Page 134 of I Will Break You

My knees buckle, and sweat breaks out across my skin. The sweatpants I’m wearing become too confining, and I have to grip the wall to stay upright.

I have never, in my twenty-nine years of life, seen anything so erotic.

As she stumbles to her feet, her gaze locks with mine again, making my heart skip. Just as I’m about to reach out to claim my beautiful little killer, her eyes roll to the back of her head and she faints.

“Well done for staying alive, Little Amethyst,” I murmur. “Because I plan on breaking you into tiny pieces.”

The letters she wrote depicted a woman of a delicate disposition who needed coaxing into intimacy. She was broken, vulnerable, and in desperate need of my guidance. Her psychiatrist and parents kept her under their control with a cocktail of financial abuse and drugs. I thought Amethyst was a butterfly that needed my help to emerge from her cocoon.

But she’s more like a black widow spider.

I played a number of video clips on the journey over to Parisii Drive. In addition to leveraging our relationship into a million-dollar book deal and selling doctored photos of me as merchandise, she also monetized her videos.

Some estimates say she made eighty thousand dollars from reading excerpts of my letters. Others say it’s as much as two hundred grand. Either way, she’s just another parasite willing to exploit another for financial gain.

While the corpse cools and my beauty slumbers, I scroll through her online profile. She’s still collecting money for my funeral, even after assuring me she’s already purchased the site and memorial.

There are all manner of items on the wishlist that aren’t forthe prison book club. She’s added a new digital camera, professional studio lights, a new computer, and several dark romance hardback books.

“Amethyst Crowley,” I mutter. “You’re a piece of work.”

At her loud gasp, I slip my phone back into my coat pocket and stand in the doorway to watch. She scrambles to her hands and knees and cries at the sight of the corpse. Blood spills across the black tiles, with a few splash marks on the low cupboards. She glances around at the mess and sobs.

I note that she’s more concerned about the clean-up than about the corpse. More importantly, why hasn’t she reacted to the sight of me standing in her kitchen doorway?

Scrambling to her feet, she rushes over to where she left her phone charging on the kitchen table. She calls a number over and over, her whimpers becoming more frantic.

Her boyfriend?

She once told me she hadn’t had a relationship since being abused by her music teacher, because hallucinations of him kept popping up every time she tried to get intimate with another man. Back then, I offered her my most heartfelt support. It didn’t even occur to me that she was using our connection for online fame.

“Mom?” she cries and puts the call on speaker.

“Amethyst, what is it?” The woman on the other end of the conversation already sounds exhausted.

“I need your help.” Amethyst pauses, her breath quickening, but her mother remains silent. After several uncomfortable heartbeats, she continues. “A man came to the house. He’s one of the trolls who’s been threatening me online?—”

“What happened?” the mother snaps.

“He pushed his way in…” She takes a noisy, panicked breath. “And he said he was here to put me in my place.”

“Amethyst, where is he?”

She gulps. “On the kitchen floor. Mom, he had his hands around my throat. He was choking me. I didn’t have any choice?—”

“No!” her mother shrieks. “Don’t tell me. I can’t do this anymore.”

“What?” Amethyst whispers.

I cock my head, mentally asking the same.

“Listen. You’re not a little girl anymore. You’re no longer a victim,” the woman says, her words venomous and sharp. “You can’t attack men and expect the legal system to give you a pass.”

Her face falls. “Even in self-defense?”

“At this rate, you’ll go to jail for murder and so will I for being an accessory.”

My jaw drops. Who else did Amethyst kill besides her music teacher?

---