Page 94 of Bound to a Killer
My eyes sting, but the tears stay imprisoned behind them, blurring everything around me like I’m trapped in a hellish haze I can’t shake.Wake up.
His features distort through the veil of moisture growing in my eyes, his slow-stretching smile warped, demonic, and fractured, like an image behind shattered glass.
It’s strange, because I feel like I finally see him more clearly than I ever had before, and it terrifies me.
“Okay, then,” he says, patting a rough hand over my cheek in a condescendingly sickening way that makes it clear he’s won. “I’ll see you back inside.”
And just like that, he turns and leaves, his words stinging in the suffocating silence he leaves behind. The first thick tear sears its way down my face, clinging to my chin like a lifeline, until more follow. They fall like anchors, the slow accumulation dragging me into a quiet, sinking sorrow.
My hands tremble over my phone, but I put it away without bothering to check the messages. It’s clear now why I never heard back from Ledger.
27
ARIA
The air is cloying and dense, like exhaust tangled in artificial fragrance, burning my eyes and filling my lungs with expensive hairspray. I cough, swatting the fumes away with perfectly French-manicured nails, pretending that the tightness in my chest has anything to do with the spray.
“That should do it,” Clara says as she bustles around me, poising the sleek can just above my head. “Just rake your fingers through them to break the stiffness.”
I do as she says. My curls are gleaming under her vanity lights, lacquered into perfect spirals that looked like they belong to someone with more confidence, the kind of girl who has control over her life. Someone who’s not me.
“Thanks,” I tell her with a soft smile. “It’s perfect.”
She grins at me in the mirror, her eyes dropping to the blush-toned, fitted dress she picked out for me. There’s a quick flash of satisfaction before she wraps another strand of her own hair around the hot iron rod, giddy to start the night.
I can’t be the one to ruin this for her.
Not after everything we’ve been through this year. If she canset all of it aside on my behalf, then the least I can do is offer her the same. Pretend. Even if just for a little while longer.
She leans into the mirror and gives her nose a quick pat with her compact just as her phone pings, cutting through the up-tempo pop music she’d been blasting. Her smile deepens as she glances at the screen.
“It’s Jayce and Gabe,” she bursts out, killing her playlist and stuffing her phone into a gold sequined clutch bag that matches her dress. She spins around, glowing with excitement, warming the room in a way that doesn’t quite reach me, but I play it off well enough.
She doesn’t notice the strain tucked behind my grin, already halfway out the door, calling for me to hurry.
I grab my own matching clutch and follow her outside, nerves writhing in my stomach like maggots in a decomposing body, a sharp contrast to the artificial flush painting my cheeks. Panic thickens beneath the surface, stretching until we reach the curb where the limo waits, long and dark like a coffin. The door clicks open.
Clara squeals as she gathers the length of her dress higher on her leg and climbs in first. Reluctantly, I follow, my nails digging into the gathered fabric in my fist, heart clenching.It’s just for a couple of hours.
Inside, the limo is dim, the speakers humming with low bass that pulses beneath the leather seats. A strip of LED lights runs along the ceiling, casting a wash of blue, green, and violet across the space. It feels claustrophobic. Too dark. Too cramped. An assault of sound and color.
I blink through the haze, my chest tight, a part of me silently unmoored by the sensory blur.
Gabe whistles from the far end of the seat, his deep brown eyes pinned on Clara, hooded and intent. “Get your sexy ass over here,” he calls, raising his voice over the steady vibration in the bass as he pats the space beside him.
She crouches, stepping over the narrow aisle until she’s at his side. “Where’s my corsage?” she asks, nudging his shoulder with a playful smirk.
“You said you didn’t want one.”
Clara throws herself against his side, giggling, unbothered by the small audience around her as she nestles closer. She says something I can’t hear, her voice swallowed by the low thrum of the speakers. Her hand slides across his chest, their bodies fitting closely together. Too intimate to be observing.
Their laughter cuts off abruptly, muffled into a long, open-mouthed kiss that has my skin prickling like a rash I can’t stop. I look away, desperate to escape the creeping discomfort, only to freeze when I catch Jayce watching from across the seat.
His mouth tips up, faint and calculated, like he knows exactly what’s running through my head and relishes the part he’s playing in it.
Dread settles in my chest like a rock.
I take the spot beside him, resigned to the fact that I don’t have another choice in the matter, angling my body just enough to carve out as much distance as I can without drawing attention.
