Page 17 of Antihero
"And whothe fuckare you?"
***
Paige
The guy sitting on the edge of my bed, who went from quirky to batshit in record time, is staring at me likeI'mthe nuts one. How long was I out? Did this crazy bastard choke me outwhilehe was balls deep inside me?
He shakes his head once, looking uncertain, a brow creasing his forehead. "You know who I am."
Great, insaneandself-important. I manage something akin to a shrug with my hands tied behind me. When he still only holds me in that oddly intense green gaze, I spit out, "You're the guy in my house who was just inside me and now has me tied to a chair, for Christ’s sake."
He stares at me for another beat, then drops his gaze to his hands, laughing softly to himself.
"Care to share the joke?" I ask. First the joke, then how the hell he knows I’m the Wraith.
He looks up at me with a half-smile and asks, "You justhappenedto target me, really?"
This is why you don't pick up from asylums. A first I won’t be repeating. He’d just seemed so… different, so interesting. If only I’d knownhowinteresting. “Target you? For what? Look, if you’re some asshole’s rich little boy, or you own a cereal company or whatever, I’ve got no idea, okay? I’m not a gold-digger.”
He shakes his head, almost in disbelief. "It doesn't matter now."
That doesn't sound great. Is he telling the truth? The man I saw that night, crouching over Declan’s dead body… it had been so dark, and I was so shocked I dropped my cord. He was big. That’s all I really saw before I ran like hell. I’d assumed later that it was some boyfriend come to avenge his love for things that filth Declan had done for her. But what reason would John have to kill Declan?
There’s clearly a lot I don’t know about John.
How he’s come to know my secret, for one.
I notice his hands then. They’re bare, as they rarely are. Those scars… burns. What did he say? A cooking accident? Must be bullshit. Then I hone in on what he's toying with, elbows propped on his parted knees, hands lulling down slightly. My throat goes dry. For the first time tonight, cold fear blooms in my chest, not the mere chill of anxiety and dull confusion, like when I woke up a handful of minutes ago, or when he so casually spelt out the exact reality of the Wraith of White Rock to me on our first date, but true terror. I wet my lips. "What are you going to do with that?"
With my own cord, the one I’d dropped that night. There’s no question, I watched this guy kill someone. But now he might be intending to do the same to me. Here I always thought a man I was trying to murder would be the end of me. Not a man I’ve fucked.
He doesn't look at me, a slight frown between his brows as he focuses on the cord. Like this is a business he finds unpleasant. With my own cord… The familiarity of that idea strikes something. Something that doesn’t make my situation look any less dire. Then there was the way he killed Declan, so fast, efficient.
“You're Needler.”
He looks up sharply. Fuck, I see why he was laughing now. I almost want to laugh, though if I do, it might come out maniacal.
The serial killers who found each other. Truly a romantic story. Until the one who doesn't like his own kind tied her to the chair and strangled her with her own garrotting cord.
"Everyone thinks you’re dead. That you burned in Crennick."
John—Needler—shrugs, as though that can’t be helped. I do let out a laugh then, more like coughed-out air. "Asking to choke me…" I muse. "That was cheeky, don't you think?"
Head lifting, he doesn’t deny that he made that irony on purpose, an echo of how I’ve been killing. "Because you don't ask your victims first?" he asks.
“Do you usually fuck your's first?” I shoot back. He ignores me. Jesus, was all of that just to get me here? Alone? If the sex had been bad, I’d be furious right now. But… “This is a bit personal for you,” I say, “You did it like this because you thought I was trying to get close to Needler?”
His eyes cut abruptly up to mine, and I know I’m close. I choke on a laugh. “Awfully vengeful of you.”
The smirk that comes to his face is wicked and merciless. “Forgotten who you’re talking to already?” Of course. Needler. Tregam’s favourite vengeance monster. The smile is gone. "Tell me why you killed that woman in the alley. Or the councilman in his bed."
My mouth closes. “I can't tell you that.”
The cord looks smaller, now wrapped around one of his fists. "Then why shouldn't I wrap this around your throat?"
My stomach feels hollow. I can still feel my wetness on my thighs. I’m still sticky with him. "Do you really want to do that?"
He chuckles. "Are you sure you want to rely on some residual warm feelings from me?” Voice hard, he reminds me, “You’ve been lying to me this whole time."
