5. Knox

CHAPTER FIVE

KNOX

I woke alone, still laying on the couch, wearing nothing but my shirt and socks, a blanket tugged over me.

So... had the whole disaster been some sort of bizarre fever dream from an illness I hadn’t realized I had? A hallucination brought on by not enough food and sleep for weeks on end?

The single piece of paper sitting on my chest said otherwise. It felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, like I couldn’t move from my spot unless I picked it up and read it first. What the hell was that?

Without another choice, and coming up short of breath the longer I resisted reading the damned thing, I picked it up. The handwriting was looping and perfect, old fashioned, like someone had spent years making it just so, almost more like art than writing.

Knox darling,

As I told you last night, take the money you need from the safe and handle the matter of your sister, then return. I expect you to be inside the house tonight when I rise. Do not force me to come looking for you.

If you’re a good boy, your sister can have whatever she needs and wants, but our deal stands.

You are mine.

Emmanuel

What the actual fuck.

The whole thing had happened. Vampires. Vampires existed, and I’d accidentally killed one. And the other had... pushed me to suck his cock, and then returned the favor, right there on the couch. It left me in sort of the same situation Mutt was trying to put Pidge in, sucking cock to repay a debt, but somehow, it at least felt less awful when it was me. Also, it turned out I kind of liked sucking cock—at least, that one.

I sat up, too fast, and went dizzy.

Blood. He’d sucked my blood. So much blood.

I’d been convinced he was going to kill me instead of giving me a fucking mind-blowing orgasm like he had, but then he’d stopped, and gone back to my cock while I had still been drifting on the strangely pleasant haze of blood loss.

Was that what it felt like, when Pigeon did whatever crap Mutt had hooked her on? If so, no wonder she’d gotten addicted.

Not that I’d ever blamed her. We’d had too shitty a childhood for me to begrudge her any ounce of joy she could squeeze out of life. Life was fucking hard.

Just, I thought it was worth it to try to survive, and being a drug addict was no way to do that. I couldn’t blame Pidge for being on that edge of giving up, though. I had my moments sometimes, late at night, wondering if there really was any chance things would get better, or if all life was a downward spiral from birth to death getting worse and worse as you went, like a nightmare rollercoaster that crashed at the end of the ride. Maybe all the happy rich people on television and in magazines were fictional.

Except vampires were real, so maybe nothing was fictional.

Maybe I didn’t know a fucking thing. But... take the money you need from the safe .

Take it. Just like that, he’d ordered me to take the money. Something unlocked in my chest at the very thought, like I was absolved of wrongdoing. Like there was no chance I’d go back to prison.

You know, other than for accidentally killing his mother.

I looked to the fireplace, and there wasn’t a single sign that she’d ever been there. Not a scrap of satin or an ash astray. Well, no, there was a little dent in the mesh grate she’d knocked out of place when she’d fallen, and I didn’t think that had been there before, but that was it. A tiny indentation to indicate the death of a whole person.

A person I’d killed.

Or had I? I mean, if she’d been a vampire, she’d already been dead, hadn’t she?

No, that was justification. I wanted it to be okay, so I was telling myself that her life didn’t matter. Even if she’d been terrible, I hadn’t had a right to kill her.

On the other hand, she’d probably intended to kill me, and she didn’t have that right either. If it came down to me or her, I wasn’t sorry I’d made that decision.

I thought back to Emmanuel and his reaction to her death. He hadn’t been an emotionless automaton, but he hadn’t seemed to muster any emotion for his mother’s death. Not sorry or sad or angry, he’d just... stared. And then had sex with me right there in the room with her body.

Yeah, killing her didn’t make me a monster, I didn’t think.

On the other hand, I didn’t much want to come back after I took care of Pidge. I didn’t ever want to see this house again.

Searing pain ripped through my guts, and I tumbled off the couch and onto the patterned rug, clutching my belly.

Do not force me to come looking for you.

It was all I could think. Emmanuel had told me to return. Return. It hadn’t been a request. I was to return. I had to do as my... my master said.

Fuck.

What was this?

I was struck with the sudden image of the scrawny little weirdo who ate flies in the Dracula movie. Renny or something. The vampire told him what to do, and he giggled like a lunatic and did it.

Jesus, was that me?

It was. That was me. The vampire had me in his thrall, or whatever they called it.

Still lying on the rug, I thudded my forehead against the floor repeatedly, somehow dissatisfied when the rug cushioned it and it didn’t hurt at all. Nightmare rollercoaster, I reminded myself. Nothing would ever get better, only worse and worse, faster and scarier and more vomit-inducing, until I reached the end and hit the wall head-on, maybe literally.

I was the creep in Dracula, and sooner or later, I’d end up eating flies. Tying up pretty girls and leaving them to be ravished and devoured by Emmanuel, then getting rid of their bodies.

Instantly, a dozen places in the city I could dump a body came to mind, because of course they did. I was that guy. Not that I’d ever killed a person before last night, but hell, I’d been in prison. How big a leap was it from house robber to killer?

Not as big as I’d believed, apparently.

Almost mechanically, I dragged myself to my feet and went to the safe.

Take the money you need from the safe and handle the matter of your sister, he’d said in the letter. Handle the matter. What exactly did it mean? Pay off her debts? Send her to Hawaii? Go with her and never ever—okay, no, not that. I gasped, clutching my aching belly.

Rehab. I could send her to rehab. Not so much as a twinge at that. I could do anything for Pidge, it seemed, so long as I didn’t intend to slip out and never return.

I took the money for Mutt, then more. I’d get her squared away. Pay off Mutt and tell him to stay the fuck away from my sister from now on, or... fucking tempting to tell him “or else my new boss will literally eat you, because that’s how he fucking rolls.” Paint Emmanuel like some kind of Hannibal Lecter guy, and it wasn’t as far off as I might have liked.

My thigh didn’t hurt at all where he’d bitten me, completely healed over, but I hadn’t forgotten how it felt. To have him drawing off my lifeblood, and wonder if he was going to kill me.

A shiver shot through me, and sick enough, my cock hardened at the memory.

Jesus, I was one screwed up son of a bitch. Probably just as well, since I was also screwed.