Page 9

Oxygen, words, coherent thoughts—all that shit escapes me when I get my first look at Adeline Reilly in the flesh.

Shit.

She’s even more exquisite in person. The sight of her has my knees weakening and my pulse racing.

I don’t know if God really exists. I don’t know if mankind has ever walked on the moon. Nor do I know if parallel universes exist. But what I do know is that I just found the meaning of life sitting behind a table with an awkward smile on her face.

Taking a deep breath, I find a spot against the wall in the back. I don’t want to get too close yet.

No.

I want to watch her for a while.

So I stay in the back, peeking through dozens of heads to get a good look at her. Thank god for my height because I’d probably barrel through everybody if I were short.

A tall, willowy woman hands my new obsession a microphone, and for a brief moment, the latter looks like she’s ready to bolt. She stares at the mic as if the woman is handing over a severed head.

But the look is gone in seconds, barely there before she slides her mask in place. And then she snatches the microphone and brings it to her wobbly lips.

“Before we start…”

Fuck, her voice is pure smoke. The kind you really only hear in porn videos. I suck in my bottom lip, biting back a groan.

I lean against the wall and watch her, absolutely enthralled with the little creature before me.

Something inexplicably dark arises in my chest. It’s black and evil and cruel. Dangerous, even.

All I want to do is break her. Shatter her into pieces. And then arra

nge those pieces to fit against my own. I don’t care if they don’t fit—I’ll fucking make them.

And I know I’m about to do something bad. I know that I’m going to cross lines that I will never be able to come back from, but there’s not an ounce of me that gives a fuck.

Because I’m obsessed.

I’m addicted.

And I will gladly cross every single line if it means making this girl mine. If it means forcing her to be mine.

My mind has already been made up, the decision fortifying like granite in my brain. At that moment, her wandering eyes slide right onto mine, clashing with a force that nearly sends my knees to the ground. Her eyes round in the corners ever-so-slightly, as if she’s just as enraptured by me as I am by her.

And then the reader before her is pulling her attention away, and I know I need to leave now before I do something stupid like kidnap her in front of at least fifty witnesses.

No matter. She won’t be able to escape me now.

I’ve just found myself a little mouse, and I won’t stop until I’ve trapped her.

Chapter 3

The Manipulator

T his isn’t how I imagined I’d spend my Friday night. Digging around in the walls of an old-ass house with god knows what kind of creatures trapped inside.

I’m just waiting for a rabid squirrel to jump up and latch onto my outstretched arm, driven mad with hunger and willing to eat anything due to so many years being trapped in the walls, nothing but bugs to keep it fed.

My arm is shoulder-deep in the goddamn hole Greyson created, a flashlight held tightly in my grip. There is just enough space to fit my arm and part of my head in at an odd angle to look around.

This is stupid. I’m stupid.