Chapter 46 #3
“He told me the story of my early life. Said he’d found the paperwork to prove it.
Our parents had died in a car accident, he said, but he didn’t look like a son in mourning.
I guessed he hadn’t had the best of upbringings, like me.
But he was dressed smartly, he looked clean and smelled expensive, so not exactly like me.
He told me I was owed money from the estate, but I told him again to fuck off. I didn’t want a penny of it.
“Eventually, he left after I refused to speak to him. But he came back the next day, then the next day, then the day after that.”
He shook his head with a smile.
“He never gave up. But the final time he showed up, he saw me at my worst. He saw the beast that I could be as he walked in and found me strangling a guy who’d tried to steal my drugs.
I stared at Alex as he stood in the doorway and watched me choke the life out of that piece of shit.
And when that fucker stopped thrashing and lay dead on the floor with my belt wrapped around his neck, Alex asked what he’d done to deserve it.
I told him, and Alex shook his head. ‘If you’re going to kill someone, at least make it count.
Stealing drugs is a shitty excuse to end someone’s life.
There are people out there who do much worse.
Who deserve to be put down,’ he replied and for the first time in my life, I was stunned into silence.
“You see, Alex wasn’t disgusted by what I was.
He knew. And he didn’t walk away. He stayed.
He won my trust. And in turn, I agreed to do things his way.
He wanted me to work to a code. He knew I had urges; desires I couldn’t ignore.
And he told me, if I had to kill, then I should kill those that deserved to die.
If I had a hunger, there were ways it could be sated without hurting innocent people.
“I didn’t want his money, the money that came from parents who didn’t care if I lived or died.
So he devised a way to pay me what he thought he owed me, through my art.
He set me up with a studio, put me in touch with people who could further my career.
He put me on the path that took me to the top.
“Alex saw potential in my work. He also saw a beast of a man that needed taming, and he tamed me. Everything was going great; my life was perfect...”
His eyes glowed an evil glare in the darkness as he stared right at me.
“Until you turned up.”
He took a deep breath and threw his head back, staring at the night sky. Then he let it fall forward as he stared at me again, grinning like a devil.
“That night at the gallery, he didn’t watch my performance.
He watched you. I even saw him take a photo of you on his phone.
I hated you that night. He’d always given me one hundred percent of his time and attention.
But not then. You saw to that. So, no, it wasn’t the fake article that put a target on your back.
It was Alex. He followed you, became obsessed with getting to know you, and as he did, I felt him pull away from me.
You took something of mine, so I decided to take something of yours.
“I did my research, found out about your life, your work, your family and friends. Your best friend.”
Grace.
I gave a muffled shout through the tap over my mouth, as I kicked my legs and glared back at him.
“I started talking to her online,” he went on, “Managed to get her to agree to meet me in real life. She was stubborn at first, but I’m a persuasive guy.
What can I say?” He shrugged. “I’m a real charmer when I want to be.
I talked her round, eventually. We went on a date, for a meal at my favourite restaurant. ”
He wagged his finger at me playfully.
“You and I both know she was lucky that night. If Alex hadn’t arrived when he did, I’d have taken her out to my car, drugged her, and taken her back to my studio.
I had it all set up, ready. The noose, the knives, the pretty bow.
I was going stage the scene, so she’d look like the barbie I sent you.
Then, when it was all over, I’d send her gift wrapped to your door with photographs to show you each stage of my process.
But when I saw Alex, I decided to change my plan. She wasn’t who I wanted. You were.”
His voice began to change, becoming more sinister, as he said, “You need to go, Emma.” And then he screamed, “Because you’ve ruined FUCKING EVERYTHING!”
He started to pant, gritting his teeth, clenching his jaw and fisting his hands in fury.
Then suddenly, he changed, jumping on the spot, shaking his arms and rolling his neck like a fighter about to enter the ring.
The switch was so quick it made me scramble backwards, bending my knees as I braced myself against the tree trunk.
This man was so wickedly unpredictable, so evil, I didn’t know what he’d say or do next. I needed to get out of here.
“You’re gonna die tonight,” he hissed, pointing at me as my eyes darted about, looking frantically around the clearing, praying for a way out.
“And that right there is your grave that I’ll dump you in.
I got it ready earlier because I don’t want to waste time on you. You’re not the main event tonight...”
As he said that, I saw movement in the trees up ahead, and when Alex appeared in the clearing, holding a gun pointed right at Arran’s head, I felt a rush of relief flood through me, then the sting of fear.
“You took your time,” Arran said calmly as he turned to face Alex. Then he focused back on me and said, “Don’t think he’s here to save you, by the way. He didn’t track us down with a tracker on the car or anything like that. I asked him to be here. He’s here for me.”