I shivered, bloodlust rising in me at his words and a smile curled his lips as he saw that need in me reflected back at him.
“We aim to hurt before we kill, don’t we Spider?” he purred and I nodded breathily.
“Especially when they deserve it,” I said.
“Especially then,” he agreed and my forehead fell to his as we breathed heavily over the idea of the hunt, the splash of hot blood against our bodies, the screams and that final, euphoric end as their hearts stopped beating.
“Killing’s in our blood,” he said. “But it’s more than that. Killers come in brands just like cereals do. You and me are Coco Pops.”
“What’s Mateo?” I asked excitedly.
“Lucky Charms,” he grinned.
“And Jack?”
“I dunno, what’s the dumbest cereal? A Weetabix?”
“He’s not dumb,” I growled.
“Nothing goes on behind those eyes,” he said with a head shake.
I leaned back as I pouted at him and his hand dropped to my outer thigh. “Go back to your seat now, lass.”
I frowned at his dismissal, unsure what our chat had resolved, or if it hadn’t resolved anything. But before I left, I got the urge to do something a little crazy and as I always followed my crazy urges right to crazy town, I didn’t hesitate as I leaned in and pecked him on the lips.
A blush immediately rose in my cheeks as I moved back and he watched me with a riotous look as I dropped into my seat. We stared at each other for several seconds before I broke his gaze and turned to the window, painting mindless pictures on the glass with my finger as the best words I’d ever heard circled in my mind on repeat. I fuckin’ adore ya.
I didn’t know where we were going and I’d forgotten to ask anyway, happy to fly off on an adventure into the beyond, although I wished Mateo, Jack and Brutus could be here for the funsies. I did know that I was with a man who adored me, even if he wished he hadn’t taken my virginity. But I couldn’t have picked a more perfect way to lose it than tonight, and maybe Niall wouldn’t regret it forever. He’d said it was me and him now, and though I’d never had many promises kept to me in my life, I was really, really with cherries on top hoping this one would be.
D rool clung to the side of my cheek and I groaned as I finally managed to roll myself onto my back, the effects of the paralytic Niall had dosed me with beginning to wear off at last.
Using Jack’s crotch as a pillow for the last who knew how many hours while that rabid beast of a dog sniffed at my face and snarled at my throat like it was damn tempted to try and eat me alive had been among the lowest points of my life.
Thanks to Niall, I had plenty of low points to compare it to though, so I was fairly certain it hadn’t taken the top spot.
I stared up at the ceiling and began to count the whirls in the paint, my fingers twitching with the desire to wrap themselves around a cocky Irishman’s throat at the first possible convenience.
Jack lay somewhere to my left, though his silence made it hard to be certain of that aside from the odd harsh breath which escaped him, letting me know he was as pissed as me.
Minutes crept by and I counted on and on, trying not to let my mind wander to mi sol and what she might be doing at this very moment. I wanted her to have her revenge. I wanted her to end the man who had stolen her life from her and believed the lies of her tormentors for no other reason than their money and status. But I wanted to be there to see it. To make certain she was safe and kept away from the danger that kind of work required.
I could have made sure the job was done cleanly. I could have made it so that no piece of the bastardo was left to find after she was done seeking out her vengeance on him. But instead, I was left to lay here on the floor and count the fucking paint whirls while imagining all the ways I planned to murder the man who had done this to me.
I was trying really hard not to think about the fact that I was helpless lying here, at the mercy of fate or any cruel creature who might stumble across me. Not least that rabid fucking dog who had been brought into the house which I suspected would one day flip and kill all four of us.
This was a feeling I hadn’t often endured in my adult life, but which had been all too familiar to me as a boy.
Even while I’d been locked in Niall’s cage or strapped to his torture table, I hadn’t felt quite so helpless as this, and it was unlocking memories I’d long since tried to bury in the dark.
There was a repetitive dripping coming from the kitchen, the noise cycling every few seconds and reminding me of the way the nun’s footsteps had sounded as they paced towards me across the flagstones as a child.
I fought against the memories which were stirred by that noise, but the longer it continued and the more my eyes burned from staring at the ceiling, the harder they were to keep out.
“Have you been praying, Mateo?” the harsh words cracked against my ears as I knelt before the altar long after the Sunday service had ended and all the other children had headed out to play in the sunshine.
My father was away working so I’d known this was coming. When my mother had dressed me in my Sunday finest her eyes has been narrowed to slits, accusation and hatred caught in the depths of them.
“You still have the Devil in you,” she’d hissed as she tugged my collar hard enough to rock me forward, fighting to straighten it and make me as presentable as possible. Not that it ever made the slightest bit of difference in the end.
“No, Mama,” I protested but she’d only tsked, tugging me from the house and to the church in the centre of our little mountainside town.
The other boys gave me a wide berth, in part because they’d already heard the rumours of who my father was and who he worked for, but partly because the lies my mother told about me had been gaining truth.
When she’d first started to insist that I had a demon rooted in my soul and begged the sisters who lived in the monastery of the church to help force it out of me, I hadn’t done anything that I knew of to make her believe such things. But in the years that had passed, I’d been forced to endure their lessons week after week, and their accusations had gained some truth.
They accused me of welcoming the darkness into my heart and maybe they were right about that.
Because recently I had been. I had taken to creeping along the streets of our town in the dark when I should have been asleep and sneaking up on people when they least expected me. I’d taken a liking to causing pain as a way of paying the world back for allowing me to endure so much of it.
I hunted the other village children through the streets of our hometown and when I found them, I made them fight me. Always the biggest of them. I didn’t care if I lost. Though the longer I played that little game of mine, the less often it happened. I just needed the fight. I needed to feel the swing of my fists and taste blood on my tongue.
The other children feared me because when I fell into a fight, I didn’t easily stop. I’d beaten more than a few boys unconscious, broken ribs, fingers, left scars. Yet it wasn’t ever enough to sate this anger in me.
The nun came to a halt behind me and my muscles locked up as I waited to see what punishment she might have in mind for me today.
The moments dragged on as she used that indecision to torture me further, never just getting on with it, always wasting time on prayer to a god who supposedly told her all the best ways to save me.