Rain thunders down outside the laundromat, drumming on the roof.
It’s late on a Sunday night. Most everyone who had laundry to do finished hours ago. Only one load remains rotating next to mine: a jumble of dingy gray socks, which I assume belong to the tiny Asian grandmother asleep against the vending machines.
I’d rather not be doing laundry either, but it’s been weeks since I stopped wearing underwear, and I’m down to my last t-shirt, emblazoned with a graphic print of Mia Wallace, complete with bloody nose. Joanna makes movie t-shirts for spare cash on the side. She’s so good at it that she could probably afford to rent a room in a much nicer place. I think she stays because she worries we’d burn the place down without her. Or at least, Heinrich would.
Under the t-shirt, I’m wearing floral boxer shorts, striped hockey socks, and a pair of battered flip-flops. It’s not my greatest look, but the sleepy grandma doesn’t seem to mind.
I lean against the dryer, watching my darks tumble around and around. The motion is soothing. Even better, the warmth of the dryer seeps into my body, loosening the stiff muscles of my chest, making me melt against the convex glass.
I’m trying to decide what the fuck to do about Cole.
I can’t keep avoiding him.
I’m itching to get back to my painting, back to that gorgeous studio that acts like creative catnip, whipping me into a frenzy as soon as I step foot through the door.
Or maybe it’s Cole who puts me in a frenzy.
I’ve never had as many ideas in a year as I now seem to get in a week. Even in my sleep, I see streams of layered images, colors so rich you could eat them, textures that make you want to roll them across your skin . . .
I know exactly what I need to do to finish my devil.
But to do it, I’ll have to walk through Cole’s door.
I don’t think we’re playing a game anymore.
I filet people with precision . . .
He does what I do BADLY . . .
Jokes and threats? Manipulation?
Or the pure, unvarnished truth?
Cole implied that Alastor Shaw is a killer.
More than implied that he’s one, too.
He does what I do BADLY . . .
It seems impossible.
We’re talking about two of the most famous men in the city. Artists, for fuck’s sake.
Rival artists.
Or perhaps . . . just rivals.
You were given to me . . .
I jolt up from the dryer, the warmth of the tumbling clothes giving way to the chill that grips the back of my neck.
Two men. One heavy and rough. One slim, light, almost silent . . .
Convulsively, I clasp my palm over the wriggling scar running up my left wrist. I can feel it under my thumb, thick and hot as a snake.
I spoke to Alastor Shaw the night I was kidnapped. I met him at the show, before I went outside to vape with Frank. We only talked for a minute before Erin interrupted us.
Erin said she fucked him in the stairwell. How long did that take? Quick enough that he could have seen me leaving? Quick enough that he could have followed?
It only lasted a minute. But it was nice . . .
The pieces are falling into place with sickening speed.
He could have snatched me up a block from my house. Stuffed me in a trunk. Bound, blindfolded, and pierced me, then slashed me open and left me on the ground to die . . .
No. Not to die.
Left . . . as a gift.
A gift for the man who would follow.
Where was Cole going that night? What was he doing?
It doesn’t matter. Someone knew he’d be there. They knew he’d find me.
And what was the point? What did they expect?
My heart is racing, the steady whum, whum, whum of the dryer like a crank operating my brain. Forcing it to keep running. Shoving it toward the inevitable conclusion of these thoughts.
They expected Cole to finish me off.
That was the gift.
That was the temptation.
BUZZZZZZZZ.
The alarm to the dryer sounds, making me shriek.
The little Asian grandma pops up like a jack-in-the-box, bustling over to retrieve her socks. She bundles them all into a string bag, then slings the bag over her shoulder, heading toward the door, waving to me as she leaves.
I wave back, feeling like I’m floating, feeling like I’m one of the many pieces of trash running down the gutters outside, carried away by the rain.
What happened that night never made any sense because I was too close to the picture. I could only see the tiny individual dots. Taking a step back, the whole image pulls into focus.
There were two psychopaths in the woods that night: Alastor and Cole.
Alastor brought me there.
Cole was supposed to kill me.
But he didn’t.
I fucking survived.
And the whole palaver afterward, my Great Expectations rise to success with my secret benefactor Cole working behind the scenes . . . what was that? Just more of their fucked up game?
I pace up and down the narrow aisle between the washing machines and the dryers, listening to my clothes rumbling away on both sides.
This all sounds insane.
But it’s the only thing that makes sense. The only thing that explains what I know I saw.
Two men.
Two psychopaths.
I stop dead where I stand.
I’ve seen all the indications with Cole. The way he swaps personas at will. The way he uses his money and influence to manipulate people . . . including me. The way he doesn’t truly care about anyone or anything.
That’s not true. He cares sometimes. He cared when he smashed that solar model.
I shake my head hard, irritated with myself.
Rage isn’t the same thing as “caring.”
My chest is tight and it’s hard to draw a full breath.
I keep thinking about the girl’s body found on the golf course. And the others on the beach . . .
How many has it been now? Six? Seven?
The Beast of the Bay.
I told myself that had nothing to do with me. I was cut, but not torn apart. Not actually killed.
Now I think I was supposed to be.
Is Alastor the Beast? Is Cole?
Is it both of them?
The rain pours down harder, individual droplets disappearing into the steady fall. The rain shatters in the street, sending up silvery splashes that gleam like sparks.
I’ve reached the end of the aisle, where the plate-glass window is covered in the ancient, peeling decals that once proclaimed, Suds Your Duds, Coin-Operated, 24-Hour Self-Serve.
Through those blistered letters I see a figure waiting outside. Tall and dark, without any umbrella. Standing still on the sidewalk, looking directly at me.
I already know it’s Cole.
He’s been stalking me all week. I’ve seen him on the street outside my house, and at the cafe across from Sweet Maple. He knows I’ve seen him, and he doesn’t care. He hasn’t tried to bang on my door or force me to eat brunch with him again.
He’s just watching. Waiting.
Standing guard.
That chill now runs from the nape of my neck all the way down my spine.
I finally understand.
Cole’s not watching me. He’s watching for Shaw.
Stay away from him. He’s dangerous. I’m not fucking joking.
It’s too dark to see the details of Cole’s face, not with the rain plastering his hair down over his eyes.
He can see me, though. Brightly lit, clean, and dry, framed in this window.
I press my palm flat against the glass.
How can I be so afraid of someone, and yet I can’t bring myself to run? I don’t want to run from Cole. I want to stand still while he comes to me, and then I want to reach up and touch his face. I want to pull off the masks, one by one, until there isn’t any left. And then, whatever is underneath . . . I want to see it.
He terrified me, the night of the Halloween party. He did it on purpose. Deliberately flashing his fangs, because he wanted to scare me away from Shaw.
Why?
Because he wants to keep me safe.
No matter how insane that sounds, it’s what I believe.
Cole wants to keep me safe. It’s why he’s spent countless hours watching me, when he has the whole city at his disposal, when he could be doing anything else.
I walk back to the dryers, checking the remaining time.
Twelve minutes.
I lean against the glass, eyes closed, my whole body rocked by the hulking industrial machine. These dryers are probably older than I am. Each one the size of a compact car. Each with a powerful engine.
The bell above the door lets out a gentle chime as someone enters.
I keep my face pressed against the glass, eyes closed.
I hear him coming up behind me, though no one else would hear those careful, measured steps.
I can even hear the lonely sound of each breath entering and exiting his lungs.
Without turning around, I say, “Hello, Cole.”
In the glass I see his reflection: wet hair, blacker than a crow’s wing, plastered against his cheeks. Dark eyes fixed only on me.
Rain drips down from the hem of his coat to the linoleum tiles.
“Hello, Mara.”
He swoops in behind me, pressing me against the dryer. His body is soaked and frigid, the hard muscle of his chest locked against my back. Against my belly, the dryer rocks and hums, spreading warmth all the way through me into Cole.
He traps me there, a moth on a windshield.
I can feel his heart racing against my shoulder blade. I feel his hot breath on my neck.
“It’s time for you to stop hiding,” he whispers against my throat. “It’s time for you to come home.”
Terror surges through me—that rush of adrenaline that sends blood surging through every distant capillary, until my whole body throbs like a drum. Cole’s scent envelopes me, not washed away by the rain, only enhanced by it.
If Cole is so bad, then why does he feel so good?
Who knows what the rabbit feels when the hawk lands, pinning it to the ground? When those cruel talons close around its body. When it lifts up into the sky . . .
Maybe the moment of capture is bliss.
Maybe it feels like flying.
All I know is my whole body is thrumming in time to the dryer. Cole presses my chest, my belly, my hips against it. Grinding me into it. Never letting up on the pressure for even a moment.
“You want me to come to your house?” I gasp.
“Yes,” he growls, his chest vibrating just like the dryer, the heat and the pressure making my head spin.
“No,” I say, closing my eyes and shaking my head.
His hands grip my hips, fingers digging in. He pushes me harder against the glass.
The vibration is having a certain effect on me. I can feel my skin flushing, my pulse quickening, that rushing, clenching feeling that you can only hold back for so long.
“Why do you always have to be so difficult?” he growls.
I turn my head slightly, so we’re cheek to cheek, mouths only an inch apart.
“I want to see your studio,” I demand.
I can feel his irritation. Hear his molars grinding.
“Fine,” he snaps. “Tomorrow night.”
This is madness. I shouldn’t be going to his studio or his house. I should be calling the cops.
But the cops won’t believe me. They never have.
Is Cole my mentor or a killer? Is he protecting me, or hunting me?
There’s only one way to learn the truth.
Cole slips his hand down the front of my shorts. He finds my pussy already slippery and throbbing. Desperate for his touch.
I let out a long moan as he pushes his fingers inside me.
He shoves me against the dryer, grinding my hips against the door. I can feel his cock pressed between my ass cheeks. The warmth and the rumbling vibration surge through me, over and over, with every turn of the clothes. It only takes three thrusts with his fingers, three pulses of his hips against my ass, before I start to cum.
I’m moaning and shaking, grinding against the dryer. Cole holds me in place with his wet, steaming body. Pressing me against the vibration, sending each new wave surging through me.
“Seven o’clock tomorrow night,” he growls in my ear. “No fucking around this time. If you’re one minute late . . . I’m coming to find you.”
I can hardly hear him over the dryer. Over the hot, liquid pleasure pounding in my ears.
All in a moment, he’s gone. The buzzer sounds, the dryer stops, and I’m standing there, legs shaking, realizing that I’m definitely fucking crazy.
