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Her eyes skate over me again, and then she smiles. “No, I don’t think so, not right now. If your soul is fucked up like I think it is, like mine is, well…. we’ll be seeing each other soon enough.”
Porscha is clapping like a lunatic when I snap out of the memory. It’s not the worst memory I have but it was the defining moment between us. The moment she learned she could manipulate me, I was fucked.
I should’ve just let her tattle to Rob and gone back into the system. Lesson learned.
“I have to go out tonight,” she says, throwing me a pout like I’m supposed to be disappointed. I keep my features slack, hoping I look bored. “I have a little business to take care of, but we can have that party when I get back.”
“I get to join in?” I ask sarcastically, but she’s already heading for the stairs. She pauses, lingering at the bottom step, and I wonder if she’s realized she forgot something.
Turning, she gives me a wide smile. It seems genuine, and that’s by far creepier than her smirks. “I think I met someone, Alastair.”
I snort, looking around. “Well, by all means, please don’t let me get in the way of that.”
She gives me an unamused look. “Not like what we had, silly. Something real.”
“We didn’t have anything, Porscha. Nothing that existed outside your mind.”
She twitches, spinning back again. “Stop being cruel, Alastair. This is serious. Now I need to go meet Artemis-”
“The professor?” I ask, surprised. For weeks, she’s spent her dear sweet time ignoring me and giving me breadcrumbs of information to go on. Whoever it is that she’s infatuated with, it’s enough to distract her from my permanent isolation down here in storage.
She’s slipping… just like last time. Porscha can’t handle the endless strain of hiding all her dark secrets. Maybe that’s why she ran away and became someone new when it was too much to handle.
“Yes, the professor,” she says with a scoff, pacing back to me. She snatches something off one of the trays and waves it in front of my face. I expect it to be one of her little vials of drugs, but it’s a knife. “We’ve become fast friends since she wanted a signed copy of Harrowths’ book.”
I stare at her, flexing my jaw as I debate how to respond to that. “Porscha… who the hell is Harrowths?”
Her eye twitches, and she twists her head to one side and looks away, her hand tightening on the handle of the blade. “No,that doesn’t matter, Alastair. Harrowths isn’t alive anymore. I can’t be someone who doesn’t exist.”
Yet you’re still okay being Porscha.I wanted to ask her if Harrowths was another of her personalities but I didn’t want to keep her down here any longer. No matter who she pretends to be, the monster hiding beneath the surface always wins out. She couldn’t pretend to be a small-town single mom while she masqueraded as a killer, and she definitely couldn’t handle beingjustDr. Char Rowths-Spurig when she could be a psychopath again, show off what she could do. I’m amazed we’re only up to two bodies since the prison break.
How she plans on getting drinks when our faces are probably plastered everywhere… that’s beyond me. I saw Artemis enough times to know she prides herself on being intelligent. Getting drinks casually with a serial killer on the run is a truly dumb decision. Maybe the professor is more involved in Porscha’s new life than I thought. It doesn’t really matter, because if Porscha is ignorant enough to go and get drinks out in public while there’s a manhunt for her then maybe someone will figure out where the hell I am faster.
She starts to say something else before shaking her head, slamming the knife down on the little tray by the bed and kicking it away.
Damnit.
“You’re going to make me late with all this talk! Artemis and I are going to have drinks. You need to get over me, Alastair. You don’t belong in my life any longer, not in that way.”
I’m dumbstruck by her words. If it wasn’t for her I could still be sitting in my cell, slowly dying. I would definitely prefer that over this mindfuck.
I eye the tray as she starts muttering to herself. That knife would serve to sever the ties and get me the fuck out of here. I wish she would kick the tray back towards me.
“This thing isn’t doing the trick,” she sighs, pausing to glare at my IV. The constant hydration is nice, but it’s a real bitch since she hardly ever offers me anything real to drink. “I’ll switch the bag before I go. Your dosage is wearing off.”
I narrow my eyes, letting that settle in. She hasn’t injected me recently, and I’ll be honest, I have no idea how long ketamine stays in your system when directly sent into the bloodstream. “What dosage?”
“Boy, be reasonable. You think all I’ve done is give you shots to keep you down?” She reaches out, patting my arm before massaging my bicep. I might be losing mass while I’m stuck here, but I still have some bulk. It’s just a matter of whether or not it’ll mean anything when I next get up. She chuckles before she finally continues. “There’s a slow drip of ketamine in the IV. Didn’t see that coming, did you?”
Well, that explains why it’s hard to stay aware of things. I just thought it was madness from being surrounded by all of Porscha’s weird keepsakes, but if she has a slow drip going I’m never sober. I can’t believe she hasn’t killed me yet. “Wow. You really put a lot of thought into this.”
Sighing, she steps back. From her pocket she pulls out a pack of smokes and a lighter, wiggling them at me as she lights one up. Disgust crawls through me as the stink of the cigarette settles over the room. It takes her way too long to smoke half the thing down and focus on me again.
“You know, I don’t need this right now,” she tells me, turning back again. Grabbing each side of the table, she leans over and gets in my face. I sneer back, half debating spitting in her face. “I have plans. Things arehappeningfor me, Alastair. Stop fucking it all up. You aren’t playing the game this time.”
“If you mean I’m not helping you kill women anymore, you’re right. My kill list is short these days, Porscha.”
She laughs loudly, shaking her head. “Let me guess. I’m the only name on your list, right? Would you like to bleed me dry?”