Page 2 of Crossed

“That’s quite the accent.” She steps in close. “You can call me whatever you want as long as you can pay, baby. Cash or…or smack if you’ve got it.”

My sickness sings.

And before I can shove it back down, my monster—thatsickness— explodes, sinking into my bones until they ache.

I drop my hold from the woman’s wrist and give her a curt nod.

Her grin stretches until it reaches the corners of her sunken face. “Follow me.”

She spins and walks back to her open door, and I scan the area one last time, ensuring no one is around to see.

Still alone.

Her place is small and filthy. Just a single room with a dirty mattress on the floor and a lamp with no shade flickering in the corner. The bed itself is riddled with stains, and I can smell the unholy matings permeating the air, so thick it makes me feel like I can’t breathe.

Years ago, I would have been envious of this space. I would have longed for a mattress beneath me at night and a roof over my head.

But that was before.

The woman turns to face me, and I notice the pock marks scattered along her gaunt face, a feral desperation swimming in the depths of her features, reaching out to capturemyenergy with its shadowy black claws.

The man in me wants to step away, but the monster calls her closer.

Her bony hips sway as she saunters over, and something sour teases the edges of my mouth as I watch her malnourished body attempt seduction. Her hands slip up the front of my peacoat, undoing the buttons slowly. I let her, and when the material gapes open, her eyes lock on the distinct collar around my neck, widening as her head snaps up to meet my gaze.

She jerks, but I grab her hard enough to bruise, dragging her flush against me.

“Le diable est à l’intérieur de toi,” I hiss.

She shakes her head. “I don’t…I don’t know what that means.”

I lean down until my words whisper against her coarse, tangled hair. “It means the devil is within you.”

My hands skim up her arms until I’m wrapping my palms around her fragile throat, the thrum of her heartbeat so loud I can feel it through the leather of my gloves. Excitement bursts like a piñata in the base of my stomach, and now my cockdoestwitch.

I don’t care that she’s clearly a sex worker. It isn’twhatshe does that calls to my monster, it’s what’sinsideher. I only wish to free her of her demons.

“Don’t worry, my child,” I continue. “I’ve come to help.”

And then I press down, applying pressure to her delicate windpipe. The sleeves of my coat rise with the movement, and her fingernails dig into my exposed wrists, gouging the skin, making my muscles tighten.

I enjoy the way she fights. Releasing her right before she loses consciousness, I undo the scarf from my neck and wrap it around her throat, crossing the ends and pulling.

Slowly, her body slackens, and it’s only when I see the life leave her doped- up eyes that the violentneedwithin me fizzles out until it’s nothing but burnt ash, my sickness dissipating like it was never there at all.

I lay her corpse on the ground, breathing deep as I take back my scarf, rebutton my coat, and crouch over her body. My fingertips touch her forehead, then her lower chest, before creeping across each shoulder in the sign of the cross.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,” I murmur.

Already the tendrils of guilt are weaving through my middle, coiling until my breaths become choppy and my vision starts to shake.

But I can’t control it.

I’ve had thisthingwithin me since I was born, damned from my very first breath. It’s only in servitude that I can attempt to cleanse my soul.

“There’s a monster in you, child. And God wants me to beat it out.”

I shake off the voice from my past and stand up quickly to make my way outside, ensuring the coast is clear before I head back to the center of town.