Page 194 of Under the Bed

Later. For real this time.

“Kaleb, what are you doing?” she asks, but doesn’t swat my hand away.

I tilt my head. “Do I have your attention, little sister?”

“We’re going to be late.” She’s talking about the meeting her dad’s secretary arranged for her at his home. “He’ll notice something’s up and?—”

A harder yank it is, then. She cries out, and I angle my body over the console, towering over her. “Do. I. Have. Your. Attention?”

“Yes,” she whimpers, and her pain gets me harder. Her pain turns me into a vicious man. I love that her anxiety is eating her alive, yet she can’t help but lean into me. Themonster. The man who gives her what she needs instead of what she wants. “Yes.”

“We’re going to go in there.” I relay the plan we ran through at least ten times today. It soothes her. Helps her focus.

“Yes.”

“We’ll get the safes’ combinations. We’ll kill them.”

“What if?—”

Like a snake, I slither a hand around her throat. Squeeze.

Silencing her.

“Anything can happen once we’re there.” I groan at her rapid pulse, how it flutters beneath my fingertips. “It won’t change the outcome. Both of them will die, and we’ll get out of there no matter what. And, yeah, they might wound us if they try, sure.”

A shudder sweeps through her. I choke her harder. Showing her the only thing she should worry about is me.

“We could be harmed. But we’ll live. We’ve gone through too much. Spent years apart when we should’ve been together.” The twinge of pain in my heart isn’t self-pity. I ache for her. For what she’d gone through in my absence. I didn’t realize the impact it had on her until I returned to her life. Never again. “We’re ending it now. Any threat to us will be eliminated tonight. It’s you and me for fucking ever. This is it. Understood?”

Hesitation shifts into confidence. Her shoulders square, hand clutching my black hoodie. “Understood.”

“Good girl.” I rub her neck with my thumb. Loosening my grip on her hair.

We climb out of the car, pull our hoods over our heads, and blend into the street.

The colors are more vivid from this up close.

Orange, purple, and red lights hang on the gates and houses. Fake cobwebs, skeletons, and giant spiders decorate every home in the street. Frankenstein, Anabelle, and life-size vampire dolls are scattered around.

A persistent undercurrent inside me demands I do something about the people walking around us. Catch the closest adult by the throat, strangle them, then hang them up on the nearest gate.

Strange how the need is stronger than it was when I was a kid.

Now, all I see are potential victims.

My hunger should’ve been sated after killing so many people since I left Berkshire.

It hasn’t. If anything, it’s multiplied.

But it’s not out of control.

Besides, I’ll have plenty of blood on my hands soon enough.

Shiloh squeezes my hand. “You’re quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

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