Page 35 of The Butterfly Killer

The man grasped the bed frame and leaned over, the ends of his strands of hair brushing over Marcus’s thighs.

“This is where you’ll die.”

Marcus, overwhelmed with terror and his body overtaken with pain, passed out—the last thing he saw being the man’s lips twitching with a hint of an evil grin.

10

Marcus woketo something wet on his forehead. He let out a little groan in the back of his throat—barely audible to his own ears it was so faint. It was out of exhaustion. It plagued him worse than the last time he woke to this unfamiliar place. His eyes were even more blurry. From tears? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t feel like he was crying or that he’d been crying before he came to.

His body ached. It was a full-body ache eluding to the pain he’d been put through. Slowly, the memories came back. First, the attack of Micheal, some deranged suburban rapist who was mad Marcus foiled his plans to rape and kill Lilianna. Second, the stranger who’d slammed his head into the hood of a car. That same stranger ended up being the copycat killer who’d kidnapped Marcus and took him to a far away secret location.

Oh, did Marcus mention there was a fucking blizzard going on so he couldn’t escape even if he had the chance to?

He hissed as anger bubbled up inside him. It lasted for a second before his body shook with a feverish cold-sweat that made his muscles tense. He panted as he tried to sit up. His armsshook on the mattress as he held himself up for a second before the weakness in his limbs became too much.

He opened his mouth—to yell or to curse, either one—but it was dry. He tried to wet his lips with his tongue. It was like dragging sandpaper over an open sore. His lips were so chapped that touching them with his dry tongue was painful.

The wet thing on his forehead had fallen onto the pillow when he tried to sit up. It pressed against the curve of his neck. He grabbed it and held it up to his slowly focusing eyes.

It was a rag. It had been folded neatly until it had fallen, but the creases told that someone had folded it so that it lay across Marcus’s forehead perfectly.

Marcus let out a hot breath through his nose. The signs of a fever were all there. Sickness had fallen over him and it was probably what had made him pass out the second time. He placed the rag back over his forehead because even though he wanted to throw it at the wall, it did help with the burning in his face.

He sucked the remaining water from his fingers. It alleviated some of the dryness, however, it left him even more desperate for water than before.

He dragged his tired eyes around the room. Everything looked the same as before except the one thing he was scared to find: the man. He was gone from this cramped place. And the only other place he could be was outside.

Marcus thought about jumping out of the bed and going for the door even though escape really wasn’t an option. He had only a minute to think about it—anxiety spiking—before the door opened, almost slamming into the wall from the gust of wind.

Marcus jumped as a wave of cold air billowed into him. The chill was welcomed, cooling the first layer of fire in him, but that was only surface level. The burning came from the inside andgetting rid of his sickness was the only way to stop the rising fever.

He clutched the thin blanket, pulling it high to his chin as if it made a good shield. The man clomped in, wearing a thick coat lined with fur, black snow boots, a ski mask, and goggles. He was so covered up that it would have been hard to know who it was. But Marcus knew. His body sensed the other man as if they were connected in some paranormal way.

The door slammed shut behind the man. He gave it a rough shove, his gloved hand sliding over the lock so the wind didn’t open it again. He stood for a moment, hand on the door, eyes staring into the depths of Marcus’s soul. The man was too far away for Marcus to see what color they were—honestly, he couldn’t even clearly see them. But he didn’t need to for his body to have an overwhelming bad reaction.

The man pulled down the blanket nailed to the wall above the door so that it covered the door once more. He kicked the end of it with the tip of his boot, shoving the fabric into the gap at the bottom of the door.

With his back to Marcus, he slowly stripped from his winter gear. He yanked the large thick gloves off and sat them on the old counter that was part of the little kitchen. He removed his goggles, the ski mask, and then his coat. He wore a long sleeve black sweater. His face was flushed from either the cold or from the heat of the ski mask. His hair was matted with sweat so Marcus figured the ski mask had done a good job at keeping the man’s face safe from the cold.

His dirty blond wavy hair fell in tiny disturbed ringlets over his shoulders and back. His straight eyebrows pinched together as he slowly stepped toward Marcus, his chest heaving.

Marcus tried to move further away, but there was nowhere to go. A wave of nausea fell over him. He shivered and more sweat beaded at his temples. He clenched his teeth and clawed at thesheets. For a second, the room swirled into a sea of colors. He couldn’t make out the man’s face as he crept closer and closer until he was right in front of Marcus.

Marcus jolted, arm darting out with a semi-clenched fist because he didn’t have the strength to clenched it as tightly as he should. He was just able to think clearly enough to remember that he shouldn’t clench his thumb against his palm unless he wanted to break it. It didn’t really matter because he didn’t have the strength to knock out a fly—and that was if he could even hit his target. Which he didn’t have the ability to do at the moment.

The man let out a snort. There wasn’t an ounce of humor in it.

He slapped Marcus’s arm out of the way and leaned over the bed. Marcus jerked his head back, skull thumping against the wall. He hissed at the dull pain, but then froze when the man’s hand cupped his face.

“Your fever has gotten worse,” he said in an accent Marcus hadn’t noticed until then. It was faint, but still there. Marcus assumed it was a latin accent—maybe Mexican but he couldn’t be sure.

His late great-grandmother had barely spoken it when she was alive and that was when he was under the age of five. She abhorred speaking the language, afraid her grandchild, Marcus’s mom, or great-grandchild, Marcus, would pick up any of the words. While Marcus understood she’d simply been trying to do the best for her descendants, Marcus only felt sorry she’d felt that way about something that was a part of her.

The man’s gray eyes looked beyond him, not really seeing him at all. A chill went through Marcus, not because of the cold, but because of the emptiness he saw in the pools of those irises. He averted his own eyes, looking toward the door as he silently pleaded for someone, by some miracle, to find him and save him from the painful death he knew was coming.

The man’s fingers tightened, pulling a gasp from Marcus’s lips. His eyes met the man’s by force when his head was jerked. The long slender fingers were firm, digging into his jaw like it too was punishment for trying to escape. Though, there wasn’t much anger shown on the man’s face. He looked a little annoyed, but not as much as Marcus would have expected.

And there wasn’t amusement painted on the man’s face either. There was barely anything on the man’s face except maybe a sense of boredom. However, Marcus couldn’t even be sure of that. Marcus had prided himself in being able to read people relatively well. It was a skill he naturally gained by watching people as he himself didn’t like to be the center of attention or participate in large groups. He was always the person to the side, watching others and getting his social needs vicariously through those high energy situations.

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