Page 27 of Cruel Games

She stirred something inside me when she looked at me, when those deep, soulless eyes met mine. Something inside her was inherently broken, and though she tried very hard to hide it, the eyes could never lie. Her facial expressions didn’t match her gaze, and the emotions in the depths of those pools of emerald green were so . . . harsh. Dangerous. Like she’d been fighting to keep them under control for a very long time.

She looked at Jackal like she hated him. Like sheknewhim. Knew him enough to wish him dead.

And that, over all else, concerned me. I wondered what he’d done in a past life to earn such brazen distaste. Had he met her before? Had he killed someone she loved? Had he scorned her years ago at some fancy upper-class party?

The questions spiraled in my head, along with some of my own.

Why had her gaze lingered on mine for so long? What was she doing in that hallway? Why did I walk away from her with a lingering hope that we’d meet again?

And why did I have this unbearable urge to follow her when she disappeared?

If we hadn’t had to bring Dingo back to the Guild for his own safety, I might’ve just abandoned all sense and tried to track her down, if only to see if her skin felt as soft as it looked in the glow of those blacklights illuminating the hallway.

I might’ve?—

Who was I kidding? I could hardly talk to my partners, let alone a fucking stranger. And a woman at that. Ha! What a joke.

As if a woman would pay a dog like me a second of her precious attention while she was surrounded by a bar full of men willing to talk to her, say words she longed to hear, men ready to take her home and show her the moon while they worked their skillful magic on her body.

I’d never so much as seen a woman’s unclothed body, save for those nudie magazines Jackal had kept under our sleeping mats when we lived in the warehouse with the other street kids. I certainly wouldn’t have the first idea what to do with one if I did manage to get far enough to get one naked.

Another thing I hated about myself. My complete lack of experience with the opposite sex. Even in the wild, it was essential to pair up and reproduce. Continuation of the packs, all that went with it, it was natural. Like breathing.

But I wasn’t a dog, and human women were . . . a breed all their own.

And I was not well-versed in their language.

As I pondered my whole life until now, the sun slowly rose in the distance, greeting my narrowed eyes with the first searing rays of a new day.

And leaving me with even more regrets.

ELEVEN

IVY

Six kills.

Six targets I’d stolen out from under their noses. Six weeks,I’d stalked them from close by, haunting their dreams, dogging their steps, making them wonder when and where I’d strike next. Tonight was the last one. I planned to stick around where I knew they’d spot me, wait for them to show up, and incapacitate them with a gas grenade. From there, I could stuff them in the trunk of the car I had on loaner, transport them to the warehouse, and take my sweet time killing them, one by one.

Except here I was, stuck watching my coworker and her boyfriend suck face over the top of the bar as I scrubbed the forty or so glasses that never got used but always seemed to get dirty.

“Regina, are you going to make out with him all night, or are you planning to help me close down?”

Regina reluctantly pulled away from her boyfriend, whose name I refused to remember despite the million and one times she talked about him to anyone who would listen, with a little wink and a smile that told me exactly what they’d be doing the minute they got out of this place and into a semi-secluded place. She huffed in annoyance and marched over to the mop bucket, dragging it behind her pitifully with awoe-is-melook in her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, Ivy, I got it. I’ll mop, you wash.”

Shehatedwork in general, but damned if she didn’t despise the dishes. I couldn’t blame her—during our weekday shifts, there was an old man who would come in and sit right in front of the sinks so he could watch our tits bounce while we scrubbed various glasses and mixing tools. It was creepy as fuck, but we couldn’t afford to skip out on his fifty-dollar tips, so we suffered it and cashed out at the end of the night.

It wasn’t like men whoweren’tpaying didn’t ogle us, too. At least we could benefit monetarily from this fucker.

She dragged ass so long that I’d managed to wash all the dishes, clean the bartop, and counted the drawer before she made it back around to me with a bucket of now-filthy mop water. “Can I just pay you twenty bucks to finish for me, Ivy?” Her gaze darted to the doorway where her boyfriend lingered, talking animatedly into the phone at an obnoxiously loud volume. “Chad is waiting for me, and I don’t wanna keep him waiting.”

Her annoying giggle made me cringe in secondhand embarrassment. God, I was willing to do anything to get her out of here before they started pawing each other in front of me.

“Make it thirty, and you’ve got a deal.” I knew damn well I could get out of here still in enough time to get changed, get ready, and get set up in time to intercept the Neon Dogs. I knew where they planned to be tonight, thanks to my little bug, and I knew damn well they wouldn’t waste time once they got there, but I had time. Besides, I’d work faster without her.

She handed over the cash and rushed out the front door, Chad hot on her heels, his hands already playing grab ass on his way out.

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