Page 283 of Heart So Hollow

I shake my head with a half-smile, “You’re not,” I step around her to the edge of the bed and nod to the white sheets, “come here.”

Brett looks at me suspiciously, “Why?”

I sweep my hand over the side table as I crawl to the middle of the bed, then I sit back on my heels and beckon to her again, “Come here,” I nod to the space between my knees, “and I’ll tell you.”

Brett slowly moves toward the bed, crawling over the white sheets until she’s kneeling next to me. I motion for her to come closer, my eyes darting again to my knees. Keeping her eyes trained on me, she shuffles over and settles onto her knees facing away from me, her palms flat on her thighs.

I lean over her shoulder, “Can I touch you?”

At first, she doesn’t answer, seemingly caught off-guard by my question. Probably because I never ask her permission for anything.

My voice hardens, “You have to tell me, Brett—yes or no?” Because this time is different.

She lets out a slow breath, relaxing her muscles, “Yes.”

I gently wrap my arm around her waist and lean into her ear, “Do you want to know what it feels like to be the predator?”

She hesitates, but then I feel her head move slightly, “How?” she whispers.

I drop my other hand and slowly reach for the remote next to my knee. As soon as I press the Power button, the 65” TV affixed to the wall in front of us lights up and fills the bedroom with a cool glow. Brett’s eyes go wide and her mouth falls open the moment she sees Bowen’s face again for the first time in two days.

The blue light reflects in her eyes like mirrors as she takes in the feed of her old living room and kitchen while his familiar figure wanders around the frame. The mess near the closet is gone, any indication of a struggle yesterday long since cleaned up and secreted away again.

I drop the remote and wrap my other arm across her chest, pulling her close as I speak in her ear, “By watching your prey eat away at themselves from the inside out, becoming weaker and weaker, and you feed on their torment.”

She finally finds her words, “What is this?”

“I promised you a movie, didn’t I?” I murmur against her cheek, “He can feel your eyes on him, but he doesn’t know why.”

Her breaths getting deeper the longer she stares at the image, but she doesn’t look away. “Because it was your eyes,” she says with a mixture of relief and horror. “I felt them. All the time. Just like last time, when I knew I’d seen them before.” She lets out a shaky breath, “Did you see—” she trails off, but I know what she’s asking.

My jaw tightens with regret, “No,” I should’ve put a feed in her room, even though watching it would’ve been like dying every day. “But,” I smile, “I did see you give Hannah a couple of haymakers.”

I catch Brett’s cheek tense and she actually grins. I tighten my grip around her waist and run my other hand up her neck, slowly wrapping my fingers around her throat. She sinks further into my arms as I tilt her head back onto my shoulder.

“It was so fucking hot,” I breathe into her ear, clenching my teeth to keep it together because all I want to do is slam her into the mattress and bury my dick inside her where it belongs. “It’s more than I’ve ever done to her.”

Brett eyes me with a smirk, “So, you’re saying I did something better than you?”

I press my hips against her ass, getting harder the longer I hold her. I know she can feel it; her breathing says as much. “Baby, you do a lot of things better than me.” I brush my thumb back and forth under her chin, “you’ve always been good at saving yourself—even from me. Why do you think I passed you on the road yesterday? Because I was coming for you,” I turn her head to look at me, “I will always come back for you.”

I watch her eyes shift back to the screen and a shadow fall across her face. The longer she gazes at the image of the living room and Bowen meandering around the house, the darker her eyes get. “I hate him,” she whispers, “I fucking hate him. I want to watch him die 10 times over, and I want him to feel every second of it!” she vows, her chest heaving against my arm.

“I think that’s called vengeance,” I say, probably more excited than I should be as her benevolent heart begins to fill with the same poison that infects mine.

Brett takes a haggard breath, “Is this how you feel all the time? Thinking about all the things he…” she trails off, “how do you live like this?”

“You’ve seen how I live like this,” I reply as I press my lips to her shoulder and leave soft kisses over the bruises blooming over her skin.

She tastes exactly how I remember—better than everyone else. She’s a pure spring where everyone else is stagnant acid runoff, and all I want to do is get caught in her current.

Suddenly, there’s rapid movement across the screen and a woman appears in frame, barging through the entryway into the living room. She marches over to Bowen, who’s standing at the kitchen island, and begins shouting at him.

I lift my head with intrigue, “What is this?” I murmur.

It’s Hildy, shoving Bowen in the chest before she thrusts her phone in his face. The feed is muted, but I don’t move to change it. When I glance at Brett, she looks oddly content. She’s glaring at the image, but there’s a hint of amusement in the corner of her mouth.

“Is it fun being so vengeful?” she asks, not taking her eyes off the screen.

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