Page 36 of Choices

“It’s ridiculous, next he will want them in our bedrooms. This place is starting to resemble a prison.”

Snorting, he sticks me with a pointed stare, “Trust me, I’ve served time, it isn’t.” If they put a camera near my bedroom, I’m hanging my bra over it. “Are you carrying a goldfish around?”

Looking to the bowl, I shrug. “Yeah.”

Inhaling a gust of air he chuckles, “Okay, that’s totally normal.”

“Normal is boring.” I huff, leaving him to his job.

“Kitty,” Maggie calls out as I pass the kitchen, making me backtrack.

Furrowing my brow, I take in the three women, all replicas, huddling around Diamond on a laptop. “What’s going on?”

Diamond waves me over, and curiosity gets the better of me.

Placing the bowl on the counter, I lean over Maggie’s shoulder to get a glimpse of the screen.

It’s a news article about a murder with an image I recognize. “Is that Tim?” I gasp.

“His real name is Harvey,” Diamond announces, tapping her long painted nail on the screen. Harvey Wickworth.

“Harvey doesn’t suit him,” one of the blondes says.

“Doesn’t matter now, he’s dead,” I point out. “What does it say happened?”

“Stabbed.” Maggie makes the motion for effect, and one of the other women giggles. Morbid.

“They have his girlfriend in custody,” Diamond tuts. “Or who they think is. Found her at a gas station covered in his blood.”

It’s a shame. I liked him. But what had he done to drive her to such extremes? He was no doubt playing mind games with her and eventually she snapped. Maybe that will happen to me too.

“Is that a goldfish?” Maggie’s voice pierces my thoughts. She dips her finger in the bowl, and I smack her hand away. Who does that?

“Yes.”

“Why do you have a goldfish?” Diamond frowns.

“I honestly don’t know.” A laugh rumbles from my chest. Scooping the bowl back into my arms, I leave them to discuss the name that does suit the dead Tim and head to Cutter’s room. I’ll leave the damn fish there. He can worry about feeding it. I try the handle without knocking. It gives under my hand, and I push inside. His scent envelopes me in an embrace he can’t deny me.

Then the world stills.

All the air flees my lungs.

“Cutter?” the female voice groans from beneath the comforter on his bed.

My fingers clutch the bowl so my shaking arms don’t drop it. Sickness swills my empty stomach, and tears burn my eyes without permission.

“Cutter?”

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Claire’s blonde hair peeks from beneath the gray comforter, followed by her blue eyes, elegant features bare of makeup, and slim, naked shoulders.

“Kitty?” Her voice shakes, eyes widening.

“What are you doing in here?” My words lash out like a whip. This isn’t real. I’m asleep in my bed. I didn’t leave my room. Pinch me, pinch me, please, someone, pinch me.

Startled eyes focus on the presence over my shoulder, the heavy booted footfalls joining my hellscape. I can’t take my eyesfrom the whore in his bed.The bed I crept into every night for months.

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