Page 152

Story: Mutual Obsession

“You fucking stabbed me, you crazy bitch,” Gregg yells.

Bree moves a lot slower this time, making sure Gregg can see exactly what she’s about to do. I think in a way this is worse, as he can see it coming, but there’s not a fucking thing he can do about it. He can do nothing but watch as she slams her knife into the opposite thigh, giving him a matching wound, as she pulls the blade out again.

“Name calling isn’t nice, Gregg,” Bree chastises, as he continues to scream and cry out in pain.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. My fucking legs. I’m going to bleed out,” he cries.

Bree shakes her head, tutting at him. “I missed your major arteries, so you’ll be fine for a bit. If you cooperate, we’ll put tourniquets on for you.”

“How do you expect me to cooperate when my legs feel like they’re on fucking fire?” he shouts at her, snot and spittle flying everywhere.

Bree wrinkles her nose at him in disgust. “At least you can feel your legs. I could do more damage, so you can’t.” She doesn’t even bother hiding the threat in her words.

“Fine, what do you want me to say?” he snaps, glaring at her with fire in his eyes.

“I have a computer mock-up of The Count. All I need you to do is confirm it’s him. Can you do that?”

Gregg’s eyes narrow on Bree, his gaze studying everything about her, no doubt trying to work out if there’s more to this than it appears. “Why a mock-up?”

“As I said earlier, nobody who is willing to talk has seen him in quite a few years, so we don’t have any actual pictures we can use to confirm his identity. I’m sure if we were to ask you for one, you’d tell us there are no photos of him, so I’m skipping that step.

“Indie has helped us create a mock-up of what he looked like, and we’ve used technology to age him. We just need you to confirm which is closest to him now,” Bree explains, though there’s something off about the way she’s explaining it to him, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

“Fine, show me the photos,” he says.

On hearing this, Kian reaches over Kellan’s desk and picks up a folder, before heading into the room, closing the door behind him. He stands beside Bree, not moving away, even after she’s taken the folder from him.

Bree pulls out three pictures, handing one to Kian before taking one in each hand. They hold all three up in front of Gregg, and wait as he assesses each of them.

I keep my eyes fixed on Gregg as he looks at the photos. Initially, he does a quick assessment of them all, before going back and staring at each one individually. Although he tries to keep his expression neutral, I don’t miss the way his eyes lightup slightly, and he has to fight the ghost of a smile from tipping up his lips.

“The middle one,” he states confidently, nodding towards the one in Bree’s right hand.

Kian collects the images and returns them to the folder before leaving the room. I’m a little surprised to see a sadistic smile on Kian’s face as he joins us back in the adjoining room, closing the door behind him.

Before I’m able to ask him about his smile, a loud scream draws my attention back to Bree and Gregg. She just sliced her blade across the length of his chest, cutting through his thin T-shirt, creating a bloody wound from the tip of his left shoulder down to the right side of his abdomen.

“What the fuck?! Son of a motherfucking bitch,” Gregg yells, as he thrashes in his chair, pulling against the restraints, which only makes his wound bleed further.

“I told you I’d cut you for every lie you told me,” Bree states lazily, cleaning her bloody blade on the opposite side of her jeans, clearly not bothered about getting his blood all over her clothes.

“I-I… I d-didn’t…lie,” the splutters, tears falling down his cheeks.

“You definitely fucking did. None of those mock-ups look anything like The Count. They were just random men. We didn’t show you the mock-ups created using Indie’s sketch, as I wanted to see how honest you’d be before I did that. Turns out, testing you was a good fucking idea,” she snaps, glaring at him with fire in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I won’t…lie…again,” he sobs, sounding more desperate this time.

“Why should I believe you?” Bree asks.

“Just try me and I’ll prove myself.”

Bree turns to look over her shoulder, nodding towards us. Kian must understand the signal, as he picks up another folder from Kellan’s desk and walks back into the room. Once the door is closed, he hands the folder to Bree. This time there are four images, which Bree and Kian hold up for him to see.

There’s a flash of recognition in his eyes before he’s even scanned them all. He’s definitely been shown the real mock-ups of The Count, so now we just need to see if he’s going to be honest or not.

Gregg takes his time looking at each of them, though he spends the least amount of time on the one in Kian’s right hand, which only makes me more suspicious.

Gregg pulls in a shuddered breath, before saying, “They are all definitely images of The Count, though none of them are completely accurate. The most like him is probably the one in Bree’s left hand.”