Page 39 of Virgin Sacrifice

“If it’s not you . . .” she whispered, “. . . if it’s not the Blackwells, then who is it?”

Chapter eighteen

Luz

I thudded my forehead against the hard surface of my door, releasing a deep shuddering breath when the lock clicked into place.

My confrontation with Alister had been . . . unexpected, and I found myself incredibly charged up as a result.

Going for another run was out of the question. It was too dark to run in the woods safely, and I didn’t want to drag myself across campus to the gym to use a treadmill. The thought of some mouth-breathing meathead trying to speak to me when all I wanted to do was escape had me wanting to commit murder.

What I needed to do was get myself under control, and then I could formulate a plan. I had reacted without thinking when I saw Alister earlier and look where it landed me.

I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck as I paced my room, trying to unpack what had just happened.

I should have ignored him and jogged past like I always did. I shouldn’t have given him a second thought as I finished up my run.

“Let them chase after you, mija. A man that sees only beauty is blind to a woman’s cunning.”

Mami’s words echoed in my head. If only it were that simple.

While there was no doubt in my mind that part of Alister’s fixation with me was sexual, especially after today, it was also clear that he was just as obsessed with finding out my secrets as Locke.

Then there was the added complication of my actual stalker, and whether I could trust Alister when he said it wasn’t him or his brother.

What was worse? That the psychos I knew were playing a more twisted game than they would admit, or an entirely different kind of monster was hunting me for reasons I didn’t understand.

And I attacked Alister. Why?

Nerves ran down my spine. I was mortified. What had I been thinking?

Despite being okay with what Mami had done to my father and stepmother, I never really considered myself to be a violent person. I had certainly never physically attacked someone in a blind rage. I was neither naïve nor in denial about the darkness inside me, but I had never allowed it to manifest so rashly before. My confidence in my control wavered as I wondered if I was more like my father than I had ever wanted to admit . . .

I tasted the coppery tang of blood and realized I had inadvertently ripped off the cuticle on my thumb. Zut, that stung.

I rushed to the en suite and stuck my still-bleeding thumb under the running faucet while I scrambled through the medicine cabinet with my other hand, searching out the antibiotic ointment and the small box of Band-Aids I kept in there.

Methodically, I applied the ointment, then the bandage. There was something meditative about the process, or maybe even just seeing blood itself, that always made me calm down. Before I knew it, my thumb was dressed, and my breathing was back under control.

Deciding to embrace the serenity, I turned to fill up the small bathtub that took up one side of the bathroom.

I stripped down as the tub filled up quickly and the air in the bathroom grew heavy with steam. When I stepped into the tub the water was so hot that it was barely tolerable, which meant it would be absolutely perfect for about three minutes.

I slipped my body under the scalding water up to my neck, humming softly as I did.

My thoughts slowed down along with my breathing, and as my sense of control returned, I could finally inspect them without the fear of self-recrimination.

Lashing out at Alister had been foolish. He was twice my size, and I was more and more certain that he was an experienced killer, if not a seasoned one.

I couldn’t do it again, especially since I suspected that he hadn’t even begun to make me pay the price yet.

Did my attack on him really make me like my father?

No. My father was an entirely different breed of monster, the kind that reveled in the cruel torment of his own child and thought himself nearly a God for it.

However, I could no longer deny that someone at Hollow Oak was circling me, taunting me, like a predator hunting its prey. Alister, Nixon, Locke . . . the stranger in the hoodie . . . they all had me in their sights, and I needed to figure out exactly what kind of beasts I was dealing with.

Never underestimate the monsters hiding in plain sight . . .

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