Page 10 of Kiss the Villain

Those gray eyes? The ones that haven’t changed and resemble a dead person’s?

They’re not completely empty now. Something shifts, the slightest bit, and I see a flash of light. A gleam in the darkness.

It’s so fast and fleeting, I’d question my eyes if I had the ability to doubt myself.

“But do you know what’s more interesting?” He pulls the gun from my mouth and taps it on my lips, smearing them with my own saliva, then thoroughly wipes it on my shirt, close to my heart.

On purpose.

To make me see that I disgust him, hence the excessive wiping, and he’s doing it near my heart so that I know he could shoot at any second. He even has his finger on the trigger.

Sick motherfucker.

He’s proficient at messing with people and pushing their buttons, it seems. If it were anyone else, they’d be trembling at the very least and begging to be released at most.

Too bad for him that I don’t do that.

But he better watch his back after I get out of here.

“Want to know what’s more interesting?” he asks again with his gun to my throat.

“I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

“Such a little brat.”

“Oh my, what gave me away?”

“Watch it.” He presses the gun in further, and I swallow because it’s blocking my trachea.

His eyes watch the movement, mechanically, like I’m a boring game, before sliding back to mine. “You’re not fighting. Why?”

“If I do, will you let me leave this tiresome event?”

A dark chuckle spills from him. “No. But it might make the event less tiresome.”

“That’ll only be possible if you tell me what you want.”

“What makes you think I want something?”

“Surely you didn’t point that gun and play a whole intimidation game for nothing? That’d be an epic waste of your time, and mine.”

“Wasting both our time is the lastthingI want.” His gun skims my belt at the same time as he stressesthing.

I grow still.

It couldn’t be.

My fingers start to wrap around the gun, but he slips it out of my hand and jams it against my head. “Touch it again and I’ll spill your brains on the floor.”

“It’s not a shotgun. No brains will be spilled.”

“You believe yourself to be funny?”

“No, I just dislike inaccurate information.”

His gun slides down again, this time over my belt, and my hand twitches, but I don’t reach for it.

Instead, I say in my clearest voice, “Stop.”

---