re asking. If you don’t want me to put your ex in a maze, I won’t.” I make an X over my chest. “Cross my heart, hope to die.” But as I say it, I realize that’s not what she meant.
“No, I mean, could your urges be moved somewhere else? Like, every time you get the urge to kidnap someone and put them in a maze, you instead take me somewhere new and chase me however you want to.”
Redirecting the dark urges inside of me. Not a suggestion I thought I’d hear from her. “I’ve never thought about it before. It might work. For you, I would try anything. If the mazes make you uncomfortable, I can do my best to adapt.” Softer, I add, “Anything for you.”
“It’s just…” Wren gives me a sort of sad smile. “I’d hate for you to get caught, somehow. I know this is new, but the thought of losing you makes my chest ache.”
I take her face in my hands, cupping those soft cheeks as I bring my top half down.
“You won’t lose me,” I whisper, and then I take those lips against mine and kiss her in a way our positions in the car would never have allowed.
A long, slow, deep kiss, one where our tongues meet and dance together, and electricity zaps between us.
I only tear my mouth off hers to eventually murmur, “I told you, Wren, you’re mine, and I meant it. No matter what happens, no matter what you want from me, you’ll always be mine.”
She is putty in my grip, and her voice is light and feathery when she asks, “And Logan?”
“If you want Logan, then you can have him. I’m not opposed to being on the same side as him, provided he doesn’t ever hurt you again. I have the feeling he won’t, if you give him another chance, but again, that choice is yours alone.”
“Are you sure? You won’t get angry and jealous and decide to throw him into a maze?”
I chuckle softly. If only she knew. But, right now, that’s a secret between Logan and I. Maybe someday one of us will tell her, but that day is not today. Besides, if she doesn’t want me doing any more mazes, I won’t…
But there is one person who still needs retribution for what he did. The driver of the car, the one the police eventually stopped looking for. He’ll go into a maze, even if it’s my last maze ever. I will not let him get away with hurting Wren like he did.
And if that means I keep it a secret from her for the rest of our lives, then that’s what I’ll do.
“No, I won’t throw Logan into a maze if you decide to pursue things with him,” I tell her, meaning it. “Now… I suppose I should take you home, since this is a school night and all—”
The corners of Wren’s mouth tug into a gentle smile. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind staying up a little late with you.” Though she doesn’t outright say it, I know exactly what she means: she doesn’t want to go home just yet.
Perfect, really, because I don’t want to take her home yet either.
Tonight, she’s all mine.