Slice (The Elledge Family #1) (6 page)

“I like this.” Lucas whispered into my ear. His lips traced my earlobe. He swung me out gracefully and then pulled me back to him and I was Cinderella for a moment in time. We were face to face and our lips were less than an inch from touching. He gently pulled my face up to his and smiled. “Can I kiss you?”

“I would be offended if you didn’t.” I say quietly.

Lucas bent down and lightly kissed my lips. I could smell him even better now. My eyes were closed and breathing was slow. I didn’t want his soft lips to leave mine. This was real. It wasn’t forced or fake. It was sincere emotion. His hand rubbed my cheek as he kissed me again and there was a fire that ignited inside of me. I feared once it started, it would not stop. I stepped back slowly as our lips parted. “Cypress…”

“Lucas,” I answered.

“I think we should change the song.” He nodded. He stared at me as I spun lightly in the room.

“I like Norah Jones…” The song had lapsed over in my playlist. The light jazz piano of
Come Away with Me
bled through the speakers.

Lucas grabbed my hands and danced with me. We swayed off tempo laughing and our eyes could not leave one another. It was like a damn movie. I wanted this to be my forever and I had met him a week ago.

“Your playlist is like a walk through heaven.” Lucas added. “Could I have it?”

“I could definitely make you a CD.”

“Perfect, I have a road trip in the morning. I have to go a state over to see an old friend. I would love to listen to it on the trip over.”

“I’ll make sure I get you one before you leave. I could make it when you drop me off?”

“Perfect plan ma’am…” He sat down on the plush couch and exhaled. “Glad it’s the weekend. I could do every weekend with you. Plans for next Saturday?”

“None,” I looked at his couch. God, I missed the luxury of just sitting on a couch. “Well, actually I could use a partner and a good eye to couch shop with me. I like this couch and I miss my television in the living room.”

“It’s a date.” Lucas touched my hand and pulled me closer to him.

Asher

He had really taken a liking to this girl. They had spent the entire week together and there were some real emotions pouring out of this guy that were unparalleled. She was lucky. She could be his saving grace.

Following them the entire day had become a bore. Whitney and I had plans for the evening and for once in six days I was not thinking about this irksome dissertation. I was thinking about how it would feel to have Whitney under me and screaming my name. It was destined to happen. She had invited me over to her house for dinner and a movie, but I had already eaten. So she gobbled down her spaghetti while I sipped on the wine and got lost in the Jurassic Park movie. We used to be obsessed with the movie when we were younger.

“Asher,” she said from the kitchen

“Yes, ma’am, “I sat the glass down and turned towards her washing the dishes. “Why in the hell did you come here for your major?”

“Close to my Case Study.” I said.

“What are you studying?”

“More like whom,” I corrected her. “There are some cases here that I am following and documenting about. I have to inconspicuous. One particular case I have been studying since I was in high school. My father helped me formulate the correct research and materials.”

“I never met your father,” she said.

“He lives in Australia.”
      

“Right, I forgot you were foreign,” she poured her another glass of wine. “So you came here to stalk someone?”

“Study someone,” I rolled my eyes. “I have been working it for so long that I could not let it finish without me.”

“What's the subject?”

“The theory of real Psychopath.”

“We have a serial killer here.”

“No, not all serial killers are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are killer. You cannot think closed mindlessly when dealing with psychology.” I had overheard Lucas saying that there was something he had to do out of town tomorrow and I had a feeling it had something to do with his ex-Summer Randy. She was a porn star now and he hated that the most. His journals, he frequently left open on the library tables displayed her name written everywhere. I couldn't decide what to do with the freedom that was before me. I could follow him and watch the kill or I could raid his apartment. Who knew when he would strike again. He waited exactly seven months to attack Summer and that must have been torture for him.

Whitney looked at me. “We’ll be careful.” There was no telling what she had said before. I really didn't know or care at the moment.

“I will be. I am happy I ran into you on campus Whit. You look really nice and you still can cook.”

“Shut up.” She chuckled.

“I am serious,” I pulled her in my lap. “I remember our first kiss.”

“You mean when I had my friends hold you down in the dollhouse of the backyard.”

“Yes, that was amazing. Three women, one kiss. It was magical.”

“Oh fuck you.” She spits playfully.

“Yeah, still a little feisty. Very attractive,” I rubbed her legs and she stood up. “Well, dinner was great.”

“It was thanking you.”

“I'm sorry… I want to fuck you.” She smiled. “I have a boyfriend about three hours away and up until seeing you I was sure that I could refrain from being that girl who fucks around. And so for the sake of my blooming relationship… I have to kick you out.”

I dropped my head. Shit, she was taken. “We don't have to fuck.” I smiled. “Though I like that you can be filthy mouthed. Could I stay and watch Jurassic Park with a childhood friend. You can have one end of the couch and I can have the other?”

“Sure,” She smiled. 

This was a disaster. We watched the movie as we have done as kids. We talked to the screen, screamed like babies and all while not touching. My dick was rather disappointed and I couldn't blame him. We had plans for this night and it seemed to not be happening.

She fell asleep before the end and I took my leave. I had decided it was best to watch the kill. I kissed her lightly on the forehead and took my leave. I wanted to beat him there so he would not think he had a tail. Granted, he was so elusive with his plans and his murders there would be no reason to tail him.

Lucas

Summer. Fuck you summer. Yeah, there is some angst there, summer was a bitch and everyone seemed to love her. They dressed up for her, they changed who they were for her and waited in anticipation for her all year long. And when she finally came there was this relief that went after them like she wasn’t going to make it. People planned for months in advance just to enjoy her; she was not my friend, at least not any longer. I fucking hate Summer. She was this bitch that taunted me behind the cameras and hated me, she burned me. And it was her turn to suffer, I will kill Summer.

I sound crazy, I know this already. I never say any of this out loud. People would have me bloody committed. This banter and rant continued in my head almost constantly until I was able to get rid of the issue and right now Summer was the issue. She lived out of town for the most part and at one point in our life we had been this amazing couple. The nights were filled with poems and dragon flies next to the pond by her house. They were never filled with cameras and people chasing her all around the damn place. It’s why things have got to stop. Summer had to die.

The movie industry had been good to her. But it was not the movies that she had dreamed of. Real movie auditions didn’t happen on a couch and yeah I understand that was how she made her money, but now she was the slut that every high school watched when his mom was gone and she was the bitch that allowed me to look stupid. I wanted to be with her more than she would ever know and now what we had is ruined by a slew of other men and that was not right. I would finish it tonight. It was not my first kill. Yeah, I know not exactly comforting. People were imbeciles that had no control over their fucking emotions.

The anticipation for a kill for me was almost better than the kill. The thought of hearing the blade slice her skin was like a high but it was not the real thing. I wanted the real thing. She was dead tonight. She was back in town for Summer, as usual. She was like a kid still coming home for mom and dad who secretly were so ashamed of her that they told everyone who didn’t know she was an independent actress and she was making movies in Europe. They were damned liars.

I sat in the car a few blocks from her home. The music was graciously supplied by Cypress, though it was not my normal type of music I liked it. She was a good girl and was someone I could see myself settling down with and more importantly loving. She was different from Summer, she was pure.

Summer stretched out in her lawn beneath the last of the daylight. Her skin was already a perfect bronzed color but nothing was every good enough for her? Why was she so damned beautiful? I stared at her from my old run down car. It was good for stake outs and it was reliable. I just have an addiction. Right now it was called Summer
. I never felt that I could be normal. My father said that it had happened for generations. He said that even she had to surrender to the darkness.  He had started training me young and finally the first kill m
ade me crave it more. There were forty-two people that have met the same fate that Summer was about to meet.

Summer is the first of a vindictive nature the other forty-two were personal sort of… one guy ran over my dog before Burke… he could have been personal Then there was the woman fired me for no reason and it really pissed me off. I tried not to make too many people connect back to me. I knew that Summer would be a risk. But Fuck it. I would rather see her dead.

Her hair was as red as a fire engine and her eyes were blue. Freckles lightly covered her body and she always wore a smile. I knew the difference between the real and the fake smile. She twitched her eye when she faked a smile and an orgasm. She’d done it once and it was in one of her Glorious-God awful films. It was the last one I watched. She kind of pissed me off with that one. It was when the decision was made for her. She dumped me because I cared about my education too much to satisfy her needs.

It could be easily said she was a sex addict and though some men think it would be nice… it was not. There are other things in life rather than sex. There was poetry and fiction. There was love. Forgive me, though I have my many flaws, some dangerous the others not so much… I was a sucker for romance. I just wanted to be with someone that loved me.

My cell phone vibrated lightly in my pocket.

Cypress
: I hope you drove safe last night =)

I text her back quickly and I could feel the grin across my face. I liked this girl. She needed someone like me to protect her from her exes and Persephone-s of the world. I would fucking kill Persephone if it was not an obvious kill, perhaps I would visit her after the stench of college rubbed off.

I watched Summer for most of the day. She had done the same old same shit. She tweeted and text all damned day. Then finally, when she got bored she put on some clothes and left the house. They owned a cabin out in the woods, five miles out and there was where she would take her last breath.

The cabin was closed off and discreet. It was nice, still had internet connection before I had cut the lines and it would take a miracle for someone to hear the screams. She was meeting her new summer hook up there. She went there like it was a ritual by 6 every day and told her parents, she was reading at the beach. She never strolled back home until about two in the morning. Her cell phone was never answered because she was so consumed with the lust for her new hook up. He wasn’t a good guy either so it made it easier for me to include him in the kill. He’d raped a girl in high school… his kill was not personal, it was well deserved.

I’d planned to take him down first, he was not a tall guy just average and he was not special in bed either. He fucked like he was a frantic virgin and was only good to her because it didn’t take much to get her there. He was an asshole; she was a bitch. It was a match made in heaven. 

The woods were so quiet and secluded it almost made it too good to be true. But I had left the police more to be involved in about 30 minutes out. I hid the car about a half mile from the cabin and started to make my way by foot. I wondered, would they sell the place once they found her dead in it. Most parents would, but her parents seemed a little selfish. I hid out while she greeted the dweeb with a kiss. Her foot was all in the air like she was a teenager in love. The damned slut could act. Summer was about to die.

They stumbled into the cabin barely able to keep their hands off one another and stripped down in less than a few seconds. It helped me. The less they wore, the less mess would be made. No bleeding shirts or smudging on me. No clothing would make it less of a struggle. She dropped to her knees like it was a fucking routine for her as she wrapped her lips around his dick. He threw his head back in ecstasy… in relief. Fucking Summer, I made my way through the front door and tossed their cell phones in the
dishwater. There could be no distractions now.  My heart was racing and there they were fucking on the floor like wild animals. I smiled as her face looked petrified to see me hold the knife so close to her beau, as if she was ever worthy enough to be called one.