Save Riley(37)

“This is how I am, Jax. If you can’t handle it then you’re going to have to just do something about it,” she retorted defiantly.

I stopped pacing and looked at her as the feeling of my blood pressure rising hit me. How was it possible to go from the girl who couldn’t remember, to the girl that fought me, to the girl that tried to kill me, to my tester? How?

“Fine,” I seethed. I went over to the balcony and snatched her up from the floor. I slung her over my shoulder while she kicked violently as she tried to get out of my grip.

I had visions of throwing her on the pit and lighting her on fire alive dancing in my head. It would be amazing to watch her burn in front of me for her defiance. I wouldn’t let her die of course, but it would serve its purpose and no other man in the world would want her.

No other man but me. I’ll always want Riley and if this is how I have to keep her then so be it.

I was trying to punch the code into the front door but my thoughts were distracting me. Why would I always want Riley? Once I finally got the door open it suddenly hit me; because of the way she looked at me in the bookstore. How timid she was and how embarrassed that she ran into me. How desperately she wanted to get away from me, made her innocence seem so much more attractive. It was because she called me when her grandmother died. She called me for comfort and I took her to destroy her and then dispose of her. Like the others, except I think that she had fallen in love with me sometime through all of this and that’s what haunted my dreams, what kept me from killing her. That she loves me.

With a shaky hand I opened the door and drop her on the front step. She looks up at me with hurt eyes, not physically hurt mind you, emotionally and I know now that I can’t keep her. I can’t let her stay here with me ... I can’t.

“Goodbye Riley.”

I shut the door in her face and slump to the floor as I hear the sound of her bare feet slapping the pavement becoming ever so faint as she runs away screaming for help.





Twenty One


Three months later

I was sitting in the car near King Edward Park, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. I had been in a rut the past few months not having taken a new captive and I wanted one desperately. The problem was that I was no longer doing this alone.

“That one?”

I glanced over and followed Riley’s gaze. (In case you’re wondering what happened. When she ran away screaming for help it was because she was worried that I was going to kill myself. A neighbor from the next block came over, checked on me, and returned Riley into my home. It was the damndest, weirdest thing that had ever happened to me.)

“Not a virgin. I can tell by the way she walks,” I said dismissively. Riley sighed and leaned back in her seat.

I smiled at her. She had changed a lot in the year that I had her. Specifically more in the last three months. They were the craziest, wildest, most amazing three months of my life. Riley, by fighting to get back into the house, had broken me as much as I had broken her and now I could honestly say that we were equals. I couldn’t say that I loved her, but I knew that we would never leave each other because our bond was strong now.

But I had yet still to ask her to draw a blade across me.

“You’re wrong,” she said breaking into my thoughts. “Look at her again. Her hair color, the piercings, it’s all a façade. Look at the way she handles herself. It reminds me of me a few years ago.”

“If you want her then go get her,” I replied nodding toward the girl with wild purple hair.

“What?” she asked with wide eyes. “I thought that’s why you were here.”

I shook my head and grinned, “No, I’m here to make sure that I know who the captive is. That way I know who to approach tonight at The Brewery. The baiting is your job. Now go get her attention,” I said leaning past her and pushing her door open.

Riley got nervously out of the car and pushed her hair behind her ears. I had come to learn that was something she did when she was thinking something through. I reached over and playfully slapped her ass. When she squealed and turned to look at me, I nodded at the girl again and she sighed. With a nod, she straightened her shoulders and went over to sit on the bench where the girl was now at.

I leaned back in the seat and put an arm around the back of her seat, watching them carefully. I hadn’t told Riley what to say or how to engage the girl because I wanted to be sure that she could do this knowing full well what the outcome would be. It was our first “hunt” together and I wanted her to convince me that this still wasn’t a ruse somehow.

After what seemed like years Riley, finally engaged Purple in conversation. They were talking about her hair which was made obvious by the fact that Riley leaned over to touch it and the girl was smiling widely and nodding. A half an hour passed while they sat there chatting on the bench and I was suddenly reminded why I preferred captives to companions; women were so damn chatty when they were put together.