Page 26 of For Fillies and Monsters

“I didn’t hire you.”

He shrugs again, the movement beginning to wear on my last fucking nerve. For someone as wound tightly as him, he sure does try to come off casual.

“One day. It can be a freebie,” he huffs, irritation bleeding into his words.

“Why?” I can’t stop myself, my control slipping. I both want this conversation to last forever, and to have never happened—I feel like I’m walking on the edge of a blade and the fear coursing through my veins when I’m around him does nothing but overwhelm me in the most suffocating way.

He stares at me, his large hand on the door handle, fingers strangling the knob. I picture that same grip wrapped around whatever weapon he is surely hiding in those sinful jeans as he pumps it toward my hungry mouth. His black eyes flame with anger, and I cringe, berating my lack of self-control.

He opens his mouth to speak but snaps it shut, obviously thinking better of it. He storms out, the small bell over the door chiming like a death knell at his exit.

What the fuck just happened?

First, the stranger at the bar making me irrationally hot, then the stalker making me question—and ignore—every moral I thought I had, and now this guy? Inviting him into my home, into my life? I’ve always been a walking beacon for fucked up men, but this is quickly becoming a new record for me.

I’m in danger; there’s no questioning that.

But why do I fucking like it?

NINE

AUGUSTUS

February 16th, 2014

“Tell me her name.”My frustration is mounting, the bite in my voice obvious to even my ears.

The guy just spits, his blood coated teeth flashing back at me in a sneer. I never expected someone with no skin in the game to be so difficult to break. But I’m quickly realizing he likes the fight—and thinks he will get the upper hand soon.

I don’t think he actually cares about the girl, or about keeping her identity secret. I’m not even convinced he knows who I’m talking about.

But he’s your typical alpha-male, driven by bloodlust and bravado, and I’ve challenged him. Fuck, I’ve nearly beat him, and now I have no hope of getting the answers out of him. Which is a fucking shame.

All I want is her name. But I don’t exactly know a healthy way to express my needs to others. I too am an alpha male, and fists and fucking are the only tools I know how to use to get what I want.

Since I have zero interest in fucking this rat, fists are what I have.

“Fuck. You,” he spits, and I roll my eyes. Sorry big guy, still not my type.

“Let’s try this again. Do you even know the girl I’m talking about? She was here last week with a group of girls, standing in that corner—” I point toward the back corner, near the coffee counter where the group was standing, my girl off to the left. “She was the one with long, golden blonde hair and sad eyes. She didn’t talk much and was stand-offish to the other girls.” The guy stares at the corner, his chest heaving. He had been the man working behind the counter that day, so I know he interacted with her. Or the group of girls, at least. I shake him, his head snapping with the motion.

“No!” he finally snaps, his hands slick with his own blood as he tries to wipe away the stream from his nose. “One pussy is the same as the next. I don’t fucking keep track.”

I close my eyes, oxygen wheezing out of my lungs. I don’t care about women as a general rule—most of them use me as much as I use them, and that’s fine by me—but this scum talking aboutmy girllike that? Like she’s justsome girl? Like she isn’t the greatest thing to ever grace his miserable fucking life?

If his nose wasn’t already broken, I’d break it again. Simply for speaking about her in such a derogatory way.

I’d kill him if he spoke of her in desirable terms, but that’s a point for a different day.

She has me all twisted in knots. And I still don’t know her fucking name.

I shove him to the floor, where his head smacks with a sickening thud. He howls in pain, but I just step over his flailing body. Yet another person in this town who failed to pay attention to the one person who most likely needed them most.

How can so many people have seen her and not know her? How lonely a life that must be; not so different from my own.

But I see her. Awake or asleep, I see her, and Iwill know her. I will know every single thing about her. I will go to the ends of the world to find her. And when I do, I will brand my name into her heart.

March 1st, 2014

---