Page 6 of Drag You Down (Bloody Desires #2)

GAbrIEL

“ I ’m innocent!” the man yells, his wide eyes flicking to the sharp serrated knife I’m holding.

“I haven’t even accused you of anything,” I point out, circling the chair he’s ziptied to.

He swallows hard enough to where I can see his throat working, and I imagine slitting it, letting the blood splatter out all over me so I can feel it and taste it.

It reminds me of my little lamb.

But I have better plans for Nathan Morretti, bigger plans, and they don’t involve a quick or easy death. He’s caused too much misery, too many deaths of his own. The police have done shoddy detective work, half-assing the case.

My contact at the police station believes it will be declared an accident instead of arson, and that simply won’t do.

Not when three people died because of the man in front of me.

So what if it was a run-down building, and the only people living in it were squatters?

My lips thin into a line.

Well, we have our own run-down little building now, and plenty of unsafe wiring around us.

“Please, whatever you want, I’ll get it to you!” Moretti begs.

The only thing I want is a gentle young man with a taste for blood.

“What I want is to ensure you can never murder anyone ever again,” I say with a brittle smile.

I trail the knife over the skin of his collar bones. A small line of red wells up.

If I lick it, will I taste the same sin Levi did?

“Why did you do it?” I ask Moretti, blowing into his ear.

He’s sweating profusely already, fear radiating from him as he tries to pull away from me. I grab him by his thinning hair, forcing him to stay in place, and inhale the scent of sweat and blood.

The stale air of the building doesn’t detract from the moment. If anything, it adds to the moment, adds to the fear I swear I can taste.

Maybe I can. People can do all sorts of unordinary things, can’t they? They can see music and hear numbers; why wouldn’t I be able to taste fear? Whether I imagine it or not, it’s still intoxicating, and I lick my lips to get more of it.

I wish I was kissing my little lamb. I wouldn’t want to taste his fear again. I want to taste his longing, his need for the coppery taste of blood.

I will give it to him.

And when I do, he’ll call me “Daddy” with pleasurable sighs.

Not today, but someday soon, I will smear my own blood across his lips. We’ll taste it together when we kiss, and I’ll hold him in my arms and assure him that there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.

His fear will turn into lust, and that will be the sweetest taste of all.

“—I promise,” Moretti is saying.

I’m not sure when I tuned him out, but his voice has begun to get on my nerves. I usually enjoy the begging that comes with their realization that their lives are coming to an abrupt end — untimely, they think, but they’re only getting what they deserve — but today, I find it lonely.

I wonder if Levi would learn my methods. I may call him my little lamb, but there could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing there after all. I could teach him to research, to hunt, to punish.

To kill.

I could teach him so much.

It would take the innocence from his eyes, but it would replace it with something even more alluring. His confidence would be delicious.

“Hmm?” I ask, cutting another slice over the other side of his collarbone. “I apologize. I should be paying closer attention to your final words, shouldn’t I?”

Moretti struggles harder against the chair he’s bound to, but all he does is manage to upset it so he tumbles to the floor. I observe dispassionately, not moving to right the chair again. The fire department will label this arson as well as murder, but there’s nothing to trace me to Moretti.

Even if there was, I’m at peace with the idea of eventually getting caught.

It won’t be from this murder, though.

It won’t be today, or even a week from now.

When it happens, the public will condemn me as a murderer or hail me as a vigilante.

I’m neither.

My little lamb believes I’m the Devil.

“Do you think I’m the Devil?” I ask Moretti, genuinely curious.

He stares up at me. His cheeks are ruddy from strain and panic, and he strains against the zip ties keeping him attached to the metal chair.

I casually kick him in the side, making him cry out. “I asked you a question.”

“N-no,” he says through gritted teeth.

I hum, considering. If he doesn’t think I’m the Devil when I’m about to burn him alive, why should my little lamb believe I am?

Even my own parents had thought me possessed.

But Moretti doesn’t know the rest of my plans yet. He probably thinks I’m going to use the knife I’m holding and make this fast.

He couldn’t be more wrong.

I am ready to begin cutting, though, and I anticipate the sight of even more blood trickling from each and every wound I leave behind. The two I’ve left are nothing compared to what I plan to do to him.

“Tell me if you change your mind,” I say.

“You’re a crazy fucker,” Moretti tells me, and the edge of panic is nearly palpable. I breathe it in deeply, wondering again if it’s truly something I can taste or if I am losing my mind after all.

A good person wouldn’t get off on hurting another—but a good person wouldn’t burn down a building with people inside, either. I don’t regret what I’m about to do to Moretti.

He thought he wouldn’t get caught.

Does it make me insane to want to punish him?

Does it make me the Devil, or does it make me an avenging angel?

I know what my little lamb thinks.

I realize I’ve lost track of Moretti again, and it’s a frustrating thought.

I want to hear him cry out, want to hear him scream, but I want to find Levi more.

I want to find a way to reach him, despite how difficult it is to get to him while he’s hiding in that apartment complex no one ever seems to leave.

A smile spreads across my lips as I think of a way I can get to him. Apartment 302 wasn’t that hard to reach, in the end.

“It’s your lucky day,” I tell Moretti, unable to keep the excitement from tinting my voice. “I have better things to do than cut you into ribbons.”

His relief, too, is something I think I can taste.

“Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you,” he babbles. “I won’t tell anyone about this. I’ll be quiet.”

“And you won’t do it again?” I ask, still smiling at him.

“I didn’t—” he begins.

I quirk a brow.

“Never again,” he rushes to say.

“No, you won’t,” I agree.

His gaze darts from me to the door, and his breathing comes in short gasps. He wets his lips, and I see his uncertainty.

I continue to smile down at him. “I won’t keep you. You have important things to do.”

I walk off, and he shouts, “Hey, wait! You can’t just leave. You need to untie me.”

Anger roils within the pit of my stomach, and I turn partially to glance at him. “I don’t need to do anything,” I say coolly. “But don’t worry. I’m not leaving. Not yet.”

I grab the container of gasoline I’d set nearby for this occasion, and his eyes go wide.

“Wait, no! No. You said?—”

“I said I wouldn’t cut you to ribbons,” I tell him, flashing him an icy smile. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to light you on fire and leave you to burn to death like those poor souls.”

His babbled pleas reach my ears, but I feel nothing toward him. No sympathy, no hesitation, no regrets.

“Do you think I’m the Devil yet?” I ask him.

“Yes!” he yells. “Yes, I think you’re the fucking Devil! Is that what you want to hear?”

I purse my lips. “I hate when people tell me what they think I want to hear,” I tell him. “I much prefer honesty.” I shrug. In the end, it doesn’t matter, does it? “If you believe in God, you should start praying,” I tell him.

It won’t matter either way; if there is a God, he won’t intervene in something like this.

He never has before. Why would he start now?

I open the container, then slowly circle Moretti as I pour it generously onto the floor in a circle around him. I consider him, then decide I don’t want to be merciful and risk the chance of him dying of smoke inhalation — or of this being stopped.

I dump more of the gasoline over his head, and it splatters all over the place. These clothes, I’ll have to get rid of instead of simply washing, but that’s fine. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.

Humming again, I tune out his pleas — he’s begun praying — and start to dump the rest of the gas in a line leading toward the door. The remainder is left in a pool right beside it, and I take several steps back before lighting a match.

I throw it, and as much as I want to stay and watch that motherfucker burn, I turn and walk away.

I check the camera feeds on my phone, noting that the halls of the first three floors are empty. It’s every bit as strange as no one leaving the building at all, and while it’s fortunate for me, it also has my hackles up.

There’s a part of me that wonders if this is a trap, but at the same time, I know that’s paranoia talking. They have no way of knowing about me… unless my little lamb decided to tell someone about this.

I don’t think he did, and I would be disappointed if he had. That means someone else could be living with him, and that this is a calculated risk.

But so is everything I do. Every time I hunt and kill, it’s a risk, and this one is much less so than normal.

I’d watched the feeds enough to know that while people go into apartment 302 more frequently than anyone else, Levi and his sister mostly go to 304.

I haven’t seen him leave it since the last time he went to 302, though, and the video footage of him leaving had been strange.

He’d been walking oddly, leaning against his sister.

I’ve watched the video several times, trying to discern what’s wrong, but I can’t quite determine what might have happened.

I stroll into the building like I own the place.

There’s a rusty elevator, but I choose to take the stairs because it’s faster and quieter.

I get to the third floor, and in front of the door to apartment 304, I set down the gift box.

It’s neatly wrapped in shiny silver wrapping paper.

I’d debated the one with hearts on it, but that seemed too blatant.

The tissue paper inside does have little pink hearts all over it, though, along with sheets of pink that surround the jewelry box with my gift inside.

I purse my lips, wondering if the accompanying note inside will be enough to coax him out.

It’ll need to be enough.

I straighten, wishing I could knock on the door and demand that he come with me now. But no. I have to be patient.

He will come to me.