Page 10 of Vicious Little Darling

“I don’t know. Maybe a bar or… a bookstore?” I throw the odd one out, thinking of Ember as she slipped inside thatHidden Booksplace. She works there. Icouldwork there. I could see her all day long. What a fright she would get when she realized her coworker, Jaxton, was the same skeleton masked man skulking around in the shadows.

Fuck.That makes my cock hard.

“A bookstore?” Dr. Pitman’s voice draws me out from my fantasy of fucking her in the dark while she sleeps. “Why a bookstore?”

“Uh,” I pause. “I don’t know. I should read more.”

“That’s an interesting reason, Jaxton.”

“Life is interesting,” I say with a shrug. “Or painfully boring. I don’t know which.”

My therapist sighs. “I really think you’d benefit from finding something productive to do with your time. Consistent idleness can be bad for the mind.”

“Mm,” I mutter, my eyes drifting to the window, taking in the city skyline. I just want to fucking disappear into it sometimes—and that thought leaves me depressed.

“Have you spoken with your mom, again?”

My lip twitches. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“She called,” I say flatly, continuing to zone out on the skyscrapers.

“Jaxton,” his voice drops in volume. “You have to set boundaries with her. We’ve discussed this over and over. Just because she’s your mother, doesn’t mean that you need to continue to have contact with her.”

“Again,” I drawl. “Shecalled.”

“Let it go to voicemail.”

I whip my head around. “And then do you know what she’ll do? She’ll fucking show up on my doorstep, all wacked out of her mind, or report me missing like she did a few years ago.”

“Narcissists have a hard time letting go of their victims.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I growl back at him. “I’m not a victim.” But as the words slip from my lips, the memories unlock, flooding my mind. Suddenly, I’m ten years old again, with a bloody nose and tears streaming down my face.

‘You deserved it for being so Goddamn stubborn,’she squeals in my ears.

I squeeze my eyes shut, as my heart rate picks up.

“What are you seeing right now?”

My eyes flutter open. “Not a damned thing. Just a therapist who needs to mind his own business. I don’t know why I keep coming to this.” I shake my head as I get to my feet, before grabbing up my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder again. “It’s always a waste of time. I can’t spend the rest of my life digging up the past. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on.”

“Well, I would agree with that in some circumstances…” Dr. Pitman’s voice trails off as I stalk toward the exit. “I’ll see you next week, Jaxton.”

“Fuck off,” I grunt, thundering down the hallway to the stairs. I don’t know why I bother with these appointments. Yet, deep down, there’s a part of me that knows he’s the only person that knows a damn thing about my past. He’s the guy who has had a glimpse into what made me turn into…this.

My head swirls with static as I bust through the front doors onto the street. I need a distraction from the noise in my head. I head toward the other side of the city, where I know Ember is working in that bookstore. But then again, maybe I shouldn’t go barging in there, asking for a job.

No, it’s too soon for that.

Maybe I should just fuck and kill her.

I toy with the idea, and then decide I’d rather move her shit around and scare her for a while. She’s clearly paranoid. I saw the speed she walked to work this morning. She was like an eighties speed walker. Impressive. I haven’t gotten to someone like that in quite a while.

I take a deep breath and decide to go home first. I need to see what I can find on her social media. Then, I’ll go see if I can get into her apartment, under the nose of that fucking neighbor of hers. I make the trek to my high rise and ride up to the penthouse. Dr. Pitman is right about all that idle time, but he’s wrong about how I can fill it.

“Jaxton,” the doorman greets me as I pass through the front lobby doors. “How are you?”

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