Page 8 of Crazy Rich Monsters (Necessary Evils 1)

She pulls to the curb in front of an old bookstore.

I park on the opposite side of the street, watching as she hesitates to get out of the car. She stares blankly ahead, the taillights of the car holding a steady shade of red. When she finally puts the car in park and climbs out of the car, I duck in my seat to avoid being spotted.

I wait until she’s inside for a good minute before exiting the car. The first thing I notice when I walk inside is the musky smell. I can’t remember the last time I stepped foot in a bookstore, but it had to have been when I was a teenager. No doubt, that wasn’t a decision of my own choosing. Just as it’s not my decision now.

Addison is the reason I’m here. Lulling me into her presence with a scent of revenge ripe in the musky, dusty air.

The bookstore is separated into two halves, not equal in size, but there’s a clear distinction between the space a small cafe sets in against the backdrop of a hundred shelved hallways. Addison waits at the cafe counter, her back turned to me as I take refuge behind the safety of a shelf in the new release section.

She’s soft spoken as she orders a coffee. Black. Cream. No sugar.

You can learn a lot about someone by the way they take their coffee. She’s bold, drawn to the bitterness. She’s tough and strong, and that makes me question if I truly know anything about her at all. I watch as she pays for the coffee with crumpled up one-dollar bills. She’s low on cash, digging into her life savings which doesn’t amount to much.

She grabs the coffee in her right hand and steps out of the cafe with her head bowed down. Can’t even go to a bookstore without the weight of guilt dragging her down. She should stand straighter sometimes. She could lure strangers into her embrace with a simple bat of her pretty eyes. Strangers who’d be blissfully unaware of the monster inside.

She takes a sip of coffee, but she should wait a minute longer to avoid burning her lips. She doesn’t seem to mind though, immediately raising the styrofoam to her lips once more and taking another drink. Then, she’s looking over her shoulder as she sneaks behind a rack of magazines. She digs into her purse and pulls out a single dose of vodka, the kind that comes packaged in tiny bottles. She unscrews the cap, peels the lid off the coffee, and dumps the alcohol inside.

I was right. She’s just like her mother. Younger. Stronger. Darker. But still, she can’t escape the addictions woven into the fabric of her blood. That’d be like running from fate. You can only run so long before your feet give out and the darkness swallows you whole.

She takes another sip, and this time it’s as if she’s enjoying it. She seems to empty the cup in one long gulp, discarding the cup onto a magazine rack. Inconsiderate, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

I stay in the shadows, passing through aisleway after aisleway as she lurches deeper into the bookstore. We’re far enough removed from the front door and cafe that I can no longer hear the chatter of the few patrons reading and drinking their morning coffee in solace. We’re practically alone now, each of us traveling on our own plane of existence.

What sort of books is Addison drawn to? I wager that she’s drawn to horror, perhaps with a psychological bent. The stories of Gillian Flynn come to mind as something I imagine she’d spend hours pouring over in the dark recess of her own room. She loves the color black and tends to keep to the shadows. Maybe the two of us are more alike than I’d ever care to admit. Our hearts are both cold, lost, and overwhelmingly dark.

I’m nothing like her.I’ll lie to myself the same way I lie to everyone else.

Addison stops, hovering in place at the end of an aisle. She looks over each shoulder, always running from the shadows of paranoia, and then she looks straight ahead. I peel back around the corner, my back flat against the bookend of the hallway, praying she didn’t notice me. When I peek around the corner, I see her making her way down the aisle.

No. Fucking. Way.

She takes another passing glance over her shoulder as if she’s making sure nobody is watching her as she reaches for a book on the shelf, prying it loose with one feminine hand. Her fingernails are painted black, the polish peeling at the creases where her nails meet her flesh. The cover of the book is a grotesque display of lust, a muscular man holding a blonde virgin in his strong embrace. She flips the book over and reads the description, her lips melting into a soft smile.

She’s full of surprises and I fucking hate surprises as much as I love them. There’s something about being caught off guard that sparks a fire within me. Just the same, I’ve come to learn that it’s imperative to never let anyone get the upper hand on you. What can I say, I’m a complicated man.

Addison places the book back on the shelf, but continues to peruse the romance section. I am absolutely fucking fascinated. The last genre of fiction I would have pegged her as reading is romance. It might be time to consider that I don't know as much as I think I do about her, but that would be admitting I’m wrong and I hate being wrong.

She reaches for another book high on the shelf, and so she has to raise to the tips of her toes to grab it. She almost strains herself in the process. Unlike the last one, there is no half naked man on the cover. The design is more subtle, and if it weren’t shelved in the romance section, nobody would take a second look. They’d think it was some psychological thriller or something. She flips open the book to the last page and begins to read.

What. The. Hell. I haven’t read a book since middle school, but what kind of monster reads the ending first?

Nevermind. It’s time to make my move. I step to her, but she doesn’t notice me. She’s too lost in the ending of the book that she can’t see me coming. I duck my head to get a good look at the cover. More importantly, I read the title.

“Wonderful choice,” I say, pretending to be someone that I’m not.

She gasps and jumps in place, the book dropping to the floor. She fights to catch her breath, having the wind taken out of her by the lowest effort of a jump scare. “Do you work here?”

“Actually, I do.” It’s such an obvious lie that I’m hedging my bets on her not believing it. I bend over to swipe the book off the ground and then place it back into her hands. “I have to be honest. I don’t see many women in this section anymore.”

“What section is that?” She places the book back on the shelf, nudging it in between two books that are eye-level. Clearly not where it belongs.

“Somehow I don’t take you for the romance type.”

“Is that what this section is?” She makes a scene out of looking around, pretending as if she doesn’t know exactly what aisle she’s in. And then somehow in the process, her eyes settle on me. She narrows her gaze. “I’ve seen you before.”

My lies are going to unravel faster than I’m prepared for. I think on my feet and opt to tell a twisted version of the truth. “Yeah, I think we saw each other at the bar the other night.”

“Yeah,” she mutters under her breath.

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