Page 133 of Bad Seed
“It takes eight minutes to strangle a person. Eight, long hard minutes staring them in the face. For a person to take glee in that…” I didn’t relish the dark sides of my job, but I know Derek’s type. A man who lives to hurt those he considers beneath him.
A man like Mr. Ato.
“I guess I’m not the only monster in this world.”
I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest. The soft rush of traffic flowing back into the city is all I hear. I wait for the thud of the door opening and her feet carrying her away.
“He had it coming.”
My eye cracks open, and I turn to Sadie. Instead of fretting about the state of a man who tried to kill her, fire burns in her eyes. “I wish I’d…” She licks her lips and snickers. “I wish I could have been there to watch.”
I fully sit up and twist to her. “Sadie?” I traipse my fingers agains her cheek, surprised at how warm it is as I guide her to look at me. She places her hand behind mine and leans into my palm.
“Is that what you did for the Nightshades? Find bad men and give them a taste of karma’s justice?”
“No.” I did what was told of me, as we all did. It was a job.
“What’s stopping you now?”
Her question hits me harder than Green’s fist. “I…I don’t know.” The Brassicas for one. The cops for another.
“I went to the police six times. They kept telling me they couldn’t do anything until Derek did something really bad to me. But by then I’d be dead.” Her hands start to tremble. I catch one to help calm her down when I realize her lip isn’t quivering in fear, nor her eyes tightening with panic. She’s enraged. “You’re the only one to ever do to him what he did to me. Not the cops, not the courts. You. I wish I could have been there…to help.”
Fuck. I strain across the console, hold her cheek, and kiss her. Rather than melt in my grip, she returns it with a fiery passion. I tousle with her tongue, my palm roaming down her chest to tug off her shirt. “Sadvhi…” I moan, ready to pull her into my lap and fuck her right there in front of suburbia.
She slips away. Fingers brush down my sideburns as her dreamy eyes roll open. “What are you going to do?”
Run. Come with me. Be my runaway princess. I will torture any man who so much as looks at you cross. We can flee before Mr. Oli or the Brassicas realize what’s happening. Just you, me, and Astin—together.
And if they catch her first? If they torture her to get to me?
All my rebel dreams fade to my waking nightmare. “I have to go back.”
She nods like she already knows what’s coming. There isn’t a choice, not really. They love to dangle the illusion of one to make the inevitable feel hopeless. “Okay.” Her door opens.
The sound sends me scrambling for her. My hand glances off her shoulder, but she’s already moving on. My fingers drift through her hair as she slips away. Rather than clench tight, I open them and let her go.
“Give me five minutes,” she says, then shuts the door.
Every step of her foot carrying her away from me is a nail to my heart, but I can’t turn my head. I watch, as much in agony as protection, until she slips into the house. She’s gone.
That’s what I want, right?
As long as she’s not near me, she’s safe. My life can’t hurt her. I can’t hurt her.
It’s a good thing.
It’s agoodthing.
I reach my finger into the cat carrier only for enraged fangs to puncture my skin. Even as Astin takes his pound of flesh, I whisper, “It’s a good thing.” When my blood sacrifice isn’t enough, he stares up at me, yellow eyes pleading.
“I’m sorry, buddy. I know you liked her. Me too. I…” A terrifying thought takes hold. If she was any other woman, would I have risked my life to go back for her? Would I tear my heart out to save her by leaving forever? “Fuck. I love her.”
There it was. The story of my life. The second I found a place, a home, love, it was torn from me. My parents, my grandfather, even the Nightshades. Maybe I just wasn’t meant for this. Eggplants don’t come in pairs, after all. I’m an idiot for thinking…
Wait.
“What did she mean by five minutes?”
