Page 1 of Lady Killer

Prologue: Luz

Ihadn’t planned on killing Aaron Croft.

Not at first.

When I started poisoning him, I only had my suspicions to go on, well, combined with general disdain.

Then came Halloween, and that night in the woods.

When I was being hunted by the sheep, I was in survival mode. Fight-or-flight.

Both the sheep had been dressed the same, in black hoodies and jeans. Between the masks, the darkness, and the adrenaline pumping through me, it had been impossible to distinguish between them. Hiding inside the hollowoak, shivering in silence, my brain was overrun with disturbing thoughts and images of the sheep converging on me, a mindlessly violent herd out for my blood.

By the time I’d retreated to the safety of my dorm, exhausted, my body and mind were compromised, unable and unwilling to process what had just happened.

But the days passed, and bit by bit, I began to unpack the details of that night.

There had been something familiar about the first sheep, the one who’d stood lurking outside Jackson College House that night. People are so much more than their faces—it takes more than a mask to truly hide someone’s identity—and there was something about the way that sheep stood, their build, how they moved.

It was like a fly buzzing around the room, never coming close enough for you to swat it. I knew who it was, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, but their identity was always just out of my reach.

Aaron was always there, too, like a fly, buzzing around Autumn and me.

Why was he there?

A nice girl would’ve waited for irrefutable proof before she started poisoning a man.

Then again, a nice girl would’ve been the one dead on the ground now, instead of standing over Aaron’s corpse, victorious, with his heart in her hand.

Nice girls were dead girls. Long live the bad girl.

Chapter one

Luz

Woods, Hollow Oak University

“Sweet goddess, I’m in love.”

I looked up from Aaron’s steaming corpse to find three figures in the dark, watching me, the lightly falling snow giving them an almost ethereal look.

Normally, I was more aware of my surroundings, but trying to perform open heart surgery with household tools in the woods in the middle of the night had been a pretty consumingtask.

“Nixon, Alister,” I said, working to keep all emotion out of my voice.

The twins were easily recognizable, even in the dark, however, it took me a minute to place the man between them. As I squinted at him in the darkness, a memory surged forward in my mind. He was the one who’d been watching me at the police station the last time I met with the detectives.

Compared to the twins, his average build seemed almost small, and in his blandly preppy outfit, he looked like he belonged at a country club, not chasing after killers in the woods. Still, his shock of platinum hair was undeniable.

Is he wearing leather loafers? In the snow?

Tilting my head to the side, I decided to take an educated guess. The three of them had already caught me ripping the heart out of a guy’s chest. What else did I have to lose? “Everest?”

A satisfied cry broke out. “She’s perfect,” he cooed ominously as he moved toward me before coming to a sudden halt, as if he was holding himself back.

Next came Alister’s deep voice. “Luz—‍”

“What the actual fuck?!” Nixon yelled, which was more in line with the response I’d been expecting.

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