Page 7 of Drag You Down
I should feel guilty for marking him that way. I should feel guilty for not giving him a choice.
I don’t.
Those blue eyes of his called out to me. They demanded my attention; they tempted me.
They asked for something only I could give.
New Bristol is a bustling city, and at this early hour of the evening, it’s easy to get lost in a crowd. No one notices the blood splatter across my black clothing, the wet spot on my knee from where I’d lowered myself in front of him. They won’t. They never do.
As far as they’re concerned, I’m one of them.
I have to slow down as we start to approach an apartment building. It would be inconvenient for him to see me now and tryto lose me when I’m so close to knowing exactly where he lives, exactly where to find him again.
I want to know everything about him.
Levi.
A beautiful, angelic boy, with pale skin and dark curls that contrasts sharply. His body is so slight in comparison to mine—thin, with few muscles, and I wonder if he’s even getting enough to eat.
He’d radiated something I couldn’t identify, some innocence that should have made him untouchable. But he’d tasted my victim’s blood, and I don’t think it was by chance that we encountered each other.
I think it was fate.
He needs me. He needs me to guide him, to nurture him.
He needs my loving hand to care for him in this cruel world.
The one single good thing Lansbury did in his life was lead Levi to me. I’d enjoyed Lansbury’s terror, making him scream and beg and regret his actions.
I remember the courtroom interviews, his insistence of his innocence.
The way his victims cried on the stand as his lawyers tore them apart.
And the smug look on his face when he’d been declarednot guilty, telling the press that a grave injustice had been righted.
No.
If the courts wouldn’t avenge the victims, then I would.
The universe, God, another deity entirely — I’m not sure which, but I’d known that the standard Christian deity would be the easiest way to appeal to a lost little lamb like Levi, who had assumed that the man was sayinghellinstead ofhelp.
Levi, who belongs to me.
The apartment complex Levi approaches isn’t quite rundown, but it’s in desperate need of maintenance. The stoopsleading up to it are dirty, the railing rusty. The front door’s glass is covered in a thin layer of dust. The building itself is showing its age, and I decide I don’t like the idea of him staying here.
I’ll have to find another place for him to live.
No. The only way I’ll know he’s safe is if he’s with me, at my condo.
While the lack of security works to my benefit tonight, it will make it more difficult to protect him going forward.
There are too many evils in the world to risk him becoming a victim of someone like those I hunt down and slaughter for their crimes.
A lamb like him is too tempting for the wolves of the world.
I follow more closely as he enters the building.
He stops by the mailbox to pick up the mail, and I wait until he’s gone up the stairs to look at which one he’d opened. It’s labeled as belonging to apartment 302, belonging to a Z. Carpenter.
