1. VICIOUS LITTLE THINGS

1

VICIOUS LITTLE THINGS

YARA

“ I keep my demons locked in a tight little cage. It’s always full, suffocating, and they’re always too fucking hungry,” I said, tracing my finger around the wineglass before taking a sip of the Chateau Margaux, savoring the notes of black cherry with a smile.

“When you wanna feed them? These hungry little demons?” Keaton asked, his eyes glazed from the drug. “Do you drink blood like a vampire?”

I tapped my pink designer heels against the rug, a lazy smile stretching my lips. I had a part to play tonight—I always played it a little too perfectly. But if his fucking blood ended up on my favorite pair, I’d kill him all over again.

“Yes.” Nodding, I took another sip of my wine. “I drink blood in a Bordeaux glass with a side of Mozart playing in the background. Drinking directly from a human… fuck no,” I said, staring at the small, crimson whorls that formed as I twirled the crystal glass. It almost looked like a cyclone of blood, slowly pulling me in. When the hunger for blood came, it was hard to run away, even harder to say no.

Keaton’s answering laughter echoed along the black walls accented with metallic gold patterns. The room was dark, except for the dim glow of a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, spilling broken prisms everywhere. Plush, velvet upholstery adorned every piece of rich mahogany furniture claiming the corners.

The beautifully gilded walls were decorated with tacky but pricey art, and the wooden shelves were filled with sculptures and busts of naked women.

This ostentatious room was Keaton’s private club, personalized to his whims and needs. He usually entertained himself and his women here. Situated at the topmost floor of his massive mansion in Bloomfield Hills, secluded and protected from judging eyes, it was his sanctuary. Not for the women he brought in, though.

He felt like God inside this room. He thought he could do anything and get away with it—he mostly did, but not this time. I smiled a little, rubbing my hands together as excitement rushed inside my veins. I didn’t need drugs to get high. Oh, I was already riding the high of getting to kill him.

This was going to be fucking therapeutic.

He took a snort of his drug and looked at me with a sleazy grin. I was his target tonight—he didn’t know I hadn’t been a target in a long, long while. Not since that day I stabbed my father for daring to hurt me.

He thrust the drug toward me. “You haven’t taken a single bump of coke, and you’re already fucking high.” He laughed. “I like you.”

Only, he didn’t know it wasn’t cocaine. I changed his drug for mine—powdered ketamine.

“I can’t say the same about you,” I said, emptying my wine with a sigh.

Clean the fingerprints on the glass before you leave, Kat said in my head. Kat, my dead best friend. One of the monsters, much worse than Keaton, stole her away from me four years ago. They called him The Strangler. Someday I’d find that motherfucking bastard and flay him.

Until then… men like Keaton would help me keep my demons at bay.

“You’ll like me when you’re high. Everyone likes me when they’re high,” he gloated, his eyes vacuous, his voice smug. “Come on, give it a try.”

My soul was speckled with vicious, vengeful creatures, always craving blood, and they were ravenous now. They wanted him gone.

“Sometimes the demons beg to come out, demanding to hunt and feed. It’s time now. They’re hungry, Keaton.”

“What the hell a-are you…” he trailed off, rubbing his palms against his eyes. His glazed eyes met mine, out of focus, confused. The ketamine was starting to work.

“You have a sick soul and a desperate heart. I have to devour you, or you’ll keep consuming. You’re a monster, Keaton, but I’m a better one, and in the end, only the best survives.”

“Go-God, what’s wrong with you, you bitch?” he stuttered, flinching back. “You s-s-sound insane.”

“God’s busy with bigger things. Why don’t you ask her?” I pushed the picture of the girl in front of him—the one he killed.

Death by drug overdose. But it was his fault, his sin. The drug killed her, and he gave it to her. He fed her more and more until she died. It wasn’t an accident.

His mother, wealthy and from one of the prominent families of Detroit, paid a lot to keep it quiet. She kept every one of his sins under the cloak of money, his victims’ voices buried beneath millions of dollars.

He didn’t stop with that one girl, though. He continued to party, prey. I continued to watch and stalk until it was time.

And here we are!

I lurched up and gripped him by his hair, pulling him up from the couch. A scream left his lips.

“You-you’re crazy, fucking crazy,” he said, his eyes suddenly losing their glint.

Trembling, he tried to wrestle free, but the ketamine made him too weak to fight back. I hadn’t planned this so well to let him walk back into the world, his dirty soul safely tucked behind the masks bought by his dollar bills.

“You’ll thank me for saving you from your monsters,” I said, pressing the knife against his bleached skin with a grin. A gasp escaped his parted lips. Making sure my heels were well out of the range of blood spray, I pushed further.

His sin was too saturated in his skin, too embedded in his bones, to wash away with water. I had to use blood. Only blood would help soothe his animal and satiate my demons.

“This is your punishment, Keaton.”

His whimpers were muffled by the walls—the same sound-proofed walls his mother had built to prevent the voices of his victims from disturbing her sleep.

She was peacefully sleeping a few floors below, safe in her sanctuary, not knowing her son would soon be taking his last breath.

“I won’t ever become prey. You made a mistake when you chose me.” My knife went into his larynx with a soft squelch. “You made a mistake when you chose those girls.”

I waited for a second before swiftly yanking the blade sideways, cleanly severing his carotid and jugular in one go. Blood sprayed across the room, and his black walls accepted it without being loud about it. The white carpet, though, was not as accepting.

As long as your fucking heels are intact, right? Kat snorted when I gave my pink pair a quick once over.

Yes, Kat, it’s costly.

Keaton looked ugly, his throat gaping open as more blood gushed out of his wound. The sound was so faint, like a gurgling stream pounding against the rocks.

I let him go, and he met the carpeted floor with a thud.

“So fucking easy,” I tutted, checking the room once more, before pulling on my latex gloves. I wiped my prints from the knife I took from his mother’s kitchen.

Any good medical examiner would match the wound to the knife within the first few hours, and then the cops would dig deeper. The detectives would find out how dissatisfied Keaton’s mother was with him. Their maid would talk about their recent altercations and fights.

Of course, they were not something big enough for her to kill Keaton—she loved her son despite his shortcomings, but only I knew that. Everyone else would see what I wanted them to. They’d find a drop of blood on her silk nightgown. Maybe she’d go to prison, or she’d play the system and remain free, but I didn’t care about that.

My job here was done. All I had to do now was clean the room and leave without getting caught.

I knew where all the cameras in his mansion were. He brought me through the backdoor, where he’d already turned the cameras off. It was his way of not leaving any evidence of my visit, just in case. The irony made me chuckle.

I took my time wiping away the traces of my presence in his room. It was as if I had never been there, just as it should be.

“Goodbye, Keaton. Say hello to my father when you meet him in hell.”