Page 48

FORTY-EIGHT

AMETHYST

I spend the entire night laid out on the wooden floor, freaked out by Xero’s punishment and my reaction to BJ’s brutal murder. He made me climax to what was effectively a snuff movie. I rode that dildo like it was the last dick on earth, a part of me reveling in my humiliation.

Xero isn’t just haunting my life, he’s eroding my morality. He’s turning me from someone who only kills in self-defense to someone who gets off on watching death.

I don’t.

In fact, I’m so disgusted with myself that I want to sink into the floorboards and spend the rest of my life in the crawlspace. The only thing stopping me from disappearing forever is the thought of Myra falling to a similar fate as those men.

I need to get up, dust myself off, and to make sure Xero holds up his end of our bargain.

Sunlight streams in through the crack in the door by the time I muster up the courage to move from my spot and try the front door. Finding it unlocked, I collapse against it, my knees buckling with relief.

When I rush upstairs to check under my pillow, there’s no souvenir. Maybe Xero thinks he’s terrorized me enough?

I take a shower, get dressed, and grab my car keys. There’s enough gas in the tank for a return trip across town. I don’t need to ration my fuel, because I get my allowance at the end of the month, which is in just over a week.

Myra lives in a downtown apartment building with a concierge. I’m not a fan of her roommates, as they give me the creeps, and I’m sure she only tolerates their bullshit because they allow her to live rent free.

I try her door, but a tall man in a suit answers, saying she’s gone to work. My heart skips a beat. That has to be a good sign, right? Not wanting to run out of gas for the return trip home, I walk several blocks down to Wonderland, where I find her vacuuming the window display.

“Myra?” I bang on the glass.

Her head snaps up, and she freezes for several heartbeats, her eyes widening, her breath quickening. Then her stunned expression morphs into anguish, and she rushes to the door.

With trembling fingers, she turns the lock and then pulls me into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I should have listened to you.”

“What happened?” I murmur into her hair.

“It’s all over the news and social media. The Well Hung Man murdered Dick Johnson and then hanged himself off the balcony with his own noose.”

I rear back with a gasp. “What do you mean?”

She pulls me further into the store. “Can you remember what happened after the book fair?”

“My memory is spotty,” I say, my voice breathy. “Why?”

“The Well Hung Man live-streamed from Dick Johnson’s hotel room, saying he had fucked up. He confessed to a lot of heinous shit?—”

“Like what?”

Myra walks around the counter and lowers herself into the seat. I follow her, my heart pounding. Is it wrong for me to be more worried about if the hangman mentioned our names than his apparent suicide?

She runs a shaky hand through her red hair. “The platform keeps pulling down his videos, but here’s what I remember. He used to demand nudes from minors and even met up with a few of them in real life. He and Dick Johnson went to book fairs together, agreed on which women to target, and invited them to Dick’s hotel room for ‘drinks.’

My eyes widen at the amount of venom she injects into that last word. “Did he sound coerced?”

“More like drunk and out of his mind,” she replies with a shake of her head. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I woke up in the wrong clothes with no memory of the night before. I thought the worst until I realized I didn’t feel weird down there.”

I nod, my brow furrowing. “You woke up at home?”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember driving back.” She reaches for my hand and gulps, unable to meet my gaze. “Did anything… Did you… Did you feel… different?”

“No.” I shake my head for emphasis. “Only a headache.”

She exhales a shuddering breath. “Good. It looks like we have a guardian angel. I mean, what if the hangman turned his blade on us?”

“It was Xero.”

Her head snaps up. “Amethyst?—”

“Don’t ask me if I’ve been taking my meds, because I’ve stopped. They don’t work and all they do is make me drowsy. Before you ask, I won’t go back to my doctor because she colluded with my parents to keep me out of my mind.”

Her brows pull together. “So, you’re saying we were saved by a guardian ghost?”

“You don’t have to believe me, but Xero doesn’t want that manuscript published.”

“It’s gone,” she mutters, her shoulders sagging.

“What do you mean?”

“When I woke up, it was missing from my purse.”

“What’s your explanation for this, then?”

Myra bows her head. “I don’t want to fight, okay? But I can’t believe that a man whose execution was publicized rose from the dead to stop you from publishing that book. Don’t get mad at me for saying this, but it’s so… Scooby Doo .”

“What do Kayla, Gavin, Dick Johnson, and the Well Hung Man have in common?”

She sighs, her entire body deflating. “Listen, I don’t doubt that someone is messing with your life, but it can’t be Xero. ”

“What makes you think that?”

“First of all, he was still in prison when you received that photo of you as a child.”

“But he’s sent me lots of things via mail,” I reply.

“Why would he turn on you and mail something so upsetting hours before his conjugal visit? No man in history ever deliberately sabotaged his chance of having sex.”

“Alright,” I mutter. “Maybe that part wasn’t him, but there’s a cloaked figure?—”

“Have you seen his face?” she asks.

“No, but he sounds just like Xero.”

“A deep, sexy voice like Dick Johnson’s?” she asks.

“I don’t remember that guy sounding even remotely attractive,” I mutter and then wince because I just spoke ill of the dead. Maybe that courtesy shouldn’t extend to a rapist.

“Narrators don’t sound like themselves all the time. They have ranges and can do anything from boys to old men.”

“Dick Johnson isn’t my stalker,” I mutter. “He was too weedy.”

“But the Well Hung Man wasn’t,” she says.

I shake my head. “When did he hang himself?”

“You’re not answering my question. Was the Well Hung Man the same size as the ghost costume?”

“Yes, but he’s not the ghost. It’s Xero.” I won’t back down from this. I can’t. Not after everything I’ve seen.

Myra doubles over and sobs. “Sorry… I just can’t right now.”

I place a hand on her shoulder, my chest tightening with guilt. People with normal brains can’t fathom the thought of executed killers rising from the dead to become dark avengers. I’m struggling with the concept myself, but I can’t deny that Xero is out there, both protecting me from evil and making me sweat.

“It’s okay. Is there anything I can do?”

“Just… I’m overwhelmed…. Can I just have some space?”

I drive home, my heart as heavy as stone, wondering if Myra blames me for all the deaths. She once asked me if my memory lapses were due to having multiple personalities, but I laughed off that suggestion.

But what if she’s right? What if a vigilante killer resides in the back of my head, ready to defend me from all predators? Even if that were possible, I could never intimidate a pair of men into attacking each other. I shake my head, not knowing enough about the condition to even speculate.

One thing is for sure: Myra may not want to acknowledge Xero’s ghost, but she sure as hell can’t deny his antics.

A shudder runs down my spine at that callous thought. Murdering and maiming people shouldn’t be described so frivolously. Didn’t I learn anything from last night?

By now, the police vehicles have left Parisii Drive, but the car parked outside number 11 still remains. I’m tempted to tear down the missing person photos, but I don’t want to attract the wrong attention.

As I’m unlocking the door, a large figure steps out of number 15. I hurry inside in case it’s Reverend Tom. There’s no point dragging the priest into my train wreck of a life.

I walk to the kitchen to find the mess gone, and the refrigerator stocked with groceries. On the table, there are two new words underlined on the sex contract: obedience and voyeurism.

Written in that blood-colored ink is the word, Erotophonophilia.

“What the fuck does that mean?” I snap.

Xero doesn’t answer, but I swear I hear him chuckle. I turn around in a circle, wondering if my mind has added him to the roster of people I hallucinate.

When I return to the green room, he’s already repaired the floorboard, and there’s no sign of the metal stake. I pick up my laptop and take it upstairs, only to find that it’s fully charged and connected to the internet.

Even my phone has been returned to the bedside table.

Things go quiet for the next few days. I stay offline, not wanting to read about the supposed murder-suicide. It doesn’t add up. The hangman had been so desperate to survive the night that he swung an ax into his partner-in-crime’s neck. Why the hell would he confess to a string of atrocities before committing suicide?

My mind conjures up the unsolicited answer: It’s because he was a different kind of monster.

What if he felt guilt about being forced to kill his friend? That’s what people who aren’t like us do. Feel things. I shake off that annoying thought. I felt something after killing Jake and Mr. Lawson, but it wasn’t remorse. More like the fear of getting caught.

I scan my laptop’s files to find that Xero returned the ghost story manuscript. At the bottom is a sentence I didn’t write:

How can I stay mad at someone so beautiful and talented? You have my permission to write fantasies of how you want me to pleasure you at night.

“Fucker,” I mutter under my breath and delete his words, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing the story.

For the next few days, Xero leaves me alone to write. I ignore every knock on the door, knowing it’s either the police or Reverend Tom checking on me, concerned about my bruised neck and my conduct at the supermarket when I was desperate for holy water and vodka.

I gave in to temptation, looked up erotophonophilia, and shuddered. It’s a fetish for murdering others. Nothing about watching the hangman murder Dick Johnson was erotic. If I climaxed, it was because Xero’s dildo hit the right spots. That’s it. Nothing more.

By now, homicide detectives would have found Myra and me on the security footage from the exhibition, the limousine, and the casino. They’ll want to question us both about what happened the night of the book fair.

But nobody rings my number, and I don’t make any calls. I don’t even leave the house.

Most nights, I wake up feeling a presence at my back. I don’t dare turn around or switch on the light. That shit didn’t work out for Cupid and Psyche. Instead, I lie on my side, relax into the warm embrace, and return to sleep.

It feels like we’ve reached a truce. Now that I’ve given up on sharing his story, he’s no longer a threat. At least not to me.

One evening, as I’m putting the finishing touches to the erotic ghost romance, I’m interrupted by an insistent knock on the door. Ignoring it, I focus on the manuscript, but whoever’s outside powers up a drill.

Heart pounding, I run downstairs to the kitchen and grab a knife. I unlock the back door and step outside to escape, when two masked men in black emerge from the backyard.

“There you are,” one of them says.

I step backward. “Who are you? What do you want?”

He turns to his friend. “Uncanny, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never seen her look this frightened,” he replies with a chuckle.

My stomach churns. They’re not the police. Police wouldn’t snicker at a criminal’s terror. They have to be online trolls. Or fans of BJ and the Hangman who’ve come for revenge.

I point my knife at the pair. “Stay back or I’ll slit your throats.”

“Scary,” one of them says.

“Sexy.” The other snaps his teeth in my direction, making me flinch.

Backing toward the hallway, I swing my knife at the intruders, only to bump into a large body from behind. Thick arms wrap around my waist and lift me off the floor.

“You’re coming with us, doll,” the man growls into my ear. “But first, I want a taste.”

I open my mouth to scream, but a gloved hand clamps over it. When I swing the knife backward and hit flesh, he roars.

The one who snapped his teeth rushes forward to grab my wrist, and another punches me on the temple. Pain explodes across my skull, and I see stars.

“Bitch.” He grabs my neck and squeezes.

“Don’t do it,” I hear one of them say through the haze of agony .

He scoffs. “The boss won’t know if you don’t run your mouth.”

“What about the body cams, asshole?”

“Turn them off,” he growls.

The man holding me slams my front onto the kitchen table so hard that the wood buckles. I thrash, trying to break free, but he’s too strong, too heavy, too determined to teach me a lesson. Three men in black surround us, each touching their crotches in anticipation of a show.

My stomach plummets. This can’t be happening.

“Xero!” I scream, hoping my voice reaches him in Hell.

“Shut the fuck up.” The man punches me in the back of my head, knocking my face into the wood.

I lie on the kitchen table, my vision blurry with tears. Who could hate me so much to order me brutalized by a gang of men?

The urge to close my eyes is overwhelming. If Myra is right and I have a second personality that murders people behind my back, then I want it to take over.

Just as the man holding me to the table yanks down my leggings, I catch a glimpse of movement from beyond the kitchen. The cupboard beneath the stairs opens, and a large man steps out.

His hair is a blonde so pale that it borders on platinum, with ice-blue eyes that glint with rage.

It’s Xero, looking perfectly alive and furious as hell.

And he’s holding an executioner’s ax.