Deadly (3 page)

His heavy steps pound towards me, making me flinch. I wasn’t afraid of him… he would never hurt me, but I didn’t expect him to move towards me. My hand was still down my panties and the wetness only grew with each step he took.

Snatching my hand from my panties and holding me tightly at the wrist causing a smirk to tilt my own lips, his deep voice is profound and penetrating. “There’s no room for guilt here Cereus, it’s a weakness. You need to own your demon, don’t let it own you. Do you not see how incredible you are? There’s no one you should blame, you should own what you took and marvel at the fact you could.” Raising my hand up to his face he inhales my fingers still slick with my scent. “I know who I am, what I am and what you are,” he breathes.

“What am I?” I ask on a shaky breath before he can flee.

“You’re mine, and I won’t let anyone take you from me.”

I’m yours always.

PRESENT DAY

Life eventually comes down to the sound of the slowing beats of your own heart. Thump… Thump…Thump.

Men like me, we were not created for this world, it’s too small, too many rules, restrictions… humanity, and yet here I am, engulfed with the one emotion I never thought I was capable of feeling. Maybe I’m still not, maybe what I feel for Cereus is only a fraction of what others feel when it comes to love but it was powerful, and overruling everything I wanted for us.

Be free and explore the nature of the beast inside was always what I thought we should be doing, but the more we unleashed the more dangerous and threatening for us the world became.

Cereus was sloppy and detached from her psyche when she let the beast free so she wouldn’t remember ever doing it. Taking away guilt and consequence for herself, she would create imaginary friends who helped her cope and deal with what she is, but they were fading now and the more lucid she became, the more she craved the beast’s persona, and the more a danger to herself, to us she became.

This was a problem and soon we were having to move on, from place to place at a faster rate and change our identities again.

My sweet, precious Cereus was getting out of control, and control was never something I ever wanted to constrict her with. Giving her a rein was as bad as putting a noose around her pretty, delicate neck - or my own come to think of it.

I needed another outlet for her, a way for her to express the need and fill it without the mess to clean up afterwards, so a few months ago I introduced her to a fetish club, one for the truly depraved, the darker clubs only the elite sick fucks know about and gain access to. It was also for the wealthy, it held a hefty fine if you went too far in a scene but cleaned up any mess or accidents that happened and that’s where she met Georgina … the woman laying next to me.

FOUR MONTHS AGO

Three years and I was still in awe of my sweet Cereus. She was the epitome of beauty, and lurking under all that exquisiteness was a dark monster consuming her at every opportunity. One connected with my own, craving blood, sin and debauchery.

A real smile touches my lips as I watch her sketch frantically on the pad. She was still addicted to drawing my image. What she gained from them I don’t know. She had me now, had for three years and nothing would ever change that, not even death.

I’d learned a lot in my eighteen years at Blue Water Institution. Patience was one, and how to quell those impulse urges, unlike my Cereus. Damn if someone looked at her wrong I would be reading about them in the news or finding them myself and yet she still wouldn’t own the kill. Her brain struggled to contain the knowledge she wouldn’t face, it taunted her in her sleeping hours, and even some of her waking hours. I was losing her to daydreams more and more often.

“It’s too hot,” a child complains to her mother as they pass us.

She was right, it was ridiculous.

We’d been sitting outside this restaurant for an age and still hadn’t been served our drinks. I was beginning to debate slitting the throat of the old hag on the table closest to us just so I could get my lips around the glass of water she’s drinking.

I didn’t like the heat; it made everyone clumsy, tired and sweaty and me a little reckless. My eyes draw to a fat fuck scoffing down his steak like it’s a McDonald’s hamburger. No one savored anything these days; I would savor gutting him like a fish, a big overweight fish. Urgh, I was irritable.

I hated being around people, it brought out the killer in me and when we were surrounded by people, also known as witnesses, that was never a good combo. I only brought Cereus places to eat because she didn’t like to cook and I hated cooking when it was so fucking hot, we could fry our food on the hood of the car - it would cook quicker than they take here.

My eyes dart from place to place, a woman in a bikini she had no business being in was running, letting it all hang out for the world to see. Why should my eyes be subjected to this?

Everyone wore hardly anything whenever the sun would shine, like it was acceptable to put our eyes through the painful visual of saggy ass flaps hanging from bikini bottoms and those fake round balls people called tits these days on nearly every woman, even the old decrepit ones. Why did women think that was attractive? And the men were worse. Any sign of sun and they strip off like they’re modeling the next summer catalogue addition for Speedo. Fuck they repulsed me.

“The sun is too bright,” Cereus pipes up, wiping her hand across her brow to collect the small beads of sweat there. I pick up my sunglasses and place them in front of her. Her smile of thanks makes my stomach clench. She places them on, resting them on the bridge of her nose and goes back to sketching.

“You know if the sun were the size of a white blood cell then the Milky Way would be the size of the United States.”

“Hmmm,” She murmurs, completely lost to her art.

“Here’s your drinks,” the waitress interrupts by narrating her actions. She’s preoccupied and looking at a couple a few tables over with longing.

A jealous daydreamer...pathetic.

Cereus’ gasp notifies her to the fact she spilt Cereus’ drink over the table and into her lap. Clumsy fucking waitresses.

“You want another?”

What kind of response is that? We waited forever to get these and she spills Cereus’ all over the fucking place. My eyes dart to the drawing becoming swallowed by the water. The chalk smears the paper, distorting the image. Oh this isn’t going to end well for her.

The water causes the paper to thin and as Cereus rushes to save it, it tears. “You fucking idiot!” Cereus growls, tightening her hand around the pencil.

“It was an accident.” The waitress huffs and turns to leave. I grab her wrist.

“Clean up your fucking mess, and apologize, you incompetent bitch.”

Her eyes widen and drop to my hand tightening around her wrist. “I’ll just grab a cloth,” she mutters but Cereus is already pinning her with a glare I wouldn’t like to be on the end of.

I release her wrist and she scurries off.

“I see Janet,” Cereus pipes up and stands.

“Who’s Janet?”

Another imaginary friend. The waitress is about to die.

“She’s someone I met yesterday. I’ll be right back.”

The patrol car sitting thirty feet away with two officers inside have me halting her around the waist. “I don’t like the food here, let’s go somewhere else.”

“After I see Janet.”

“No, now. Let’s get something to take back with us and then you can get ready for tonight.”

Looking down at her shorts and tee her eyes find mine. “You want me to change?”

“Not particularly, I don’t care what you wear.” She knows I don’t and the fact she doesn’t care what she wears is just another thing that sets her worlds apart from all these ants.

“I want strawberries,” she blurts.

“What?”

“You said let’s get something to take home, I want strawberries.” She grins, linking her arm with mine and tugging me in the direction of the small market place a few blocks down.

“You know a strawberry isn’t actually a berry,” I tell her.

“I like its color.”

Of course she did.

“So where are we going later?” she asks.

“A club called Lair.”