Page 68 of Tempt Me

“It still baffles me how you got to spring loose from Looner-Ville when you are one of the most fucked up people who ever darkened the doorsteps of Hospital Twelve.” I glared at him, his face inches from mine. My eyes were a set route to my hell. All my anger and pain resided just in the depths.

“You say you didn’t kill sweet, precious Ariah, but let’s be real, big boy. You did. If you’d listened to that hot stuff wife of yours instead of chasing after addictions all of the time, maybe you would have been there when the big bad reaper killed her.”

I felt a calm type of rage well into my soul. The mention of Ariah made me sink into the darkness, embracing its call.

“You killed her,” I said. Joe laughed again.

“Tick-tock, boy. Remember. I didn’t know you. My kills were all the delicious little playthings from my own home. Think to yourself, why would I go out of my way to kill a pretty little thing like her?”

I paused, his words confusing me. He had to have killed her.

“And why would I kill one victim unlike the rest? You think if I got my hands on your delicious little wife, she would have simply laid down on that ground with every hair intact but the little boo-boo on her back?” His voice grew, the mania taking over his calm.

“Tick-tock, soldier. You are a fool. Always being the good boy, the professor at school. No, no, but wait. Ah, it looks like you were too late. Bye-bye, wifey. Bye-bye, Baby Xeny Poo. One knife but killed two.”

His riddles hurt my head, a pressure throbbing behind my eyes and making me feel blind. I swatted at him, willing him to disappear back to the dark corners of my mind. I didn’t want to think like this. I didn’t want any more confusion and pain.

“Fuck off!” I said, roaring at the cackling man as he evaporated in front of my eyes.

In his place sat Fallon, looking at me with so much terror on her face. I felt every bit like the devil mask I wore.

I was a monster.

Twenty Five

Simmer: Heat held just below a boil.

What will I do when there is no heat to hold onto?

I couldn’t speak. I just stared at the man I thought I knew. He was fucking talking to himself—talking to himself like a cracked-out wacko from the asylum. He may have been exonerated, but no way in hell did he deserve to be freed.

He was yelling at some unseen person, screaming at them about killing someone.

My blood ran cold. The coffin I was stuck inside began to feel smaller, and I gasped for a breath I couldn’t find.

Was he the killer? The monster everyone was trying to find?

I came here to get the story of the woman who was killed. Maybe it was no coincidence that I would run into my professor here.

He was wearing a fucking devil mask, chased me through a cemetery, and manhandled my body so hard I had bruises and bite marks all over my thighs, ribs, and chest. He didn’t listen to me when I told him to stop.

He kept licking and sucking. His fingers wouldn’t stop pounding into me. I felt so ashamed when I came all over his face. My core and my asshole felt unbelievably sore. Pharaoh was rough—unhinged and unforgiving.

Now, he was looking at me, his shoulders hunched over, his body as far away as he could manage from me, the broken cracks of the coffin allowing mud and rain to pour through onto his head…

“Get away from me,” I snapped, my fear replaced by an anger that burned me and my lust along with it. “Get the fuck away from me!”

My professor sighed, pointing up to the sky as if I was meant to understand that reference. Tapping the top of the coffin lid to show he was as stuck in here as I was.

I growled, not taking no for an answer. I was in a literal coffin with a possible murderer. I needed to get the fuck out of here. I turned my back on him, finding some moonlight peeking through the cracks on my side. I began digging into the mud with my hands. I flipped mud onto him as I dug deeper. He was shielding his face and looking away.

Good…itserved the asshole right.

I was halfway done with my hole when Pharaoh’s massive shadow and a large hand clapped over my wrist and halted me.

I started to mouth off, my knee preparing to smash his thick chest, if he thought he was the only one freeing themselves from this pile of wood, he was wrong! But he put his finger to his lips. That red devil mask glowed with the moonlight that was shining through, illuminating my reflection off of it. Something about how he stilled, his ear turning toward the surface, made me stop.

I craned my neck to listen but couldn’t hear anything but the unrelenting rain and thunder. Still, I held my breath, waiting to catch any kind of noise. It sounded like…stomping—a person running in the thick mud above us. A new fear stilled me like ice in my veins. Someone was here.

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