Page 33 of Kiss the Villain

Drip.

Drip.

Like blood.

It’s soothing—or disturbing, depending on your school of thought.

After a sip of the over-roasted coffee, I empty it down the drain and throw away the full bag of beans. I pour myself a glass of whiskey on ice instead and then stare out the window.

Carson is gone.

He’s so anticlimactic.

I’ve been waiting for him to act on his promise, but he seems content to watch from the shadows.

Thoughcontentisn’t the right word. I believe he likes to know all the information before he takes action, but it’s getting tedious.

Dull, too.

Might have to take things into my own hands after all.

Situations just don’t work as well without my interference.

In my thirty-three years of life, I’ve never met anyone as efficient as I am.

What a nuisance.

I down my drink, take a shower, reply to some work emails, then turn off the music and lie down on the bed.

The smell of lavender fills my nostrils and I close my eyes, drifting off to sleep.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

The noise keeps repeating on a loop and I open my eyes. The faint sound of weeping protrudes through the walls like a spirit.

“No…” Mom wails, her screams bouncing off my skin. “Please, no. Nooo?—”

But her voice is drowned by a shot.

Shadows crawl across the ceiling, twisting and contorting into grotesque shapes. Their hollow eyes gleam with a twisted hunger, and their mouths crack open, releasing a low, grating screech that claws at my eardrums, sinking deep into my skull.

They fall toward me, their cold, suffocating weight pressing down on my chest like a thousand unseen hands. The air thickens with their presence, a crushing force that makes it harder to breathe or move. Their dark forms press into me, the cold creeping deeper, dragging me under as if the darkness itself is trying to swallow me whole.

Die already.

Die.

Justdie.

The weight on my chest is choking, a crushing force that pins me to the bed. I gasp, but it’s as if the very air has been stolen. My body is frozen, unable to move, every breath shallow and labored.

The shadows in the corners of the room twist and loom, dark shapes that distort into her face.

Her blood-soaked face.

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