Page 2 of These Monstrous Ties
It seems fitting, for what I plan to do.
I don’t bother locking the door to my shithole apartment when I leave. I won’t miss this place.
Instead, I stand at the railing of the stairwell, looking out at the darkening sky over Alexandria. The lingering scent of cigarette smoke and the promise of a wild night is on the air. Alexandria is a college town. I know all about the wild parties, the crowded bars, the rich pricks that are abundant in this place.
But I know nothing about the college.
I dropped out of high school.
Being an escort has paid the bills, and a college degree was never really in the cards for someone like me.
I run my hand over the gun strapped on my thigh over my fishnet stockings before I take the steps down two at a time.
People will think it’s fake. No one really wants to look behind the mask tonight, anyway.
Mine is only heavy white makeup, white textured horns attached to the headband over my brown, chin-length hair. It’s disguise enough.
When morning comes, it might be hard to recognize me anyhow.
I take a breath, steady my nerves as I walk along the sidewalk leading out of the apartment complex. I taste the rum on my tongue from the two shots I downed before I left; I didn’t think I’d be scared of this.
I’ve been afraid of a lot in my life. From foster families, strangers, my mother when I was a child. My brother when I was a child. A brother I haven’t seen since we got pulled from Mom’s after she caught the house on fire when she fell asleep with the stove on. Fell into a drug-induced coma is more like it. I was five when Jamie and I split up. He was eight.
Fourteen years have passed since then, and I think of Jamie every day. I don’t miss him, exactly. He’d been a terror in my life, from what I could recall of my earliest memories. Pinching me, kicking me, dragging me into his room during the night, locking the door. I thought, looking back, he might have done some of it to protect me. But he was as loving as my mother had been. Which is to say, not at all.
I shiver against a gust of wind and glance up at the full moon as I make my way down the sidewalk on the main road. Alexandria—halfway between the beach and the mountains in North Carolina—is a big city, but my little pocket of it is like a small town in itself. There isn’t much traffic, although I smell a bonfire on the breeze, hear someone howling like a wolf somewhere down the street.
I wait at an intersection past my apartment, watching two cars roll off almost lazily down the road. I could cross now. No one is coming.
But I like the waiting.
It’s the last bit of it I’ll do in my life.
Someone’s shoulder brushes against me, startling me out of my revelry. The light hasn’t changed.
I jerk my head around, frowning.
And some asshole blows smoke right in my face. Real smoke, not from a vape.
I cough, covering my mouth with my hand.
“What the fuck?” I hiss. I’m patient. I’m going to be dead soon. But for the love of all that is holy, that was completely fucking unnecessary.
When the smoke clears, I see him.
Deep blue eyes, a cigarette in one hand, a smile on his full lips.
His face is painted like a skeleton, long lashes raking against the black and white makeup below his dark brows. He has curly black hair, and a strand of it falls over one eye when the wind blows.
“Sorry,” he drawls, not sounding sorry at all. “But I think you’re supposed to come with me tonight.” His eyes snake down my frame.
I don’t blush. I’ve been checked out thousands of times for my job alone. It comes with the territory. But I steel my spin, shake my head.
“You just blew smoke in my face,” I point out. I take him in: Tall, lean, wearing black joggers that hug his thighs, a black hoodie rolled up at the forearms, corded muscle visible beneath.
He’s probably a few years older than me, maybe mid-twenties. But with the skeleton paint, it’s kind of hard to tell.
“Isn’t that something Lucifer might do?” he asks, tilting his head. Then he nods in front of us. The light has changed, the stick figure man is flashing.
