Page 83 of Bird on a Blade

And Sawyer flings the knife. There’s a flash of silver and then it embeds itself in Scott’s heart. Scott makes a surprised gasping sound, and as I roll through pulse after pulse of pleasure, the light in his eyes goes out.

I choke out a sound that might be a sob. My face feels wet, but I’m not sure if it’s tears or snow. Or both. Sawyer pulls me into him, his palm still gently massaging my pussy. He doesn’t take his hand away until the last of my aftershocks have faded.

“You’re a fucking goddess,” he whispers into my hair.

I cling to him, gasping, breathing in the scent of his skin beneath the steely tang of blood. For a moment, I feel as I did that night we met fifteen years ago. No longer scared. Safe in the arms of a killer.

I know now that this darkness has always been inside me, that it was inside me then, a black diamond tucked inside my heart.

And he saw it, my serial killer. My Hunter.

Sawyer reaches up and pulls his mask away, shoves it in his back pocket. Seeing his face is startling; it’s strange, how he wears two faces, and how I love them both.

He cups my cheek, leaving a sticky imprint of Scott’s blood. I nuzzle into it.

“We’re not done yet,” Sawyer says gently.

“I know.” My breath condenses in the air. I’m shivering again, and Sawyer pulls me closer, wrapping me in his warmth.

“Are you ready?”

I lay my cheek against his chest, listening to his quickened heartbeat, and look over at Scott. His head has slumped sideways in death. His eyes stare sightlessly ahead.

I feel a freedom I haven’t known in a long, long time. Maybe not ever.

“I’m ready,” I say, and then, begrudgingly, I step backward, out of Sawyer’s arms. He smiles down at me, his mouth gentle but his eyes dancing with a killer’s fire. He runs his finger up and down my arm. I take a deep breath. Only one. I don’t need four anymore.

Then I look at him and speak.

“I’m ready for you to kill me.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

EDIE

Iburst into the woods, arms pumping, hair streaming behind me. No coat. No phone. No car keys.

It needs to look believable.

The snow falls in thick white clumps, sticking to my hair and sweater and leaving little prickling dots of cold. At least in the woods proper, it hasn’t piled up too much yet, although the ground is slick and I stumble more than once, catching myself on the nearby trees.

Sawyer’s behind me. Half-following me, half-corralling me back toward the church so I don’t get lost in the dark, snowy woods. When the cops show up here in a few days’ time, there need to be two sets of footprints:

One from the predator, and one from the prey.

Branches snap off to my left, and when I glance over, I see Sawyer slipping through the trees, his hair falling into his eyes. He nods, points forward, and I keep moving. My breath comes out in white puffs; the cold burns in my lungs.

This one last thing, and then I’ll be free.

I surge forward and come across the creek that leads to Sawyer’s church, the water slushy from thecold. I follow it, listening to his footsteps thudding behind me. There’s something exciting about this, about being chased by the man who just murdered my ex-husband while he made me come.

Because that’s who I am, this woman running through the swirling, silvery snow. The sort of woman who gets excited by those things.

It’s freeing. As freeing as running through the woods.

The trees shiver around me, reaching out with their long grasping branches to pluck at my hair and my sweater. The more evidence I can leave behind, the better.

And Sawyer, of course, is always there. Stalking me. Seeing me home.

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