16. Rae

I've got a surprise for you,the note reads.

There's no signature attached to it, but I know who it's from. I clutch the paper in my hands, squeezing it until it crinkles. It's like I can feel Crave there, writing it.

A surprise from Crave can be anything. I don't know him well enough to know what kind of gifts he would surprise someone with.

"A surprise isn't a gift," I say to myself, but as I look up at the Galloway House, the excitement burrows inside of me. I can't ignore it. Still, I clutch my purse to me, comforted by the fact that my handgun is inside.

Crave is nothing more than a murderer,I remind myself.

"A murderer I've fucked," I say out loud.

And blackmailed.

A murderer who has fisted me.

And pissed on me.

My pulse increases as I reach for the doorknob. The surprise could be pleasant or horrific, but the truth is that whatever it is, he did it for me. And that means he wants to please me. Or, at the very least, he wants to see my reaction.

And if he's trying to get me to react, then that means I have power over him. It may not be sexual power, but it is some kind of power. Which means I can ask him for help with getting the evidence from the police station.

The basement stairs moan under me. It's dark this time. A steady breath whispers from the corner of the room.

A figure looms in the darkness. My heart rate quickens. At the bottom of the stairs, I check my phone, making sure the hidden camera lens on my purse is recording. Then I turn back to that shadowy figure.

"You have something for me?" I ask.

"How many people are you fucking?" Crave asks.

I cross my arms over my chest. Why does that matter? It's not like we're in a committed relationship.

It's not good to make a killer jealous,my brain warns.

Yet my heart drums inside of me, pushing me forward to see exactly how much I can taunt him.

"Are you jealous?" I ask.

"Do you want me to be jealous?"

I snicker. Of course, he turns it back on me.

"No," I say. "You'd jerk off to it."

"I get off on a lot of things, little girl. Do you think me watching you fuck other men is one of them?"

With other, normal people—people like my mother—it's always easy to flip around the circumstances until they think they are the guilty ones.

Crave knows our interactions are a game. He likes dragging out agonizing answers from me.

I can get back on top though.

I'm here for more than his "surprise." I'm here to trick him into stealing evidence from the police. There are plenty of ways I could ask for his help, but acting like I need him seems like the most effective.

"I need your help," I say, making my voice weaker than before.

"What do you want me to do exactly?"

"Get the DNA samples from the police records."

He steps closer. My mind erases, filled with his scent. He towers over me, his boots stomping on the floor.

"Your little mall owner couldn't get it for you?" he mocks.

"No," I whisper.

"What a pity."

Our shoes touch, and a jolt of anticipation tingles over me. The overwhelming need to touch him surfaces on my fingertips. I want to feel him. I want to feel him and know that I can have power in this situation too. I want to see him react.

Instead, that faceless bondage mask stares down at me.

"This isn't about finding your father anymore, is it?" Crave says. It's not a question, though. It's a declaration, and inside, I know he's right. "It's about you trying to find your place in the world, to pretend like you mean something." He chuckles, then tangles his gloved hand in my hair, using it to guide me to his leather face. "But you're back to square one, aren't you? A blank slate where the only person who wants to be connected to you is your mother." He laughs. "No, not even her. Because that's why you're here, isn't it? Not even your mother wants you."

Chills crawl down my spine. My mother calls me every day and tries to make it right. And yet, there was an unmistakable expression on her face when I was fired. Fear that I was like my father. Regret that she hadn't done anything to stop me. And guilt for giving me life.

Is Crave mocking me, or is he trying to help me find my truth?

"What if your father is alive?" he asks.

Did Crave kill Michael Hall? Does he know who my father was?

That would be crazy, I reason. Crave doesn't care about my father.

"What if your father never wanted you?" he asks.

My blood cools, tiny pieces of ice floating in my heart. Crave's grip tightens in my hair.

"Tell me, Rae. What do you truly want? More than anything."

My senses pinpoint with adrenaline: our heavy breathing, the tick of each heartbeat in my blood vessels, the light sweat on Crave's upper lip, his motor oil scent lingering in the air, the brush of his breath on my face.

Maybe I want revenge. Maybe I want to show my mother that I'm not that bad.

Maybe I want to prove that I'm worth something, even if it's only to a dead man.

Maybe what I want is something less noble than that.

Admit you want to kill people,Crave had said. Admit that you're a killer, just like me.

Maybe Crave is right. Maybe I want to feel like I'm capable of overpowering another person like that.

Maybe I want to feel alive for once.

"I want to kill my father's murderer," I say. My words are full of air, my brain testing it out. My chest coils up. It's there in those words, that honesty. I'm outside of my body, looking down at myself. A young woman standing in front of a masked killer, and I'm not sure who I am anymore.

A penetrating sigh escapes Crave's lips.

"It's progress," he says. "But it's not enough. Your words imply that you want justice." He licks his bottom lip, and my core surges with need. "Is that the lie you need to tell yourself right now?"

"I—" I stutter, unsure of what to say. "I don't know."

"Justice like that comes with a price." He bends to me, our lips almost touching. "Are you ready to pay for it?"

My eyelids flutter; I'm desperate for his lips to touch mine. If there's nothing else in this world—if I'm the daughter of a mother who reluctantly claims me and a father who murdered his own wife—then maybe, just maybe, I want to experience that violence. That blood.

"Yes," I whisper.

He shoves me back and strides toward the back of the room.

Emptiness envelops me. I wrap my arms around myself. What the fuck did I just admit to?

The lights flicker on.

A man lies on the ground with duct tape over his mouth. His skin is mottled red, as if he's been exercising. His face is so plain that it melds with all the other faces of the world. And yet, I recognize him somehow.

His moan hangs in the air, muffled by the adhesive gag. My heart pounds, drowning everything out. The realization surfaces.

The guy from the other night. The one who didn't want to spank me unless it was my ass. My recent hookup from the dating app. What was his name?

What's he doing here?

What is this?

What am I doing here?

Why—

"Hrrhhhf—" the hookup groans.

Two gloved hands grab my upper arms from behind. I startle, jumping out of my skin. A masked face curls over my shoulder, his leather cheek pressed against mine. His gloved hands push my palms down between my legs.

"Fuck yourself," Crave whispers.

My mouth trembles open to resist, but my cold fingers snake down into my underwear, pressing against my pussy lips.

"What are you going to do with him?" I breathe.

"I'm going to kill him," he says. "And you're going to get off on it."

No. This can't be real.

It doesn't feel real.

"He didn't kill my father," I say. "He's my age. He couldn't?—"

"I never said he killed your father," Crave says, his voice even and steady. "I said that I'm going to kill him and you're going to get off on it. Unless—" He smirks, his lips curling at the edges of the open zipper. "Unless you want to kill him yourself."

Before I can process his offer, I'm declining. No. No. No. This isn't me. I can't. This isn't right.

My eyes dart down, searching for something, and I see that button on my purse strap. The camera. I'm recording this. I can do the right thing. I can give the footage to the police.

What will the police say when they watch it? Will they say my reactions are a survival mechanism? A way to cope?

If I try to stop him, will Crave kill me?

And if I watch Crave?—

Crave lifts bolt cutters off of the floor.

"Don't," I whisper. The word comes out hoarse. Ineffective.

Am I even trying?

"Calm down," Crave laughs. "Don't get yourself too worked up yet."

Crave kneels down and cuts the man's hands free from his bindings. The man grunts and tries to crawl, a legless ghost worming toward me. I scream. Crave steps on the man's head, keeping him still. Then he leans his weight on the man's skull, crushing him.

The man looks strong, but he moves like he can barely function. Did Crave drug this man?

Crave scoops the man's fingers between the plier blades.

The man screams, his cry muffled by the duct-tape. He flicks his hands around. Crave puts the fingers right back into the scissoring blades.

"If you fight me, this will be much worse," he says.

The man cries into the floor, but he stops moving. Crave curls his lips. He's enjoying this, everything from the way the man squirms to the power it brings him. He's a god right now, playing with this man's life and death.

And I watch in fear. In confusion. In complete and utter fascination.

Energy stews in me. At the same time, I'm paralyzed.

I should stop Crave. This man did nothing wrong.

Is this Crave's revenge? For seeing me fuck another man?

Why can't I move?

The bolt cutters clip shut. The harrowing scream slices through the basement like a fire alarm. My fingernails jab into my pussy lips.

The man's wailing stops.

I feel it then. I'm wet.

What is wrong with me?

"Save him," Crave taunts.

He throws a knife along the floor. It stops at my feet. Red crust lines the sharp edge of the blade, dried from some past act of violence. I wheeze. My throat is dry, my fingers vibrating with adrenaline.

"Be the hero you say you are," Crave says. "Save this innocent man and kill me. Oh, little girl," he murmurs, his voice pulsing with lust. "Make sure you kill me. Because if you don't, I will come after you, and I will make you regret it."

I don't move.

I can't.

You're afraid,my brain reasons. That's why you can't move. Because Crave will kill you if you do anything like that. You can't save this man. You can only save yourself.

Those reasons are lies. Crave won't kill me; I know that. Not now. Not like this. I know this with my entire being, even at the bottom of my stomach.

Crave tosses his head back, his laughter rumbling through the basement. The man's labored breath increases to a dangerous rhythm. Crave's dick bulges in his pants, his erection evident. Is he excited because he's about to kill this man, or because he knows I'm getting off on the murder just like he wants?

"You have your phone," Crave says. "Call the police."

The man's whimpers intensify. My body is light, loosely tethered to the ground, arousal booming in my veins.

This is Crave's surprise. He's killing someone so that I can watch.

He's doing this for me.

"No?" Crave asks.

I realize I'm shaking my head. My fingertips glide over my clit furiously, my body acting on its own desire. I can't stop myself from playing with myself.

"No police, then. No rescue," Crave says. "So sorry, DrummerBoy420." Crave bends down to his victim. "I guess I chose a little slut who likes blood as much as I do."

"No," I say, my voice frantic. "No. I'm doing this because?—"

Crave snaps the bolt cutters again, slicing the back of the man's neck. Tendrils of muscle and nerves spool out, pink and red spaghetti noodles hanging down to the floor, the white fragments of spine exposed, like an open Pez dispenser.

My heart beats in my ears. I should do something. I should help this man. I should?—

"What, little girl?" Crave asks. "Are you too turned on to help him?"

Those words throw me out of my stupor. I rush over, clutching the man's neck. He's warm. Hot, even. And his blood is warm too, like a spa. My knees soak with the liquid, and I slip, my ass landing in the pool of blood. It soaks through my underwear and warms my pussy lips.

"Is this what you call saving him?" Crave murmurs.

I grab the man's head. I try to make him right again. To put him back together, like a broken toy.

But he'll never be fixed again. It's too late.

Crave kneels down beside me, shoving his gloved hand down the front of my skirt. He cups my pussy, his gloved fingers sliding along my folds so easily, my whole body aches.

"I'd say we have some bloody lubrication here if you need it," Crave rasps. "But you don't need any help, do you, baby? You're wet. Fear and adrenaline and your own fucked-up desire to watch people die makes you feel things, doesn't it, Rae? You were made for this. Just like I was."

My body thrusts against his palm, and he laughs.

"No. Not yet, little slut," he says. He pulls me up by the hair until I'm on my knees again, like a pathetic mortal kneeling before her god. "You need to get cleaned up before you come."

He pulls out his cock, and those metal rings and bars gleam in the light. He twists the head of his cock, pointing it down toward me. My cheeks flush, knowing what's coming.

Move,my brain screams. Don't let him do this.

"Open your mouth," he demands.

I wait for the screams. For the urge to stop this. I don't have to do everything Crave says. He's right: I can call the cops. I can deny him. I can take the footage of him killing this stranger to the police right now.

Instead, I open my mouth.

Piss washes over my tongue like hot tea. The taste is slightly bitter, like a lemon pith steeped in metallic water. My clothes cling to my skin, and my eyes are glued to Crave's dark, cavernous eye sockets. His tongue flickers over his bottom lip; he's salivating for me.

My mouth is wet too, full of his urine.

I swallow it down, taking everything he has. Disgust is inside of me, but my molten arousal is stronger.

"Drinking my piss. What a good little toilet whore," Crave says. His tone is a mix of mockery, desire, and utter revulsion, somehow unified into a declaration of praise. "You want some more?"

My eyes roll into the back of my head at those words. He grips the back of my skull, positioning his tip at my lips, and I let his liquid wash over me. He's close—so fucking close—using me like this. I'm a toilet—his human toilet—but my mind is so full of him, full of need, full of fucked-up desire that it doesn't matter that I'm a literal toilet. I want him to use me. I want to be everything and nothing to him, and I want all of him inside of me.

He did this for me. Killed a man for me. He's pissing on me to prove that he can, and to make me understand how much control he has.

It's all for me.

Once the last drop drips on my tongue, arousal returns to his cock, filling it with tension and blood. He kicks my chest just hard enough that I fall back on my wrists. Then he kneels down, pinning me under his body.

I should get away. I should crawl. I should leave. There are so many things I should do right now. Instead, I scramble out of my clothes until I'm naked, and I wrap my legs around his back, pulling him closer to me, using my limbs like a cocoon, a spider encasing her prey.

He lines his cock up with my entrance. I should tell him to get away from me. It would be the right thing to do.

But I don't.

"Fuck me, Crave," I say. "Fuck me. Please, please, just?—"

"I'll take what I want," he says in my ear, his voice so low that I have to stop my whining to hear him. "And I'll take it when I want. And if that means I want to piss in your mouth, if I want to fuck you, if I want to kill you, or if I want to torment and tease you while forcing you to watch a man die, then I will get exactly what I want." His voice is so calm, so untouched by emotion, that it thrills and terrifies me. It's like he doesn't feel anything at all—no remorse for killing this stranger, no guilt for making me watch—all he feels is his cock inside of me. "If there's a blood cell left in your body, it belongs to me, Rae. And right now, you're my stupid little toilet whore."

His dick gores into me, splitting my pussy apart, his metal piercings scraping against me. My vision swirls. I'm covered in piss and blood and my own arousal, and Crave's sweat is drenching through his clothes. The cement ground scrapes our bodies; neither of us cares.

Crave's cock is a violent extension of his body, and it makes me feel everything at once. The pain in the back of my head. The pressure of his weight. His breath hot on my neck. The mix of ammonia and metal fragrant in my nose.

"Say it, Rae," he murmurs. "Say that you're only alive right now because I'm letting you live."

"You own me," I rasp. "My life. My death?—"

At those words, both of us convulse, our bodies twisting together like thorns and vines braiding into each other, tangling up until everything explodes and it's only us. Just us. Crave and me and our fucked-up existence of life, death, blood, and rebirth.

The orgasms subside. My head throbs. I relax, letting my body melt back onto the hard floor.

Crave pushes himself off of the ground.

This would be the part where a typical hookup would want to cuddle or get a quick meal together. Crave simply stares down at me as if I'm an insect and he's debating whether to smash me with his boot or to let me crawl into another hiding place.

The half-decapitated body lies a few feet away from us. Crave's mask clings to his face, his lips loose. His expression emotionless. The damn mask covering everything up.

I stiffen, then push myself to a standing position too. My body is covered in filth.

"How am I going to get back to my car?" I ask.

"You'll figure something out."

Irritation floods me; he doesn't care about things like that, but he's also got a mask to hide himself. He knows it too.

Then a sense of strength wells up inside of me. I'm not scared of getting caught. If I can survive this—live through getting off to murder, then fucking the murderer—then I can get back to my car. I don't need a mask like Crave. My mask is my own face.

Still, I came here for a reason. I need his help.

"Get the DNA samples for me," I say. "I've already tried talking to the police. I even asked Ned to help me." I lift my shoulders. "They won't take me seriously. Maybe you can get them to tell you something they'd never tell me." A hint of anger flushes my skin. "You're a man. They'll listen to you more than me."

"You trust the police?" Crave asks.

I furrow my brows. "They're always hiding something."

"I'm hiding something too."

I tilt my head. I've only seen Crave's lips and cock. I don't know what he looks like, or if "Crave" is his real name. And yet, I trust him. There's nothing hiding in his words. No lies. No hidden truths. He's a bloodthirsty killer who—for some reason—hasn't killed me yet.

And I hate to admit it, but after tonight—after he forced me to watch what happened to that stranger from the hookup app—I trust him even more. It's like he made me look into a mirror to see what he already knew was inside of me: the desire for violence, for the passion he dedicates to me, for the fact that he killed a man for me.

Maybe I like that about him.

"You'll figure something out," I say, repeating his words back to him. I pull out my phone to remind him of the footage, and that sends another rush through me. It's a dangerous and delicate balance with him. I can still give the footage to the police. At the same time, all it would take is those bolt cutters to my neck, and Crave could have that blackmailing footage in his possession.

"Clean this up," I say. "Penny and I are supposed to decorate tomorrow."

"Or what?" he asks. "Are you afraid she'll find out the truth about you?"

I wave him away dismissively, then I walk up the stairs, pretending as if I have the final word. He's right, though. It's not about cleaning up a murder scene, or the fact that I let more crime happen in Penny's hometown, or the fact that I'm using her for a fake podcast.

Penny doesn't know—no one does, besides Crave and Ned—that Michael Hall had a child. Me.

At the top of the stairs, I search the kitchen as I try to remember what supplies I stashed here. I dig a trash bag out from under the kitchen sink, ripping a hole in the bottom so that I can poke my head through. I giggle at myself. I'm a literal trash bag now, and I can hear Crave's words in my brain: What a little trash whore.

As I walk to the car, I don't think of the repercussions. My head is in the clouds, and right now, I know Crave will help me. After what we did tonight, he knows he has to. I have footage that will put him in jail.

I'm innocent, though. Sure, I got off on it, and I can admit that I liked my surprise. Especially how it proved that Crave is just as entwined with me as I am with him.

But I'll tell the police it was for my survival. I haven't hurt anyone.

Crave did it all for me.