Page 13 of Beautiful Prey

He looked at me as if I had two heads. “Excuse me, what?”

My smile widened. “Oh, you think it’s going to be that easy? No. If you want to keep talking, I want that journal filled. And, no, I won’t be looking at it, it's for you to keep your thoughts in.”

He grumbled, looking away. “You're gonna make me journal?”

“Think of it as an outlet. See you next time.” I grinned and swept past the men.

Emery cursed behind me as the guards swarmed him.

At the hotel, I whipped out my laptop and started typing away. I plugged in a few more notes and thought-points, mostly about Emery’s reactions. I didn’t go into detail about the personal stuff he told me as per my promise.

I don’t know why I cared to keep such a promise, I had no obligation to, and if I was feeling spiteful or bitter, it seemed only natural I would disregard it entirely.

But no matter what Emery was in my past, what feelings I had, I was his therapist now and if I didn’t care about confidentiality in the slightest, then I’d be a poor psychologist who couldn’t keep her emotions in check and couldn’t keep the trust of her patients.

Sure, this situation was a little different, but if I slipped and started focusing on my bitterness, I wouldn’t be able to see this as something professional any longer. The resentment I felt had been there for many years. I could put it aside and focus on getting what I wanted. And that was information.

And when I had sucked Emery dry of everything he spilled to me from his heart, I would crush it with my own knowledge that I would give back to him.

Knowing that kept me not exactly sane but determined to see this through. And in the end, maybe my bitterness would win after all, and I would spill his secrets to the world.

But for now, I was playing the role I was given. I was going to let him in, let him talk, let him think I cared. Then gut him with the truth. The truth of who I was and what he had done. And then he could feel my bitterness too.

I finished writing out the rest of my less-honest-and-more-academic thoughts and saved my work.

Most of what he said was cryptic, his nightmare childhood especially. But there were a few points that caught my attention. He had mentioned someone he needed to be with. To not be separated fromher. I could only assume he meant his sister. The one who had passed away. Though from the information I had gathered, they had been separated in the foster care system. And there was no mention of a father, unless it was a parent he was adopted by. There were two families he had gone to. One had been a lesbian couple while the other had been a man who owned a party store with his wife. The man had been caught dealing drugs and neglecting him which was why Emery was taken from them and given back over to foster care before disappearing. The man must have abused him and possibly another.

Which was absolutely awful. But it didn’t explain why he decided to go on a murderous rampage against my family specifically.

Something still didn’t add up. And a gut-twisting dread started to eat at me.

It had always pained me that I was never able to find more on Emery. On his childhood or what happened between his disappearance and the night of the murders. The police claimed not to have any information. That he might as well have died when he disappeared and became a ghost. A specter.

I didn’t believe in ghosts. So my logical brain told me some things were covered up.

But why?

I shut off my laptop and decided to consider it tomorrow. I needed sleep.

I went over to the window to shut the curtain and paused to look at the water, over to the island. I could see the light of the clock, after all. An eerie eye watching in the dark.

CHAPTER FOUR

He was at the foot of my bed.

I woke to the sound of something shifting around me. Then a low thumping until it was a deafening thud in my ears. That was when I looked around my room and saw him.

I stared at the dark looming shape, the red skull peering at me like death. I went to scream—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move either. All I could do was watch as he lumbered over to my side of the bed and stood next to me.

His eyes burned yellow in the dark. Hellfire staring down at me.

Somehow, some way, he had figured it all out. Also somehow, he had escaped his room, escaped St. Agnes, and had found me. He really was a demon. A devil who held horrifying power, and he was going to punish me now. He was going to kill me.

“Eve…” he whispered, closing in. He drew up his hand and slid off the mask. And all I saw was another skull but real, so very real. “You can’t run, Eve.” He drew down closer, till our mouths almost met. “You can’t hide.”

My heart galloped. As soon as I thought our mouths might touch, I turned my head and heard a crackling hiss like fire, a roaring in my ears. Then I screamed.

I jolted out of bed, crying out. I jerked away at a shadow in the corner—where I swore I saw a smiling face—and nearly fell off the bed. My hand scrambled for the light and turned it on to find—

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