Page 3 of Only for Him
She shivers slightly as the wind cuts between us, and I shudder with her as the cold air wraps around my exposed ankles. But I’m not cold.
If anything, between the gala and the blue-eyed man, I feel slightly feverish.
“Not tonight, Giselle.” She sighs. “It’s been a long week.”
“Three bodies in three weeks.”
I know she doesn’t want to talk about it, but I can’t help myself. Violence is the only thing that makes me feel anything. Talking about it is a way of teasing myself, the closest I’ll ever get to a release.
“Every one of them with the same MO. It’s a pattern.”
“Maybe you should quit.” Ida doesn’t look at me this time. “Have a normal job. Take actual vacations. Join a book club. Drink on weeknights without worrying about witness statements in the morning.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I deadpan as I take a sip of the flattening wine.
But I’m still thinking about murders. And I’m still thinking about what MacDougal must be doing right now. The anger hums through my nervous system.
Someone should intercept his car tonight, I think.Pick him up when he’s too drunk to tell it’s not his driver. Take him to adark warehouse and hurt him the way he hurts all those young women unlucky enough to cross his path.
Usually, I stop myself when thoughts like that creep in. Lately, I’ve gotten less vigilant about my fantasies. I guess I’m running out of the energy it takes to suppress them.
“You ever wonder what it’d be like if MacDougal just vanished?” I ask.
I shouldn’t be saying it out loud, but I do. At least I’m not asking if she ever thinks of MacDougal being hung by his ankles and bled like the pig he is. My ribcage tightens around my heart.
She snorts. “The city would just replace him with someone fatter and meaner. Maybe a guy who drinks blood instead of scotch.”
“Fucking Teflon Mac.” My laugh is short, bitter, and brittle. “Got his fingers in everything from dirty money to underage girls. And somehow nothing sticks to him.”
“I know,” she says, eyes and voice soft.
The tension between what I want and what I can have makes my head pound. I’d do anything for it. But it’ll never happen.
“Some days, I think about doing it myself.” I draw my thumb across my neck in a line. I’m testing, the way I always do, whether she’s capable of getting tired of it. Of me.
“Giselle,” Ida starts. “What’s the point of talking about something like that? You’re not a vigilante and?—”
“Try telling that to the families of the girls he’s hurt.”
A streak of headlights sweeps up the avenue, illuminating us like a camera flash. It’s not our car. It slows in front of the girlin the street. She crushes her cigarette and leans to open the passenger-side door.
My heartrate increases slightly as I watch her get in. I would give anything to know who she is, who’s driving the car, and how she knows them.
More importantly, I want to know that she’ll be safe.
That she won’t turn out like Serena.
Does she know what I know about this restless and greedy city? How it hungers for the next beautiful thing to ruin?
My guilt tells me that I’m the one who’s hungry. I’m the one who’s ruined.
Ida finishes her drink in a single, elegant tilt, sets the empty flute on the balustrade. She follows my gaze as the girl slips into the car.
“You know most people live long and normal lives, right? Your perspective on the odds is skewed.”
If it was anyone else saying that, I’d be angry. Whatmostpeople experience is irrelevant to me. I’ve seen what happens to the rest of us.
But Ida knows that already, and she’s faced her own share of suffering.
