Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
He’s upset. Or hungover. Probably both.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Hazel asks him as he pulls out the chair beside her. She kisses him on the cheek, then massages the nape of his neck.
“I’m fine,” he grumbles.
“Oh shit, did you guys see this?” Brady says, looking up from his phone. “One of the security guards from last night overdosed in the alley behind the venue.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
“Oh shit, really?” Hazel takes the phone from him. “I don’t even remember seeing this guy.”
“Yeah, probably because he was fucking dead, Haze.”
She turns the phone, showing us the picture. And it’s himthe guy who grabbed me.
“Yeah, I remember that guy,” Luca says. “Didn’t we run into him before the show, Declan? He was acting like a douchebag.”
“Yep. Touching things that don’t belong to him,” Declan says.
“Oh, was he going through your stuff?” River asks.
“Something like that,” Declan replies. His eyes pin me in place while he sips his coffee.
“I feel bad for the family, though,” Hazel says. “The poor people swear he wasn’t even a drug user. Aww, he was married, too.”
Did he do this? Did he fucking kill this guy? Is this my fault again?
“Are you okay, Teagan?” Declan asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m okay.”
“Good,” he says. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
Luca leans in and whispers in my ear, “Black licorice, you need to stop hurting his feelings.” He laughs and kisses me on the neck.
Ignoring him, I go back to eating my breakfast.
But I’m aware that Declan doesn’t eat. He sips his coffee and watches me the entire time.
Afterward, while we’re outside waiting for the bus, Declan comes up behind me. Even though I feel him standing there before he reaches out, lightly brushing my neck with his fingertips, I still jump.
“Why do you do that?” he asks. “Hmm?”
“You surprised me,” I lie.
Pressing his body against my back, he lightly places one hand over my throat and wraps the other arm around the front of me. I don’t breathe.
“What do I have to do to make you happy, Teagan?” he asks. “Hmm? Tell me, and I’ll do it. Because for some reason, you can’t even stand to sleep next to me”
“That’s not true, I”
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t lie. You can’t even stand to sleep next to me, but I’d kill for you just to have you look at me the way you look at him. If you need me to be a fucking psychopath, I already am one. If you want me to show you, I will.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean. Let me in, Teagan.” I feel his lips against my earlobe, and I stop breathing. “Tell me what to do. Do I need to force you to your knees in the woods and face fuck you into submission? Is that the only thing that works? Or did you like it when I beat your little ass raw? If you want it again, you can ask for it; I’ll do it. Just tell me what to do.”
The bus pulls up, stopping in front of us, and I turn to face him. “I don’t ”
“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to die ”
I wait a few seconds, and then, when he only stares back at me, confused, silent, I turn and move toward the bus, pulling my suitcase behind me. Once onboard, I retreat to the bathroom, locking the door behind me, and then I lean over the sink and cry for the second time in my adult life, and I don’t even know what I’m crying for.
The bus has been moving for a while when I finally emerge. River and Hazel are sleepingor trying to sleep at leastin the bed. I walk back into the main cabin, and Luca pulls me into his lap.
I don’t see Declan.
Rhett and Luca argue about college basketball, and while I’m grateful he’s distracted and doesn’t notice I’m upset, I still can’t relax.
Eventually, I get up and head to the upper level. It’s easy to find Declan lying on a bed facing the wall with a book open in front of him. If he knows I’m thereand I can’t imagine that he doesn’the doesn’t react.
I climb onto the bed and lie beside him, my chest to his back, and wrap my arm around him.
“I liked sleeping next to you.”
“You left,” he says.
“I’m afraid of you,” I tell him.
“I can see that.”
It’s like he’s waiting for something else, and I’m not sure what I can give him.
“I don’t understand you. That’s the truth.”
He turns and faces me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his chest. “Well, I’m like you, Teagan. I was born like this. There’s nothing else to understand.”
I’m not sure what he means by that, but I don’t ask. There’s another question on the tip of my tongue.
“Did you kill him?” I whisper into his chest.
“Yes,” he says, then kisses the top of my head. “I was angry, and it was impulsive, and that’s not me. It wasn’t bloody, it wasn’t even that satisfying. I shouldn’t have done it, but I wanted to get your attention. Did it work?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he says. “But that doesn’t scare you, does it, Teagan? I know about youabout your origin story.”
“You mean what I told Luca?”
He nods. “And the parts you didn’t. I know your boyfriend killed his girlfriend in high school.”
“It was a car accident.”
“It was intentional. An if-I-can’t-have-you-no-one-can kind of thing. Right?”
I shrug.
“And what about the couple in the cabin? Did you help him kill them, or did you just watch?”
“Neither. I was in the hallway. I didn’t watch.”
“But you fucked him afterward? Right?”
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.