Page 38 of The Black Lotus (Fatal Florals Duet #2)

THIRTY-ONE

ASTER

I need to figure out a way out of here. There is nothing sharp for me to rub my restraints on.

Nothing I can grab to cut them. Even the stupid chair is bolted to the ground.

If I don’t get out soon, I will die. I’ll never get to see Serena again.

I pull against my restraints as a new sense of urgency hits me from fear of never getting to hear her laugh again.

Never getting to feel her touch. Never getting to see her beautiful face.

My last resort. The only thing I can do .

Before I can put my plan into action, the familiar creak of the door breaks the silence, the lights flickering on as Kara walks into the room. My fingers twitch against my restraints as irritation thrums through me. Of course she comes in right when I was about to escape.

Instead of taking a seat, she stands in yet another kimono with two katanas strapped to her back.

She always has one, why would she bring two?

My chest tightens, my breath catching in my lungs.

Is she planning on decapitating me? That would be a way to go out, but she doesn’t seem like she would make my death quick.

“I did some research on your little girlfriend.” My body locks at her words. “I’ve decided that after I’m finished with you. I’m going to pay her a little visit and send her to hell right after you. Can’t have the lovers being separated.”

I clench my jaw, my teeth nearly cracking from the pressure. “If you so much as touch a single hair on her head, I’ll kill you.”

She tilts her head with a crazed look in her eyes. “How will you do that when you’re dead?”

If she would just leave, I can get one hand out and free myself. Distracting her won’t be enough.

“Has she always been a killer like you? Actually, don’t answer that.” Does she not want to know? My eyebrows scrunch together, her indecisiveness confusing me. “Let me take a wild guess; she has and, based on the locked files I found, she had a hand in her friend's disappearance. Right?”

I stay silent, not giving anything away. She’s going to think what she wants regardless of what I tell her. From how she’s watching me, I fear she could spot a lie a mile away.

“She killed her, didn't she?” She peers at me, her eyes flashing. “I knew it. You know the night you met her, the night you planned to make her your next victim? I watched her, too. She was talking to herself, but as I got closer, I realized she was talking to someone who wasn’t there.”

A dry cough leaves me as an invisible noose chokes me.

How the fuck does she know so much? The way she watches and observes and figures things out is unnerving.

I didn’t even realize Serena was crazy when we first met.

I’d assumed her mumblings were just drunken ramblings.

But her crazy is something I admire most about her; it’s what made me fall for her.

“Finding out she was not only crazy, but also a killer,” she claps her hands together, a manic grin twisting her face, “Wow! You really know how to pick them.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” I warn with the threat of a deep menacing sound rumbling from my throat.

“I don’t think I will.” She bends over, her eyes level with mine.

“Do you ever think that if she’d never met you, she’d be none the wiser to her truth?

That she never would’ve been a serial killer?

Have you even asked her if she likes killing or did you just assume that she did and then throw her into it? ”

My face falls as a twinge in my chest has me aching to cover it.

Sure, Serena has killed before, and seeing her in her element when she killed Bradley to protect me was fucking priceless, but she’s right, I never asked her if she wanted to.

She was thrown into the life of murder because of my mother and her connection to me. . Does she… does she even want to?

“Ah! I see I’ve struck a nerve.” She walks behind me, her fingers dancing along my shoulders, making me shiver at her touch as she bends to whisper in my ear. “Are you the reason for the bloodlust she now seems to carry?”

“It’s my mother’s fault. She has to kill or else she would be dead,” I grind out as she steps in front of me. I’m not the reason she is being forced to fight for her life. She isn’t being given a choice.

Kara places her finger on her lip, tapping it with an exaggerated huff. “Are you sure about that?” she asks, looking at me. “Or would you have made her your partner even without her life on the line? Would you have forced her to become a monster like you?”

I shake my head, not letting her words get to me.

If it was anything else, I wouldn’t care, but because it’s about Serena I don’t know what to think.

Would I have forced her to kill alongside me?

What if she said no? Would I have let her go or would she have become a lamb?

The thought of hurting Serena forces me to swallow down the vomit threatening to rise.

No matter what her answer would have been, no matter what her choice was, I would have stuck by her side.

I know if she was given a choice, I wouldn’t get in the way of anything she wanted.

If she didn’t want to be my partner in crime, it would gut me, but I wouldn’t force anything on her.

If all she wanted was to paint all day I would buy the biggest gallery to display her art and watch her thrive.

But that isn’t who Serena is. Serena is my vixen and I know without a shadow of a doubt that if she was given a choice, she would choose to be my Fatal Floral Killer.

“She is who she was always meant to be.”

“Or did you make her that way?”

“ No . Her choices are her own. Even if she doesn’t want to be a killer, I would respect her decisions.”

“And kill her,” she states, no question in her voice.

I lock my eyes with hers, straining against the rope as I lean forward. “Never.”

“Could you stop killing if she asked or would you do it behind her back, breaking her trust forever?”

Killing is in my bones, it’s my very reason for living. The rush of the hunt. The high of the execution. I could never give that up. But Serena is my new purpose, and I know she’d never ask me to give up the one thing that makes me, me.

“She would never ask me to,” I grind out in irritation.

“Are you sure about that?”

“She fell in love with the monster inside; she wouldn’t cage my beast. She relishes my darkness swirling around hers.”

Talking about Serena makes me more desperate to get back to her.

My legs shake, the need to bounce them being restricted from the bindings.

To ask her these questions and see if I really am the only reason she is tangled in my shadows.

I need Kara to go away . The only way to make her leave is to turn the tables against her.

To play the same mind games she’s attempting with me. It’s time to let the Morbid Monet out.

A cruel smile stretches my face as Kara’s head twitches back.

“No matter how hard you try, no matter what you do, my parents will never see you as anything more than an annoyance,” I say, causing her lips to purse as her eyes harden.

“Even if I wasn’t born, they never took you seriously.

They never would have trained you. You are nothing.

You would just be in their way, and when Mom finds out you’re the reason for their capture,” I let out a low whistle, “You’re going to live up to your name, so be honorable and kill yourself. ”

She screams, lunging for me as her tiny hands wrap around my throat. I laugh as she chokes me, dots forming around my vision. A frustrated huff fills the air as she gets up and pushes her hair back into place.

“I’ll be back.” She quickly strides back through the door, slamming it behind her.

Coughing, I stretch my neck, trying to ease the bruises I know are going to appear. I rattled the Bushi. She wasn’t expecting her psychological mindfuck to be turned back onto her, but there is one thing she failed to remember. I’m the Morbid Monet, and mind games are my favorite.