Page 41 of Cruel Cravings

This dark, twisted energy that poisons the air we breathe yet has us coming back for more. It’s what’s drawn him to me. It’s what’s drawing me to him right now.

Even as the epiphany crashes over me, I crave him. My tongue tingles for another taste. My beating pulse begs for more torment.

More fucked up game play between us.

I swallow with difficulty as his eyes pierce mine, and I know he knows. He feels it too.

So I do the only thing a woman like me could do in this situation—I scream in frustration and jam the knife’s blade into his shoulder, making the deepest stab wound yet.

The knife clatters to the floor as I jump off him and rush for the door, fleeing the room.

13.Jael

Dream Girl Evil - Florence + The Machine

I’ve never been more exhausted in my life, yet I can’t sleep that night. I flee the main cabin room where Bull’s chained up—doubling back to drag the case of weapons with me—and then I slam the door to the bedroom shut.

My chest heaves as I struggle to breathe, leaning back against the door. Air feels limited, like a luxury I’m no longer given. I scrub a hand over my face and sort through the whirlwind that’s become my thoughts.

I need rest.

Sleep.

I’m extremely sleep deprived. It’s been days since I got a full night’s rest. Since before I left Easton, where I’d stayed in the Klums’s apartment. Even then I’d been gripped so tightly by paranoia that the sleep I did get was fitful.

The hot shower and food helped earlier. But I’m still no good without some shuteye.

That’s evident if I’ve taken to licking the shadow man’s—Bull, I quickly remind myself—blood. If I was getting turned on while doing it.

Something about the way he stoically took it ignited a fire inside me. But it wasn’t the same burning rage and frustration I’d felt toward him since taking him captive, it was these emotions melting into something else, forbidden and taboo.

It was like hurting him turned me on. It made me wet to slice the blade into his skin and peer into his eyes, knowing this hulking man was being tormented by my hand yet he still didn’t give in. He bore the gashes and wounds in composed silence.

…until I took his mask away.

He was ashamed. Angry that I would expose him like that.

Thinking back on it evokes another feeling out of me. The same pity and sadness that I’d felt when he turned his head away and could no longer meet my gaze.

“Get some sleep,” I whisper. “You’re losing your mind.”

I barricade the bedroom door, pushing the heavy oak dresser in front of it and then the wardrobe cabinet that’s in the corner.

I set the knife down on the bedside table and crawl into bed with a hunting rifle. It’s not until I lay my head down on the pillow that I realize how bad the migraine I have is. The ache is almost unbearable, the throbbing pain in my skull excruciating.

It’s my brain begging for a break.

But as I lay there and my eyes close, I can’t fall asleep. It doesn’t come as the silence bears down on the room and even the subtlest noise becomes deafening. The squeak of the mattress when I shift sides. The sough of the wind from outside the windowpane. The ragged drag ofhisbreath from the other room.

Tension shoots through me. I keep my eyes squeezed shut and will myself to go to sleep.

He can’t get to me. He’s chained. He’s captive and I’m in control.

I repeat this thought over and over again.

One way or another, I’m going to get the answers I need from him, then I’m going to find my sister. We’re going to be reunited for the first time in years, and we’ll be able to start over and build a new life for ourselves. We’ll leave the hurt and trauma in the past.

The shadow man—Bull—won’t be able to reach us.

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