Page 10 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

Chapter five

I watch her come back around.

Since her head lulled forward once I had her tied to the dining chair, I stayed by her side, keeping her chin lifted.

I don’t want her to suffocate before I’ve had time to question her, after all.

Her face, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, is so peaceful that I’m forced to look away.

She’s not out for long, and when her breathing alters, I know she’s back with me.

I’d put my shirt on her before I secured her ankles to the legs, her hands bound behind the chair-back, then pulled my pants back on. Now, I sit on the rumpled bed, facing her, elbows balanced on my open knees.

The first moments as she opens her eyes are hard to watch. Confusion, recollection, fear. She pulls against the binds before she knows they’re there. Then her eyes land on me.

"John? Wha…" Her breath quickens, gaze flitting around. "What are you doing? What’s going on?"

The act won’t work on me. "I know," I say, my voice coming out dry, toneless.

Her feet, still clad in those smooth stockings, trace the cold floorboards as she tries to move. "Know? I-I don't understand. What… why? Are you going to hurt me?" she asks, in a small, wavering voice.

My jaw tightens. She’s faking, she has to be.

"The way you’ve hurt those others?" I make myself speak through the lump in my throat. Doubts creep in. Fuck, what am I really basing all this on? Her gasp and my hard dick. That’s it. Maybe I am fucking insane. " Wraith ."

She frowns, searching my face, the colour leaving hers. "What?"

I feel my heart drop into my stomach. No . I’m not wrong, not about these things. "I killed Declan. It was me. I know you saw it happen…"

"Why… why are you telling me that?”

"…so, you may as well drop the act. You know I committed a murder, so I'd already have reason to kill you."

In silence, she stares back at me, maybe absorbing everything I’ve said since she woke up.

It’s not a total change. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. But something changes in her expression, and I know who I’m now looking at.

The Wraith.

"And who the fuck are you?"

***

Paige

The guy sitting on the edge of my bed, who went from quirky to batshit in record time, is staring at me like I'm the nuts one. How long was I out? Did this crazy bastard choke me out while he was balls deep inside me?

He shakes his head once, looking uncertain, a brow creasing his forehead. "You know who I am."

Great, insane and self-important. I manage something akin to a shrug with my hands tied behind me. When he still only holds me in that oddly intense green gaze, I spit out, "You're the guy in my house who was just inside me and now has me tied to a chair, for Christ’s sake."

He stares at me for another beat, then drops his gaze to his hands, laughing softly to himself.

"Care to share the joke?" I ask. First the joke, then how the hell he knows I’m the Wraith.

He looks up at me with a half-smile and asks, "You just happened to target me, really?"

This is why you don't pick up from asylums. A first I won’t be repeating.

He’d just seemed so… different, so interesting.

If only I’d known how interesting. “Target you? For what? Look, if you’re some asshole’s rich little boy, or you own a cereal company or whatever, I’ve got no idea, okay? I’m not a gold-digger.”

He shakes his head, almost in disbelief. "It doesn't matter now."

That doesn't sound great. Is he telling the truth? The man I saw that night, crouching over Declan’s dead body…

it had been so dark, and I was so shocked I dropped my cord.

He was big. That’s all I really saw before I ran like hell.

I’d assumed later that it was some boyfriend come to avenge his love for things that filth Declan had done for her.

But what reason would John have to kill Declan?

There’s clearly a lot I don’t know about John.

How he’s come to know my secret, for one.

I notice his hands then. They’re bare, as they rarely are.

Those scars… burns. What did he say? A cooking accident?

Must be bullshit. Then I hone in on what he's toying with, elbows propped on his parted knees, hands lulling down slightly.

My throat goes dry. For the first time tonight, cold fear blooms in my chest, not the mere chill of anxiety and dull confusion, like when I woke up a handful of minutes ago, or when he so casually spelt out the exact reality of the Wraith of White Rock to me on our first date, but true terror.

I wet my lips. "What are you going to do with that? "

With my own cord, the one I’d dropped that night. There’s no question, I watched this guy kill someone. But now he might be intending to do the same to me. Here I always thought a man I was trying to murder would be the end of me. Not a man I’ve fucked.

He doesn't look at me, a slight frown between his brows as he focuses on the cord. Like this is a business he finds unpleasant. With my own cord… The familiarity of that idea strikes something. Something that doesn’t make my situation look any less dire.

Then there was the way he killed Declan, so fast, efficient.

“You're Needler.”

He looks up sharply. Fuck, I see why he was laughing now. I almost want to laugh, though if I do, it might come out maniacal.

The serial killers who found each other. Truly a romantic story. Until the one who doesn't like his own kind tied her to the chair and strangled her with her own garrotting cord.

"Everyone thinks you’re dead. That you burned in Crennick."

John— Needler —shrugs, as though that can’t be helped. I do let out a laugh then, more like coughed-out air. "Asking to choke me…" I muse. "That was cheeky, don't you think?"

Head lifting, he doesn’t deny that he made that irony on purpose, an echo of how I’ve been killing. "Because you don't ask your victims first?" he asks.

“Do you usually fuck your's first?” I shoot back. He ignores me. Jesus, was all of that just to get me here? Alone? If the sex had been bad, I’d be furious right now. But… “This is a bit personal for you,” I say, “You did it like this because you thought I was trying to get close to Needler?”

His eyes cut abruptly up to mine, and I know I’m close. I choke on a laugh. “Awfully vengeful of you.”

The smirk that comes to his face is wicked and merciless. “Forgotten who you’re talking to already?” Of course. Needler. Tregam’s favourite vengeance monster. The smile is gone. "Tell me why you killed that woman in the alley. Or the councilman in his bed."

My mouth closes. “I can't tell you that.”

The cord looks smaller, now wrapped around one of his fists. "Then why shouldn't I wrap this around your throat?"

My stomach feels hollow. I can still feel my wetness on my thighs. I’m still sticky with him. "Do you really want to do that?"

He chuckles. "Are you sure you want to rely on some residual warm feelings from me?” Voice hard, he reminds me, “You’ve been lying to me this whole time."

"No. I haven’t lied. Everything I’ve told you is the truth. I’ve just left things out. Which is more than you can say, 'John the accountant'. And whatever you think, I didn’t know who you were. How the hell could I have known that? On that, how the fuck did you figure me out?"

Needler ignores the last part, and points out. “Lying by omission is still lying. You’ve been murdering people," he adds.

"Well, we can't leave all the killing to you, Needler."

“I’m reformed.”

“Declan may disagree.”

Ignoring that, he asks, "I can assume you're not done."

I close my mouth.

That chuckle again. Dry, humourless. I want to believe he won’t do it, but I’ve heard enough about Needler to not be confident about that. Maybe it’s time to start crying.

The banging on my door makes us both jump.

"Paige?" The small, male voice comes through.

Fuck. James. He likes to pop over when he sees my light on late.

He's probably hoping I'll throw him a bang. Not going to happen, but he’s too simple to realise that.

I wouldn't consider him harmless, but he does come in handy sometimes.

Usually for changing a lightbulb or unclogging my sink.

Right now, however, he might just be saving my life.

I meet John's—no, what was Needler’s real name again? Never mind—eyes. I could yell his false name right now, screech out that he’s an asylum resident, and get him taken in. But then he'd rat me out too. Which won’t do. I’ve got important things to be finish up.

In the split second we both take to size each other up—James still outside my door like a stray dog—the corner of my mouth lifts. "Don't forget your shoes, love.”

Then I scream bloody murder.

By the time James has panicked enough to break down my door, my lover, and possibly my would-be murderer, has disappeared out of the window by my bedhead. I make sure to be a gasping, crying mess as James stumbles in.

He’s a skinny guy, probably inbred in keeping with the tradition of a few people on this island, and it takes him a few tries to get the hinges to splinter out. He’s going to hurt tomorrow.

“James! Thank God, untie me! Please,” I sob.

He does, all the while trying to decipher the mess of words I pour at him in no sensical order.

Once my hands are free, I shakily point at the window, blubbering something.

The moment his back is turned, I kick what’s clearly a man’s jacket under the couch, darting over to do the same to Needler's shoes. James, as a man of simple logic, has actually climbed out of the window himself, so I needn’t have rushed.

I’ve known James since we were both young. His left him behind on this island. Probably when they realised he was going to be more work than they signed up for.

By the time he returns, via the door this time, I’ve wrapped a blanket around myself, since I’m still wearing Needler’s shirt. “I saw him run up towards the moors! Will you check? Please?”

“Okay! I’ll call the cops…”