Page 69 of Beautiful Prey

I didn’t answer and he continued yapping on.

“Between you and me?” He popped what looked like another piece of candy into his mouth, biting down hard with a crunch. “She was a real bitch, am I right?” He shook his head as if disappointed. “Kind of crazy herself, probably should have been locked up at St. Agnes too.”

No, he was wrong. She was as clearheaded as anyone I ever knew. Just cold and calculating. Brilliantly smart. A good little actress.A cruel little liar who deserves to be punished.

“Real shame,” he continued. “She was that way all her life, a little off.” He looked out the window as he sighed. “Always had a stick up her ass. Always uptight. Frigid as hell.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I think she just needed to get fucked if I were to be honest. Good and hard. Make her come a few times and maybe she’d calm down. They used to do that to women back in theday, you know? Doctors would shove a vibrator into their pussy and make them come until they were drooling like a retard and shaking like they were having a seizure. Took the bitchiness right out of them.”

He didn’t say much else for a while. A blessing to my ears.

The smiling woman unfortunately took that silence as her turn to speak.

“Monster. Bitch,” she repeated softly. “Fuck her, Emery. Fuck her hard.”

The bus halted to a stop. I heard a train screaming in the distance and the bell of the gate. I glanced out and saw, through the fog and the trees, the train rushing past.

“Bet you’d love to get your hands on her, wouldn’t you?”

He watched me closely, no longer smiling.

“I mean after what she did,” he said. “Playing you like that and then getting you to take those meds. Probably trying to poison you.”

“She tricked you…she’s laughing at you,” the smiling woman cooed. “She wanted you to suffer. She loves that you suffer.”

She did. She convinced me to take the medicine. To poison me with that shit.Just like her father had.She wanted to continue his work. Wanted to finish the job.

Like father, like daughter.

He leaned in. “No chick should ruin a guy this bad. Man, if I were you, I’d want to strangle her. I can’t even imagine the fucked-up shit you’d do to her.” He smiled. “Or maybe I can.”

For the first time, I locked eyes with him. He grinned. “Yeah, us guys gotta stick together. Need to help each other out, right? When it comes to crazy-ass women who need to be put in their place. You fucked up her family, sure, I’m not condoning that but…maybe there’s a good reason. Her dad was a real shithead, after all. Full of himself too. I can imagine wanting to kill him. And, Eve? Well…she’s really no better. You got it bad for her, somaybe I can help you out.” He jingled his keys on his belt. “She isn’t too far away to get what she deserves, am I right?”

I had no words. Was this dumb fuck serious?

But the demon in me smiled.

Yes, release me, you little shit. And I’ll make this world wish I had never been born.

Darkness took over me again, and I was my demon. The man must have seen the change in my eyes because he grew quiet, even a little pale.

“Shit…you really are a scary-ass guy.” He laughed nervously.

I felt a fuzzy sort of presence at my back, then the lightest feeling at my shoulder almost like a touch. My sister was there at my ear and so I turned to listen.

“Brother, you’re so close,” she said.

You lied, I replied in my head. The last bit of me to not let go just yet.You told me she was good. You told me she was perfect. That I could trust her.

“I’m sorry, Emery,” she said sadly. “I was fooled too. But you can take this chance. Find her, Emery, make her pay.” She started to cry, and all my rage erupted to the surface like a silent bomb.

Give her a taste of your medicine. Make her pay.

“Kill her,” whispered the smiling woman. “Kill her, Emery.”

“Kill her,” my sister repeated.

I lifted my hands, letting the man see. Letting him know I was ready. As the train roared by and the others’ attention was at the front, he came around and took hold of his keys, starting to unlock my hands and the chains from my seat.

As I waited to be free, I was already planning. I shoved my emotions down in order to think logically and clearly about what I was going to do. How I was going to get to Eve.

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