Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 882(@200wpm)___ 705(@250wpm)___ 588(@300wpm)
But that’s not just it.
I raise my hands and show some of the blood still caked on there. Guess that shower didn’t work out after all, thanks to Nathan.
“Look at me. This is who I am. A natural born killer.”
Kai lowers his eyes at me, his green eye smoldering with desire. “I am looking at you.”
“We see you for who you are,” Milo says as he gets up from the chair.
I shake my head. “No. None of you truly know me.”
“Then let us get to know you,” Nathan says, approaching too.
I take a step back. “You don’t fucking understand. I don’t just kill for fun. I don’t kill like you guys. I kill to—”
“Satiate the hunger inside you,” Kai interjects. When my eyes widen, he adds, “Yeah, I see the way you look at your victims.” He curls my still bloodied hair around his finger. “I see how you revel in the power and enjoy the taste of their blood.”
I shudder with both fear and delight. My secret is now out in the open for them to use whenever they feel like it. We will never, ever be equals as long as they hold that power over me.
A hint of a smile tugs at his lips. “I told you, I’m not afraid of you.”
I look down at the floor, but my own bloodied footprints make it hard to stay sane now that I’ve come down from the high of all those killings. I have only ever killed one or two people in a single night, but this? This was a murder spree, and it felt so fucking riveting that I was almost afraid I’d be unable to stop.
I shiver in place, and when Nathan touches my arm, I pull back. “Don’t.”
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he asks.
I look at my hands, but they’re becoming blurrier by the second, the image of a gun appearing in my mind’s eye. It feels like I’m dreaming. Everywhere I go, I see blood—red stains on the wall, on the floor, on the bed. I’m unsteady on my feet as I see two images merge into one, the here and now mixing with the past as the blanket on the bed rises, the room darkening as two figures move in the bed. Groans and cries emanate from down below, and a single tear rolls down my cheeks.
Because when I look at my hands, I see a gun.
A gun that doesn’t belong to me.
A gun I was never supposed to take.
“Lana!”
Hands shake me until I finally realize I’m not asleep or dreaming. Kai’s firm hands pull me back into the now, and I stare up into his green eye, which flicks from side to side to decipher what’s going on.
They don’t know the horrors that lie awake inside me, devouring my very soul.
“Tell me what you saw,” Kai barks, staring down at me.
How does he know? Was I that out of it?
I swallow away the lump in my throat.
If I tell him, I’ll have exposed my last secret. Free for them to use against me.
But if I don’t … I don’t know how much longer I can survive.
“I saw my mother,” I mutter. “She was in that bed, covered in blood.”
I look at Nathan’s bed, but it’s completely normal now. There’s no one in there, not even a bump.
“Your mother …” Milo mutters as he comes close too. “Is that why you’ve been killing people?”
My eyes dart to his, and I feel like my world is spinning out of control.
“Please tell us, kitty,” Kai says, tipping up my chin. “We want to understand you.”
A single tear rolls down my cheek. “My mother … assaulted my brother when we were younger. Used him in the middle of the night for months on end.” The words stream out of me like an endless river washing away my sins as I stare into his emerald eye. “And I was the one who discovered it. I told my father, and he killed her.”
Nathan’s face contorts with disgust while Milo’s brows furrow as he slowly shakes his head. But Kai remains focused on me and my story so I can say the words I have been dying to say.
“My mother was a monster,” I say through gritted teeth. “And that monster visits my nightmares every single goddamn night of my life because I was the one who caught her.” I’m screaming now, but I don’t care. I need to let this go. “Because I was the one who told my father. I’m the reason she died. The reason behind my father’s misery.”
Tears pour down my cheeks, but I don’t care anymore. It’s out now, along with all the emotions I’ve kept bottled up for so long. And if they use this secret to destroy me, then so be it.
Kai
Out of all the reasons I could come up with as to why Lana Rivera was such a ruthless killer, this was the least expected.