Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“Then I think you’re fine without them for a few days.”
Days?
I gesture toward the books on the back wall. “Can I look at your”
“No,” he cuts me off. “Get out.”
I turn and leave the room without another word, but if those are his booksand he’s reading them, so I bet they arethen all of the classical music is probably his, too. And maybe this is more of a home than he’s let on.
And if that’s true, then Fake Luca must be right. Bone Saw is just a person.
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“There are a few places on the body where you can stab someone to ensure they die quicker, or at least make it harder for them to come back at you or call for help. Do you know what they are?”
Bone Saw stayed upstairs in his room for the rest of the day. I spent mine looking through the house, searching for additional evidence of his humanity. When I didn’t find any, I started going through his records for the same thing. But there wasn’t anything with lyricsnothing denoting definitive emotionand when it became clear that was the case, I cracked a few in half for good measure before stuffing them back in their sleeves.
And then he came downstairs, gave me some loose, plain dark clothes to change into, and told me to braid my hair.
“Not really,” I tell him. “The mushy parts? I didn’t go to serial killer college. Or any college at all, actually.”
“Major arteries,” he says, ignoring me. He runs a knife over my neck, stopping at that soft spot just below my pulse. “Carotid ” He traces a line down the base of my throat, past my shoulder blades, stopping just above where Declan’s initial is carved into my chest, and digs the point of the knife in just enough to draw blood. “And subclavian. This one runs across like this. That’s how close he was to killing you, Teagan; there’s no way he didn’t know. Maybe he even wanted to.”
I swallow hard. Maybe he didor maybe he was careful. He did say I was squirming too much.
What’s left on the inside, this mangled version of my former self with no home and no real place to exist, looks the monster in front of me in the eyes and replies, “Well he did it anyway, didn’t he?”
He shrugs. “There’s no going back and getting off the bus now.”
“I wouldn’t go back and get off the bus,” I tell him. “I’d go back and let that girl shoot me with Luca in the bathroom.”
“Get your fucking head on straight, or you’re going to go in there and get yourself in trouble.”
“What’s the worst-case scenario?”
“You hesitate, and they get the best of you. He’ll lock you up and use you for a few days, and then try to sell you to us if he hasn’t figured it out, and then I’ll set you free unless they want you dead.” He moves the knife down to the inside of my thigh. “Femoral artery. It’ll bleed a lot, it’s great for slowing someone down, but it’s also easy to miss. The base of the skull and kidneys are also good places to aim.”
“Is there a point in telling you again that I don’t want to do this?” I ask. “I’m not an assassin. Do you hate me this much?”
“It’s not about you.”
“Well, who is it about then?”
“You got out of bed to play monsters,” he says. “You’ll be okay. Better than okay, even. You don’t get to be normal, Teagan, because you aren’t. But your friends could be or they’re going to kill them and make you watch. They’ll make sure they know it’s because of you before they go, too.”
“They? Not you?”
He shrugs. “Maybe me. I don’t really care either way. It won’t bother me if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But”
“I’m not your friend, Teagan.”
“How do I know you’ll really let them go free?”
“I’ll show you,” he says. “The people running The Order aren’t stupid. They’re powerful, and part of that power is in their ability to exist unnoticed. There are only two reasons they kill outside of ritualsif the person is a threat to the organization or to control someone else. Your friends are scared like they should be, and they’re running and hiding like they should be. The only threat to them is you.”
“I’m not whatever you are. I didn’t sign up for thisI want to go home.”
He laughs. “You think there are sign-ups? When do you think we all signed up? A career fair? They’ll be here in five minutes.”
He puts his fingers in my hair, and I shrug him off. “Don’t touch me.”
“I have to,” he says. “See this?”
He opens his hand and reveals a thin, metal object about six inches in length. There’s a sharp point at one end, and at the other, it comes to a ‘T’ with the horizontal line decorated with jewels.
“It’s sharper than an ice pick. I’m going to hide it inside your braid; it’ll look like a hair clip. That’s what you’ll kill them with. Okay?”
I hold still while he buries it inside of my braid.
“I’ll kill myself before I let them take me.”
“You better fucking not. I’ll kill your parents. I’ll do it personally. Because that will personally piss me off.”
“How can you hate me this much?” I reach inside his hood, moving my hand to the back of his neckto that tiny sliver of exposed skin between his hairline and the neck of his shirt. “You have to like me at least a little bit, right? Why don’t you help me?”
“I am helping you,” he says. “You look cute like this helpless. If we had more time, I’d bend you over this couch and use that braid for leverage while I fill all of your holes with cum.” He runs the braid through his fingers. “Don’t talk to anyone. In fact, I should tape your mouth shut. I’m going to tape your mouth shut.”
Shoving him off of me, I jump up from the couch. “No.”
Rage flashes in his dark eyes, but before he can respond, I hear a phone. He pulls it from his pocket and glances down at the screen. “Let’s go, little monster.”
When we get down to the garage, there’s a van waiting. Two men climb out, one older and the other maybe around thirty and muscular. He’s shorter than Bone Saw and the other man, with a scar running across his face.
“So, all I have to do is drop her off, and my debts are paid?” the older man asks Bone Saw. “That’s it? I’m free to go.”
Bone Saw nods once.
“Why her?”
“That’s none of your concern,” he says. “But if this goes wrong, you and your entire family will pay for it.”
“Open the back,” the older man tells the younger one.
“She’s too clean,” the younger man says. “She doesn’t look the part.”
He brings back his fist and in a millisecond, it connects with my face. I fall into Bone Saw, my eye throbbing and nose gushing blood.
“What the fuck!?” I scream.
“That’s better,” the man says.
But when he goes to grab my arm, I reach behind me and pull the knife disguised as a hairpin from my braid and, in one smooth motion, drag it across his neck. The old man screams as he watches the younger one crumple to the ground, grasping at his throat, his body twitching in a pool of blood until he stops moving.
“Wow. You’re rightthat is sharp.”
“What the hell was that?” the old man screams. “She just killed my bodyguard!”
“He had poor instincts,” Bone Saw says. “He should have known what he was looking at. I was going to kill him when you were finished anyway.”
I look the old man in the eye when I lick the blade clean. “Do I look the part now?” I ask.
Bone Saw takes the blade from me and cleans it on his pants before putting it back in my hair. “I’ll put her in the back,” he says. “And I’ll be watching you the whole time.”
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.