Page 90 of Beautiful Prey

I didn’t stir. I let the hand comfort me, knuckles brushing against my face, my neck, so lovingly. As if I was a thing to be treasured. I wanted that hand to heal me, to crush the nightmareaway permanently. I turned and gripped it, letting the fingers brush along my lips, then down to my throat and across my breasts, erasing where the knife had been. The hand trembled but complied. Until I went lower, lower where it hurt still. Where I needed the ache to leave me. I brought the hand between my thighs, arching into it, letting it rub against me, a moan escaping me. And I pictured Emery no longer a monster but the beautiful man that might have been, his smile still sinful yet devastatingly gorgeous, taking my breath away.

I called his name and the hand stilled. I felt his presence in the dark, but it didn’t frighten me. Yet, as I called to him again, he only moved away.

I wanted to reach out, to not let him leave me, but I couldn’t. I was only swept up in the tide between wakefulness and sleep, until I was in the deep again.

My eyes shot open, and a gasp slipped from me as I woke, as if something had startled me awake.

I sat up, blinking away the sleepiness.

The room was dark. But there was another light coming from the doorway.

I looked over and saw the door to my room was ajar. And light from the living space outside was spilling within.

I stared at the light for a solid minute before I dared move. Carefully, I slid from the bed and crept to the door.

I gazed out from the shadows beyond the room but didn’t see any movement, no sign of Emery. I touched the door and moved it aside, creeping out into the living room.

My uncle’s projector was on its stand in the middle. Its screen took up the far wall. On it the video of Emery and hissister in that underground classroom played. I watched it for a long moment, then turned to see my laptop on the desk nearby. Beside it was—

Emery’s journal.

I took a step and eyed my uncle’s bedroom where the door was also open, peering into thick darkness. I wondered if Emery was in there, but I didn’t yet look. Instead, I took in the room, trying to come to terms with what I was seeing. To one corner, I noticed the TV was also set up and on it I could see several angles of the property. One at the gate, two in the woods, the front door, and one looking out at the back.

He’d found my uncle’s security cameras and placed them in various spots.

I turned my gaze to the desk where my laptop sat open and the journal lay closed. Despair took over me as Emery and his sister’s images drifted over the floor from the screen. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them.

I picked up the journal. I wasn’t going to read it, but I wanted to know. I needed to know.

I flipped it open, revealing a random page. I stared at it, then flipped another…then another…

There was no writing. Only drawings.

Drawings of me.

He’d used every single page to draw some image of me. My face, me sitting in the chair in our sessions. There was one of me looking back, hair dancing around my face as if blowing in a wind. There was another of me holding a white rabbit.

A few of the pages had been torn. Some were crossed out with violent pen strokes. But the ones that remained were beautifully detailed, down to the very shades and highlights.

I closed the book with a snap, my throat suddenly feeling tight. I clung to the journal like an anchor, then brought my eyes back down to the computer.

My thesis. Scrolled down to the end.

I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath.

“You have a way with words,” came a low voice from behind me, almost a whisper.

I turned, gasping. There, on the stairs, Emery sat, hidden in the dark, only the light of the projector screen showing the outline of his features, save the mask.

He tilted his head, studying me as if I were a curious specimen brought before his presence.

I noticed his left hand was clenched tight while his right hand rubbed at it as if it hurt somehow, as if he had injured it.

We were frozen in the moment of staring each other down when Emery finally moved, rising from the stairs, then stepping to ground level.

“But then you always have, haven’t you?” Hearing his voice again after so long was almost jarring to my senses. I thought I would never hear it again.

His head turned toward the video playing on the wall between us. “When was it that you learned everything? Was it when I killed them? Or was it when you met me?”

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