Page 29 of Executing Malice

“I got certified specifically for you.”

I shouldn’t be flattered, but I can’t help it.

“What is wrong with me?” I grumble out loud to myself.

It’s not until I am standing at my car, staring at the scratch and dent in the paint from the asshole in the Yukon that I swear. Loudly.

I punctured all four of his tires and vanished, leaving my car open for his retaliation. Plus, my purse in the passenger’s seat with my car keys and all four doors unlocked.

Swallowing down my panic, I throw open my door and duck in to drag my bag to me.

Everything is inside, exactly where I left it.

Tossing the bag back, I pull out and rush to check my tires.

All still fine.

But the Yukon is gone. Mine is the only car in the entire lot ... untouched. Weird that he didn’t even call Sheriff Brewer. Reed would have immediately recognized my car. He’d have come looking for me.

Baffled, I stand in the cooling night and stare long enough to fully convince myself I imagined it all. The part withthe vandalism, at least, because there’s no pretending I imagined the incident in the basement when the proof continues to burn in reminder, especially when I slide behind the wheel.

Sitting is going to take some getting used to, I think, as I bite my lip and stifle the whimper. I have to resist the urge to roll up my skirt and peek at my new body art. I don’t think I’m ready to see it when it feels painful. I can only imagine how it actually looks. I will myself to wait as I put the car into drive and start in the direction of home.

I’m not the least bit surprised by the neatly folded scrap of fabric perched on the same porch post. Pink. Simple cotton. Visibly used. I resist the urge to touch it, already knowing exactly what it is.

It’s not mine. That much I’m certain of. While I don’t exactly swim in fancy, lacy, or silky underwear, these are definitely not mine.

Scoffing at the mentality of the man I just let do wildly intimate things to me, I stalk inside and return with a pair of rubber gloves I keep under my sink for dishes. I bunch the panties in my fist and carry it straight to the trash.

Next time I see him, he’s going to be answering some questions because what the fuck?

CHAPTER SEVEN

LEILA

––––––––

The hallway breathes.

It scuttles in the shadowy grime clinging to every surface. It moves and shifts, alive beneath the peeling wallpaper slick and swollen with rot. The stench of damp wood and rusted metal clings to the air. To my skin. I taste it at the back of my throat. Feel it beneath my bare feet as I shuffle along hardwood soft with filth.

I don’t know where I am, yet I know every crack in the walls. I know every is door barricaded.

I know I shouldn’t be here. Out in the open.

Prey.

But I can’t move. Roots have forged from the decay and bind my feet while the house groans around me. A sound of pain.

Hunger.

Somewhere ahead, folded in the absence of light where I know I should never go, a baby cries.

A woman screams.

The raw shriek of agony splits through my skull and turns my bowels to liquid. The baby wails a sound too wrong before it’s silenced. And I’m sobbing in its place. I’m kicking and thrashing against the roots coilingwith living force up my ankles, around my calves. I fight to find the baby. To protect it, but I’m brought to my knees as the roar of a monster swallows sound itself.

“Shut the fuck up!”