Page 27 of My Turn

I took her ankle and brought it to my lap. The cut wasn’t too bad, but it was still bleeding a little. It needed to be cleaned and bandaged. I’d have to be more careful if I was going to pop in at random times. It’d be easier if she agreed to the cameras, but I was sure she’d be begging for them soon enough. And I, best friend that I was, would make sure to monitor them for her so that I could stay abreast of any suspicious activity.

We wouldn’t want her to be at the mercy of a man harboring a long-standing obsession. That shit was dangerous.

*****

I told her not to go. Damn near begged her, actually. Yet, here she was, sitting at a table in a mid-level restaurant with the bastard I should’ve skinned alive for kissing her.

It was going better than the last date. She’d laughed a few times and was talking more. They were in the middle of their meal and she hadn’t excused herself to send me a desperate text message.

It wasn’t going to end well. Apparently, I had to teach Alana hard lessons. We’d start out on the softer side, though.

Erebus:I don’t appreciate those who try to steal from me.

She flipped her phone over and her lips parted. Her eyes scanned the windows, searching for some glimpse of me, but it was dark where I stood and the lights on my mask were off. After a moment, she returned her attention to Mike and smiled. They continued their conversation as if everything was fine.

Erebus:How do you feel about orphans?

After she looked at the message, she put her phone away. That was something she’d regret. Would I kill the guy? Not if I didn’t have to. Exactly what it would take for me to pull the trigger was still up for debate. The lines I was willing to cross had been shifting lately, so I was interested in that answer too.

I’d been stalking this woman since we were teenagers, so I clearly had a loose sense of morality from the get-go. I had no issue with watching her in her most intimate moments. Never with my brother, only when she was by herself.

The first time I killed for her was in college. There was a guy in her art history class who kept asking her out. It got to the point where she didn’t want to go anymore because it was daily. He was a rich prick who enjoyed doing blow, which made it easy. All I had to do was sneak into his dorm and replace his stash with coke mixed with a shit load of fentanyl. It ended up killinghim and one of his friends. Another nearly died. I bet he never touched the shit again, so maybe I did him a favor. There were a couple others along the way.

When she was nearly failing one of her classes, I replaced her final paper with one that I wrote, which got her an A on it, allowing her to barely pass the class. Nobody could say I wasn’t devoted to this woman.

What had Jaykob ever done for her? In high school, he was good, sure, but I had my suspicions about the things he got up to. Vicky didn’t continue flirting with him simply because he was on the football team. I was on the team and made it clear she needed to fuck off, so she did. No, he flirted back. Maybe more, but I never caught him.

Years of all these missteps added up and after I found out about his daughter, I was done. I gave him a chance, but a month later he still hadn’t fessed up, so I decided that enough was enough. He needed to be out of her life for good. So, I made sure that he was.

Now, I had a fucking single dad to deal with. Worse, she worked with him, so there wasn’t much I could do about her talking to him five days a week.

Taking him away from his kid was toeing a line I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross. She’d forgive me for the others when she found out about them. I wasn’t going to keep secrets from her once we were together. This one, though, might be too much for her.

I could scare him off. Erebus might come in handy. Getting someone else involved posed a risk, though. Dealing with the police if Alana made a case was easy enough. There wasn’t going to be any proof and they probably wouldn’t put much effort into it. If there was a second person to corroborate the story, it got more complicated.

After I turned on my mask, I watched her and waited. Let’s see how clever she was when she found herself cornered.

Chapter 11

Alana

Despite feeling awkward about that kiss yesterday, I was having a really good time with Mike. He was charismatic and knew how to hold a conversation, which was rarer than it should have been. I didn’t hang around people very often but when I did, I could talk and be likable. He actually made it pretty easy and I didn’t feel like I was faking it, which was a relief after that dreadful date with Preston.

The creep who sent me some unnerving texts could fuck right off. I should probably just block him.

“Did you always want to be a teacher?” I asked before I took a drink of my wine.

“Yes and no. It was always an option. Plan B, if you will.”

“Oh, this sounds like a story.”

He laughed and shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve always wanted to write, but I needed a fallback. Starving author didn’t appeal to me, so I got my degree and teaching certificate.”

“Do you have a finished manuscript?”

“Yeah, I have a couple, actually. I’ve sent them to various publishers, but it’s a hard world to get into.”

“You could always self publish,” I pointed out.

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