Page 101 of Killing Me Softly

By the time the world swam back into focus, the damage was done.

His hands were bound. He was trapped.

“There we go. Now we can have a proper conversation.”

Aaron swallowed against the metallic taste in his throat, heart hammering. The reverberation of the gunshot echoing in his skull.

Fuck.

This was bad.

Really fucking bad.

Mable snuck in front of him, eyes blazing with old rage, old wounds festering beyond repair. “You know what makes me so fucking angry?” Her voice dropped lower, rougher, nearly breaking with rage. “It’s not that you got to be normal. Got to believe in fairy tales. Were allowed toleave. Nor even that they made me this chaotic, messed up, fucking psycho.” She gripped his face, forcing him to look at her. “It’s what they madeyou.”

Aaron’s pulse roared in his ears.

“Weak. They made you weak. Gave youfeelings. Now you havefriends. And you’ve fallen inlove.” She shuddered and let go of his face as if she couldn’t bear to touch him any longer. “But don’t worry.” She twirled the knife between her fingers, casual, playful, as though she hadn’t just ripped open her own scars in front of him. “I’m going to fix that for you.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled, pointing the knife toward Mel. “You still think you’re better than me. That you’re different. But I know the truth. Just like everyone, you’re one bad day away. One push, one loss. One person taken from you in just the right way and you will bejust like me.”

Aaron shook his head, forcing himself to keep his voice steady. “You’re wrong.”

Mable’s smile widened. “Am I?”

She took a step toward Mel.

Aaron’s body locked up.

No. No. No.

“Let her go,” he roared, voice shaking now.

Mable hummed, tapping the flat of the blade on Mel’s cheek, making her flinch.

“You’re going to have to make me.” The tip of the knife pressed lightly into Mel’s skin. “And I wonder just how far you’ll let me go before the Howell breaks free. And do you know what the exciting part is?” She peered over her shoulder with a sickening smile. “When your boyfriend sees you as nothing but a Howell monster, he’ll never see you as anything else.”

Chapter twenty

Mad World

Kenny surfaced as if dragging himself through tar, body too heavy, too distant, mind screaming for clarity.

The first thing he registered was the pressure in his skull. A dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes. Like a vice tightening around his brain. His mouth was dry as sandpaper, tongue thick and useless, stuck to the roof of his mouth. Something bitter and chemical clung to his taste buds. He tried to move but his limbs refused to obey, weighed down by a lethargy so deep it felt as if his muscles had detached from his nervous system.

Scopolamine.

Midazolam.

The realisation slithered through his fatigued mind, and with it, a sharp spike of adrenaline. He’d been drugged. But, more importantly, where the fuck was he?

He attempted a strained inhale, lungs stuttering against the motion, as if they’d forgotten how to expand properly, and he sank into soft cushions beneath him. Worn. Familiar. The scent of his own home faintly registering.

The sofa.

Hissofa.

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