Page 24 of Dark Thirst (The Scandalous Novellas)

“What is she doing here?” Michelle whispers as she pulls her pants on and readjusts her bra in the car’s backseat. “I-uh told her to come by. Someone hit her car this afternoon, and I told her I’d look at it.”

Michelle rolls her eyes and sighs, “No one hit her stupid fucking car! I followed her and wrote that note so that I could meet with her and sort things out!” she says, annoyed.

I’m confused. She followed her and wrote a fake note? “Go out there and get her to leave!” she says between clenched teeth.

“Sean!” Anna’s voice sounds closer, like she’s in the shop area.

I jump up and out of the passenger side door to see her standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.

She looks pissed off. Thankfully, the dark tint on the Mustang’s windows prevents anyone from seeing inside, keeping Michelle hidden.

“Anna, sorry. I was grabbing something from the backseat and couldn’t hear you.” Her eyes narrow like she doesn’t believe me. “My car is outside. Should I bring it in so you can look at it?” Her response is curt. My gut tells me she knows something, and I need to get her out of here ASAP.

“No, the bays are all full. I can look at it outside. Come on, let’s go through the front.” Her piercing blue eyes are fixed on me. I try to avoid breaking into a cold sweat as I walk towards her.

“No! I want to bring it inside. Just move your car!” She stomps her foot like a spoiled brat.

“Anna, just go outside! I’m trying to do you a favor.

You shouldn’t even be back here. Stop being a fucking brat!

” I grab her arm to lead her through the front office and out the fucking door before she insists further.

“What are you hiding?!” she screams as she rips her arm out of my grip. “I know someone else is in there with you! I heard you talking to someone in the car.”

“Just go home Anna, you’re fucking annoying me with how paranoid you are!

” I turn around to walk back into the office, and she pushes past me, running in before I could grab her again.

She bursts through the door in the back of the office that connects to the shop and I hear a loud crash.

My heart races as I run after her, and as I get through the door, I trip over her body, falling to my hands and knees.

I look up and see Michelle standing behind the door with a socket wrench in her hands, and she looks surprised.

Anna is face down on the ground and isn’t moving. “What the fuck did you do?!” I scream at Michelle.

“What? She came in here looking for me, so I did what I had to do before she saw me!” She shrugs and drops the wrench beside her, causing a clatter.

My head is fucking spinning as I check Anna for a pulse.

There is one, thankfully, but her head is bleeding from the back, and I’m afraid to move her and harm her further.

“Move her car into the shop so we can tie her up and move her to another location,” Michelle says, a bit too calmly for my liking.

“Was this part of your fucking plan? What if you had killed her?”

“Oh, please. I didn’t hit her that hard! Plus, I need to get into her house so I can connect to her computer. FOR. MY. PLAN!” she enunciates. When I don’t move, she narrows her eyes and looks at me in a way I’ve never seen before. “Well? Are you going to help me fix this little problem or not?”

“This isn’t a little problem, Michelle. If she’s really hurt, we need to take her to the hospital! And we need to clean up this mess. I mean, I hate the bitch as much as you do, but I don’t want to kill her!”

Michelle rolls her eyes and sighs. “I will not kill her. I just want enough information so I can blackmail her into oblivion, and we can move on with our lives. Together or not. Your choice.”

She crosses her arms and stares at me as I contemplate what to do next.

I slowly get up, fish through Anna’s purse for her car keys, and walk to the front office towards her car.

I open the middle bay garage door from the outside and pull Anna’s car in, closing the door behind me.

The building is in an industrial area with other transmission and body shops around, so there’s no one in the area to see what just happened.

When I look towards Anna’s unconscious body, Michelle is nowhere in sight.

Where the fuck did she go? Did she leave me alone with Anna to deal with things?

Just as I’m about to call out for her, she runs through the door with a black backpack in her hand, and she pulls out some rope from inside of it.

For a second, I’m shocked, but then I realize she had something planned this whole time.

I’m sure Anna showing up here made her need to improvise, but I just want this nightmare to be over.

We need to move Anna’s body out of the shop and clean up any blood fast. I don’t even know where she lives now, but I’m sure Michelle does.

“Help me tie her hands and feet together. I’m not sure how long she’ll be out, and it’s a bit of a drive back to her place,” Michelle says while standing over Anna’s body.

“How do you know where she lives?” I ask as I walk over to them.

“Long story. Just help me,” she sighs.

“I won’t help you until you tell me what is going on!” I yell back at her. This isn’t the Michelle I know. She wouldn’t harm someone, or at least I don’t think she would.

I don’t think I know her at all. I know how to make the girl come, but I know little else about her aside from the small tidbits she’s given me throughout the few weeks we’ve been together.

“I need to get into her computer and get close enough to her phone to install a program onto her devices so I can access and track them remotely. I’ve been hacking into her phone and emails for a bit, but it will be easier once I install this program I’ve been working on.

It’ll make it as if I’m a little ghost always lurking and watching, and she will never know. ”

A sinister smile comes across her face, and it makes me want to laugh for a moment.

Then I snap back, grab the rope from her hands and start tying Anna’s hands behind her back.

Good thing I enjoy using restraints in the bedroom.

It’s given me the ability to tie some pretty wicked knots that no one can get out of.

“Do we put her in the trunk?” I ask as I work on her ankles.

“Sure. She’ll be fine there,” Michelle says as she goes through her bag again. She pulls out her phone, and then starts to go through Anna’s purse. “What are you looking for?” I ask.

“Her phone. I can start working on it on the way to her house.”

“It’s in the car,” I tell her as I turn Anna over and pick her up gently. Her head isn’t bleeding as much as I thought, and there isn’t any blood on the ground. She should be fine in the morning , I think to myself as I put her in the trunk gently. As much as I hate her, I don’t want to hurt her.

Michelle hops into the front passenger seat and I get into the driver’s seat of Anna’s car. No one will be back in the shop until the morning, so I’m fine leaving my car here until we get back. Backing out of the bay and closing the garage door, we head to Anna’s house.