Page 20

Chapter 19

Juliet

I start with the eye first. I carve it from his skull, his screams my melody just as mine were his. His and Craig’s and Ned’s. I leave the other eye in place so he can see the rest of my vengeance coming.

Next are holes in his ears. In his nose. A slash over his brow.

“This is for every piercing and tattoo I got to numb the pain of the memories you gave me.” I draw the knife across his bicep, and he wails. “For everything you let them do to me that night.”

I slice through his flesh in every spot I inked on my own body. Every place he touched.

He hollers and writhes, blood pouring and pooling at my feet.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this. How many times I fantasized about all the ways I could hurt you worse than you hurt me.”

Sneaking into his house at night and drawing a blade across his throat while he slept. Setting a fire that he couldn’t escape. Cutting off his balls and letting him bleed out slowly.

The world would tell me I should want to be a better person than the monster who hurt me. But I want to be worse. I want to inflict hours of suffering before his inevitable demise, so the final memories he takes to his grave are nothing but pain and misery. That’s what he deserves.

Sometimes, reality is better than your fantasies.

“ Please , Juliet. Stop.” His pleas for his life are his new mantra. I ignore him, just as he ignored our begging and pleading.

Another slice across his skin, crimson liquid blooming in its wake. “You will never hurt another girl again. You will never hurt me again.”

His skin has paled, the blood loss bringing him close to the end. I don’t have much time left.

But I’m not finished with him yet.

“Tell me his name.”

“Who?” he pants. His breaths are shallow, chest heaving.

I place the machete against his throat. “The man who killed Autumn.”

The final monster from that night. I won’t be able to sleep again until I’ve avenged her.

Autumn didn’t deserve what happened to her, but they do. I need to find him. The murderer.

Breathless, Brandon sputters, “Ask him.”

“Who?”

He nods at something over my shoulder.

At Trey.

My spine goes rigid and I turn slowly. Behind me, Trey is wide-eyed, uncertainty etched into his face. His usual cocky assuredness gone.

How the hell does Brandon know him? He didn’t ask who Trey was when he stormed into the cabin. He said you . Like they’d already met.

“What is he talking about?” I snap.

“I don’t know.” Trey shakes his head, genuinely as confused as I am.

I press the blade harder against Brandon’s throat and turn back to face him. “Tell me his name!”

But Brandon’s eyes are shut. His chest isn’t moving.

“Fuck!” I bring the machete down on his shoulder with both hands, but his eyes don’t burst open. He doesn’t stir.

He’s dead.

My coach is dead. The man who started it all. Who led me down this path of pain and destruction.

Dead before I could get the name of Autumn’s killer. Of the man who tried to kill me.

“No!” I stab the machete into his chest, his stomach, his arms, anywhere I can reach until Trey finally rests his heavy hands on my shoulders. The same way he did that night at the haunt but not to drag me away this time.

“You stopped him,” Trey murmurs in my ear. “Brandon’s gone. You did it.”

“I didn’t!” My voice cracks on the wail. “He’s still out there! He killed Autumn, and he’ll get away with it!”

Trey increases the pressure on my shoulders just slightly. Reassuring. “He won’t. We’ll find him. We’ll figure out a way.”

I blink away the tears, chanting Trey’s reassurances in my head. We’ll find him. We’ll figure out a way . We’ve come this far. There’s no way I’m stopping now.

As long as I have my masked man by my side, we’ll avenge Autumn. We’ll stop the man who killed her, even if it takes a lifetime to find him. I will never give up.

My arms are trembling by the time I drop the machete. Turns out, stabbing and killing a man is exhausting work.

Trey picks up the machete and hovers it over Brandon’s thumb. He severs it with a satisfying thud .

When he slips the thumb into a plastic bag, I kick the eye next to my toes, sending it flying across the room.

Brandon’s slumped, lifeless body is real. He’s gone. Finally . My chest already feels lighter, a thousand pounds lifted off me.

He can’t hurt me anymore, or anyone else.

“Ready to burn this place down?” Trey straightens, pocketing the thumb.

We’re both covered in Brandon’s blood, my white dress ruined. Just as I hoped.

“Yes.” We brought plenty of lighter fluid and gasoline to make sure there’s not a trace of Brandon left when the fire department shows up.

Trey’s boots echo in the silent cabin as he closes the distance between us and grips my face with slick, bloody hands before crushing his mouth to mine.

Shock freezes me until I melt into him. Our lips move together like a choreographed dance we’ve done a hundred times.

He tugs me closer until my body is flush against his, slipping his tongue into my mouth and wrenching a moan from my throat as my limbs turn to jelly.

My unhinged Romeo. My masked man. My devil.

Mine .

I’m breathless by the time he finally pulls away. He’s beaming again. He kissed me. We’ve fucked and killed together, so a single kiss shouldn’t be this mind-blowing, but it is. He trusts me in a way he hasn’t trusted anyone since Rachel hurt him. Little by little, we’re both healing. Together.

“You know how fucking proud of you I am?” His deep, warm voice makes a balloon of joy inflate in my chest.

Trey Lamont is proud of me. Proud of me for getting the revenge I’ve fantasized about for years. The unhinged man who needs to be imprisoned or institutionalized is proud of me.

And I couldn’t be happier.

I clear my throat and force a healthy dose of sarcasm into my voice. “Thank you for helping me. Even if I didn’t need it.”

He snorts and bends to grab the abandoned knife I used to stab Brandon’s hand. He cleans the blood off the blade with his shirt. “Right. You don’t need me for anything, do you?”

“Exactly,” I challenge as he approaches me with that knife and a wicked grin.

“We’ll see about that.”

Before I can anticipate his next move, Trey drops to his knees in front of me. “What are you?—”

With a flash of the knife, he slices me open.

I cry out as a bright red line blooms across my thigh, the pain shooting from my leg to my brain.

Knife still clutched in his hand, his tongue laps up my blood greedily. He groans, sending a shiver down my spine. “Mmm. You’re fucking delicious.”

He knows this is what I need. A distraction from the agony of missing my chance to avenge Autumn. From the fury that Brandon died before I could force the name from his lips. How his final words were a lie that Trey would somehow know the name of Autumn’s killer.

I gasp when he cuts a twin slice into my other thigh, sucking at the wound like a man dehydrated after days in the desert.

I want to be held at knifepoint and taken against my will. Cut before he licks the blood off my skin.

Even with a corpse mere feet away, he’s determined to make all my fantasies come true. Each one I whispered to him that night at the haunt when we were nothing more than a masked man and his all-too-willing prey.

He flips the knife, blade pointed at the floor and his grip at the bolster. I gulp as he trails the long, intimidating handle up my bare leg. Even with the flame in the fireplace snuffed out to nothing but coals, I’m burning up.

With the butt of the handle, he presses against the space between my legs, pushing down hard when he reaches my clit.

I gasp, jerking forward as my hands land on his shoulders.

“You’re going to ride it.” His voice is gravelly, and my blood boils. A threat or a promise, I’m not sure.

“Yes.” The word escapes in a breathy gasp.

My panties are already slick for him. From the moment he pinned Brandon to that chair and nailed him to it. The way he defended me, handed me that machete, and watched with glee as I tortured and killed a monster. His fury and violence turned me on more than I could acknowledge in that moment.

We shouldn’t be doing this right now. Not with Brandon’s blood cooling at our feet and mere hours until daybreak. We’ve still got a whole cabin to burn to the ground.

But the adrenaline and arousal pumping through my veins has taken over my brain. My only thoughts now are of Trey and getting his mouth back on me, getting his fingers, tongue, cock, and knife handle inside me.

He massages my clit with the butt of the handle, eliciting a whimper from my throat. His low chuckle makes every hair on my body stand on end. “You’re going to take every inch.”

A brief moment of panic grips my chest. How the hell will I take every inch of that long handle? It’s not pliable the way his fingers and cock are.

But when he nudges the cool metal at my entrance, the hesitation is replaced with anticipation. He can’t actually give me every inch with his hand gripping it anyway. “I will.”

He yanks off my panties before his tongue flicks at my clit, pleasure bursting through me as he eases the knife handle inside.

“Oh god.” I clench his shoulders harder, nails digging in.

“We’re only just getting started, demon.” He sucks on my clit as he pushes the handle in deeper, my arousal dripping down to his fingers. “That’s my bad fucking girl.”

Somehow, his words of praise make me want to take the handle anywhere he commands.

When his fingers hit my pussy, I let out a sigh of relief and relax, stretching around the handle.

Until he somehow nudges more inside me.

I glance down at the blade that connects us, horror seizing me when I spot his bare hand wrapped around the blade. “What the hell are you doing?”

He grins at me as a trickle of his blood drips down to his wrist. “Making you come. Now ride it.”

“I’ll destroy your hand.” Maybe if he had done this to me that first time in the woods when he was still nothing more than a stranger in a mask, I wouldn’t have cared about hurting him. Hell, I fantasized about biting his dick off. But now...

His jaw tightens along with his grip on my thigh. “You can cut my hand off, for all I care. As long as I can still use it to make you scream.”

Fuck . How the hell am I supposed to argue with that?

Hesitantly, I pull my hips back, keeping my hands on his shoulders to steady myself before I sheath the handle inside me again. I wince, more pain than pleasure until he wraps his lips around my clit again and sucks.

I gasp. “Don’t fucking stop.”

The knife handle is slick now, but it’s still hard to take. Trey’s growl vibrates through my clit before he smacks my ass with a jiggle. He releases my clit and nearly pulls the handle out of me.

“What are you?—”

He glides his bloody hand down the handle, leaving behind a glistening trail of his crimson blood.

Impossibly, my pussy clenches around the end of the knife handle still buried inside me.

“Ride it again,” he commands. “Faster.”

“This is so fucked up,” I pant, even as I rock my hips and take the handle inside me again. Heart pounding, neck slick with sweat, I’m more turned on than I’ve ever been in my life.

“Watch.”

For once, I obey his command without retort, both of us watching as my pussy swallows the knife handle covered in his blood.

“Who knew I had a blood play kink.” I rock my hips faster, the pleasure building as he moves the hand gripping my thigh to rub his thumb against my clit and drive me to that pinnacle of pleasure.

“I could’ve fucking guessed,” he growls. “You were fucking made for me, little demon.”

He’s twisted, but I’m just as twisted as he is because I love everything he’s doing to me. Everything he’s ever done to me.

As fucked up as it is, as fucked up as we are, he’s right. We’re made for each other. A psycho Juliet and her unhinged Romeo. A little demon and her devil. A match made in the pits of hell.

“Come for me, demon.” His needy plea only makes the pleasure build to an unprecedented height. “Come for your devil.”

“Fuck!” Sparks of pleasure burst in my head as I cry out. I arch forward, unable to keep rocking my hips as the orgasm seizes me. Trey pumps the handle inside me, making me see stars as he sucks my throbbing clit.

My eyes cross, thighs weak as I brace myself on his shoulders, completely at his mercy as he thrusts the handle inside me over and over.

By the time the final wave of the orgasm ebbs away, my thighs are shaking, the knife handle completely soaked as he finally withdraws it.

He tucks his hand away, refusing to let me see the damage I’ve done. Sienna is a nursing student. I’ll ask her to bandage him up when we get back to campus. She probably won’t even ask what the hell I did to him. That’s for the best. She wouldn’t want to know.

Trey pockets my panties as he stands and unsheathes a bottle of lighter fluid. He waltzes over to Brandon’s body and starts to douse him with the liquid, the pungent, chemical scent stinging my nostrils.

Heart still pounding from the orgasm and adrenaline, I grin. I can’t wait to watch that motherfucker burn.

After Brandon’s body is soaked with lighter fluid, Trey approaches me with a sadistic grin that makes my heart lurch.

“Why are you stopping? We need to make sure the whole building burns.”

His lupine green eyes are practically dancing. “It will. After I fuck you. Take your dress off.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not taking my clothes off; it’s cold in here.” I turn and grab the back of the small loveseat in front of the fireplace and bend over. “Just fuck me.”

“I’m not fucking you in that.” His brows dip low as he takes another step toward me. “Last chance, demon. Take your dress off. Now.”

I straighten and flip him off. “And I told you?—”

Before I can react, Trey jerks the bottle up, spraying the front of my dress with lighter fluid.

I gasp as the acrid stench hits my nose. “What the fuck ?”

He drops the bottle to reveal a box of matches from his toolbelt. I stop breathing when he pulls out a match and strikes it, a small flame igniting.

So small yet so dangerous. Deadly. Terrifying.

Just like me.

His hooded gaze rakes down my drenched dress. “Take it off. Now.”

Take my dress off or he’ll throw that match at me next.

“You should be locked up in an asylum somewhere,” I snap as I peel my dress off.

He grins as he watches me strip. “Our future retirement home.”

God, he’s probably right.

When my dress is finally off, drafty air bites at my exposed nipples, but my skin is still buzzing with warmth.

“That’s my girl. Now bend over.”

“Put that fucking match out first.”

“Bend. Over.”

I roll my eyes, even as the anticipation of his cock thrusting inside me makes my swollen clit throb. Grabbing onto the back of the loveseat, I bend over, displaying my bare ass and pussy to him.

A sharp smack on my ass is followed by the clatter of his toolbelt dropping to the floor and the purr of his zipper. When I turn to watch, he’s got the lit match between his teeth as he grips my hip and guides his cock inside me, the piercing foreign as it grazes my entrance. My blood thrums with anticipation.

His words come out breathless, mumbled around the match. “You’re going to take every inch.”

I hiss, still aching after stretching around the knife handle. I’m going to be sore as hell tomorrow. Yet I’m eager for that ache between my legs and the reminder it will bring.

My nails claw at the soft fabric as he rocks back and thrusts into me. Hard. The pierced tip hits a spot deep inside me that sends a zing of pleasure up to my scalp. I tip my head back with a moan. “Oh, fuck. I’m glad I pierced it.”

“Better come quick, baby.” Without another word of warning, Trey grabs the lit match from his teeth and flicks it toward Brandon.

The body ignites in a whoosh, fire spreading so fast, every muscle in my body seizes with panic.

I’m going to fucking die in here. Die by smoke inhalation, if I’m lucky. Die getting fucked while the corpse of my coach burns mere feet away from us.

Trey doesn’t give a shit as he continues pumping into me.

“We need to get out of here!” I shout, and he groans as my panic makes my walls clench around him.

“After you come.” He thrusts harder, faster, the smack of skin on skin mixing with the hissing flames.

The air is already growing suffocatingly hot. “We’re going to fucking die!”

“And what a way to go,” he groans.

Yeah, Sienna was right. Trey is beyond fucked up, and I’m more fucked up for choosing him. She warned me, and I ignored her. I got what was coming to me.

I moan and clench my pussy on him. A fake orgasm is all I need to get the hell out of this cabin that’s about to burn down around us as soon as the flames reach beyond Brandon’s body.

Trey strikes my ass so hard, I cry out. He leans forward and pinches both my nipples in punishment. “You can’t fucking fake it with me.”

Shit . I squeeze my eyes shut, willing that climb to the crest of pleasure to hurry as the stench of a burning body floods my nose.

I scream when his pierced cock hits my cervix, pleasure and pain mixing together so intensely, I can barely stay upright.

My screams echo off the walls as he delivers every punishing thrust, gathering up my hair to yank my head back until I’m gazing up at the ceiling.

Despite the chilly night air, the radiant heat from the blaze is burning me up, but it’s Trey’s cock thrusting inside me that sets me on fire.

I should be completely overcome by fear. Too afraid for my life to feel anything else. But clearly, fear is what gets me off because with every thrust of his cock and every twist of my nipples and every pinch to my clit, the pleasure barrels through me, faster and faster.

“You’re going to come.” Not a threat or a command this time—an inevitability. He knows my body almost better than I do now.

“Yes,” I gasp, because I can’t deny it anymore. Every increasingly fucked up thing he does to me makes me come harder than the last. We both know it, and there’s no use denying it anymore.

“Spread those legs. Good girl. Fucking take it.” He pants through the eerily familiar words. “You love my huge cock breaking you in half, don’t you? My little cum slut.” Oh my god. The same words he uttered in front of the camera while he jerked off with my stolen panties. “You’re so fucking wet. I can’t wait to spill every drop inside you. Clench that tight little pussy on my cock, pretty girl. Take every inch.”

I hate that the mere combination of his words and low, growling voice is enough to push me over the edge. I hate how much I love it.

Another stinging smack on my ass and a few more words are all it takes. “Come on my cock. Scream for me.”

I do. I scream loud enough to bring the whole fucking building down around us before the fire does.

My vision blurs, eyes crossing as my heart hammers erratically and the fireworks of pleasure crackle in my head.

With a sharp groan, he slams against me once more, spilling inside as his cock throbs over and over.

We actually just did that. My masked man, my stalker, my unhinged psycho, just fucked me in front of a dead, burning body.

As soon as Trey pulls out of me, I barely have time to cringe as his cum follows. He throws his jacket around me and tugs me close, the lust and hunger replaced with affection and adoration.

I lose myself in his warmth, his heart thundering against my ear.

When he finally pulls back, he grabs my chin, forcing my gaze on his. I’ve never seen this much intensity in his eyes before, and it makes my heart skip. “I love you, little demon. So fucking much.”

Love . My heart soars, everything about tonight forgotten. All that matters in this moment is Trey. My devil. The one I’ve been searching for all this time, without even realizing it.

“I love you too.” I swallow around the hard lump lodged in my throat. “More than I ever thought I could love anyone.”

His hard gaze softens just slightly before he kisses me, tasting and savoring until jerking me away. “Stop distracting me. I need to burn this place down.”

I grin as he grabs the lighter fluid. “Because I’m the one who started this.”

Trey douses Brandon’s body with more liquid, the flames rising. The sickly sweet stench of the burning corpse turns my stomach. We need to get the hell out of here.

I slip my arms into the sleeves of Trey’s leather jacket and zip it up to my chin before we grab canisters of gasoline. Trey pours his inside the cabin and then we get to work outside, leaving a liquid trail by the door and on the walls of the cabin before he flicks another match. Another. And another.

When the cabin is engulfed in flames, he takes my hand. Both of our palms sticky with blood. “I feel bad for the destruction of property,” I admit.

The campground owner shouldn’t suffer for what Brandon did.

“They have insurance. By the time the fire department discovers it, there won’t be any evidence of what started it. They’ll assume it was the fireplace.” He pats his pockets until he discovers with relief that he still has Brandon’s severed thumb.

“What do you do with the thumbs anyway?” My lips purse. “Please tell me there’s no cannibalism involved.”

“No cannibalism. Just framing my father for the murders.” He leads me to the car, the cool night air a reminder that I’m still alive. I survived Brandon.

But he didn’t survive me.

“You actually think that will work?” I ask.

Trey’s father has no ties to any of the men we’ve killed. Why would he be the one who murdered them? But Trey is linked to me, and they’ll connect me to Brandon.

Dread pools low in my stomach. The police won’t believe Trey’s father killed the men—they’ll believe Trey did.

“He’s killed before. Once they start digging, they’ll find the truth. About everything he’s done.” Trey sounds so certain, I keep my mouth shut.

But I don’t think it will be that easy. His father bailed Trey out of trouble. Surely, he can find a way to keep himself out of prison too.

If his father is even half as awful as Trey has described, he’ll let his son go down if it means sparing himself.

Trey opens the passenger door for me. Behind us, smoke drifts to the night sky, the flames licking up the cabin almost beautiful in their destruction.

“We’re not far from the house.” His throat bobs as he stares out into the darkness, as if he can see his home from here. “We’ll go there, plant the thumb, and if he’s home, I’ll ask him why the hell he let Rachel live.”