Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
But he will and he does. Lawrence steps aside and Bone Saw crosses the room in three strides and then drags the blade across his neck. He goes deep enoughso deep I see the bone when he steps to the side and the man crumples to the floor, his eyes as wide as saucers. Blood sprays from the wound, almost like in a fucking Quentin Tarantino movie.
“We won’t tolerate sloppiness and impetuousness in this organization any longer, Senator. Sorry you had to learn the hard way.” I watch the light in his eyes go out as he collapses into a bloody heap of flesh on the floor. “I’ll send some others to help you take care of these two,” he says to Bone Saw. “It doesn’t look like your friend is much for heavy lifting.”
“What’d you think?” Bone Saw asks. It’s hours later when we’re finally back in the car, leaving the complex.
“I didn’t like it,” I tell him, pulling off my mask.
“What specifically didn’t you like?”
“I liked it when you slit that man’s throathe deserved it. And I liked the blood. But I didn’t like what happened to the girls; I know I wouldn’t like however they ended up there, and I didn’t like putting them in barrels after they were drained. I don’t want to play this game again.”
“Well, that’s too bad. I told youI need you to play it one more time.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’d you call them? The girl with the cake and her sugar daddy?”
“I don’t feel like it,” I say. “I don’t just walk around killing people. I’m not ”
“Not what?”
Not a murderer? Not a serial killer? Not a bad person?
That ship has sailed.
“I’m not like you.”
“The stakes are high for you,” he says.
“Why? Are you going to kill me?”
“No,” he says. He pulls his phone from his pocket and punches at the screen.
“Hasn’t anyone ever warned you about the dangers of texting and driving?” I ask. “You’re going over one hundred miles per hour.”
“Shut up, Teagan,” he says, his tone harsher than usual. When he passes me the phone, River and Hazel are on the screen, cuddled up under a blanket on that same sofa I sat on days ago, a bowl of popcorn between them.
“What is this?” I ask.
“You say you’re still human, Teagan. That means you can be controlled. We know about their plan to leave; they’re going in two days. If you do what I tell you to do, we’ll let them go. We don’t need them. If you don’t, I’ll make you watch me put them in a barrel.”
Tears well in my eyes as I watch them together. Together and loved. They look happy, unlike me.
I guess I made the right decision by leaving them alone. I was always going to get them killed.
I watch for a few seconds more, and when I can’t take it anymore, I set the phone down, curl my knees into my body, and lean against the window.
Bone Saw turns down the old road I know will lead to that compound he took me to last weekend.
“I don’t like this house,” I tell him. “I want to go home.”
“Too bad.”
“Why do you need my help?” I ask. “I mean look at me and look at you.”
“Warren is a paranoid fucker, and for good reason. We don’t think we have a lot of time, and they won’t see you coming.”
“Why not just kill him tonight then?”
“Outside of his home, he’s started wearing a heart monitor that would ping his location to associates if it stopped, as well as send the contents of his hard drive to the FBI.”
“Do I have to kill the girl, too?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I ask as he pulls into the garage.
“You don’t get to ask why,” he says, climbing out of the car. “But if it makes you feel better, she’s a lure.”
“A lure for what?”
“Lost girls like you. Younger, usually. Girls like the ones you saw dead tonight.”
“I need a drink,” I say as I follow him up the staircase. “Surely, you have alcohol in your shitty hideout. I need a knife, too.”
“There’s some vodka in the freezer,” he says. “And why do you need a knife?”
“So I can free my fucking tits,” I tell him. I shrug off the hoodie, leaving me in the black turtle neck. “I told you this shit hurts.”
“Turn around,” he says when we step through the door.
He lifts the back of my shirt and slices the binding down the center of my back.
“Ow. You cut me, you dick.”
“You’ll live,” he says.
But fuckI can breathe again.
I pull off the rest of the binding, letting it fall to the floor, then open the freezer and dig the vodka out of the ice dispenser. I hoist myself onto the counter, pop the top, and take a swig. Bone Saw makes his way to the back wall and begins thumbing through a collection of records. I wonder if they’re actually his in this place that isn’t a home.
“It has a label. Nothing else in this place has a label.”
“Nope,” he says.
“This is the good kind,” I tell him, taking another shot from the bottle. “I don’t know if you’re aware of things like that, but it is. This is the kind Luca fed to me the first time we met.”
“He fed it to you?”
“Mmhmm,” I say, hitting the bottle hard this time. “He fed me, he clothed me. He told me to open my mouth and called me a good girl. He kept the bottle from that night, too, with my lipstick stain on the rim. He was so good to me in his own way, which was the right way for me.”
“You think I want to hear this shit?” he asks. He stops in front of a record player on the other side of the room, changes out the record, and pushes play. Classical music fills the space again.
“I don’t think you really care what I say either way, Bone Saw, so I might as well say whatever I want.” I take another pull from the bottle. “Declan liked listening to my voice. I miss his voice, too. He he wouldn’t have wanted this for me.”
“He was a part of this,” he says. He drops down onto the dark grey leather couch and props his feet on the coffee table.
“No. He thought that life and death were equally beautiful, but there was nothing beautiful about the lives or deaths I saw tonight. Declan wouldn’t want to be a part of that. And he wanted me to be soft and sweet,” I say sadly. “I was for him.”
“I’ve watched both De Rossis stab girls on tables just like that. And Declan left you,” Bone Saw says. “Shut the door hurry! That’s what he said when he climbed onto the plane.”
It hits me like a punch to the gut. Tears well in my eyes again.
“I hate you,” I say through clenched teeth.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.