Page 9 of Deadly Night
She’s the one who looks away first. She turns to greet Sydney. The moment between us is broken, but her eyes flick over to me once more, quick as a needle in the arm at the doctor’s office. The rest of her face stays still, but her cheeks glow pink under the lights.
Jace’s eyes burn into me, staring at me now, left eyebrow cocked. “You gonna ask her out, or just keep staring like a fucking creep?”
“Shut up, dipshit.” I shove at him, but the edge is gone from my voice.
He shrugs. “Just saying. You only get so many Christmas miracles.”
“Ha. Ha.” He’s got jokes, but I don’t need a miracle. I know what Hadley wants.
I know all her secrets and then some.
I watch her until she disappears into the crowd, her skirt swishing with the movement, teasing at exposing her backside. My skin prickles with adrenaline, and all I want to do is chase after her, pin her to the nearest tree, taste the frosting from her cookie off her mouth. Lick the frosty dew from the chilly air off her bare shoulders.
But I don’t.
I sink back onto the tailgate, close my eyes, and replay the moment over and over, until it feels like it might belong to me. That the world knows that Hadley is my girl.
She noticed me. She waved.
This year, maybe, I’ll take what I want.
I’ll take her.
I move down the side street following Tony. Pussy asshole.
He was there that night. Four years ago. The last time I killed. He doesn’t even realize I’m following him. He thinks that badge gives him a free pass. That it protects him. It doesn’t. It won’t.
I watch as he makes a drug deal. Bet the sheriff would love to know his star deputy has an addiction to painkillers. That one of the reasons their little stings never turn up any results is because Tony accepts bribes as well as gives them. I have enough evidence on the sorry piece of shit to put him away for the rest of his life. But why waste taxpayer money when I can take out the trash myself?
I was willing to let bygones be bygones until he set his sights on Hadley.
No one touches what’s mine or dares to fucking undress her with their eyes. I should have poked them out the moment he looked at her tits, but I don’t like an audience. Tony knows that when I take a life, I like my privacy.
The only reason he’s still breathing is because four years ago he was a witness to a crime. Four years ago, he begged me for his life.
I don’t believe in second chances.
Tigers don’t change their stripes.
His dealer slips back inside the back entrance of the vape shop. Tony fumbles around with his plastic baggie trying to dump out some pills into his palm. I step out of the shadows and into his line of sight, knowing he’s unarmed and too much of a coward to put up a fight.
He visibly jerks when he sees me, his hand shaking so badly he drops his pills, losing them to the snowy slush.
“Y-y-you,” he manages to stutter out like an accusation.
“Me,” I mock in return before raising my axe over my head and bringing it down on the top of his skull. The blade sinks into his head with a sickening squelching sound as I pull it out. Blood splatters onto my favorite jeans and onto my boots. Blood droplets plop onto the snow, staining the dingy white mush.
“I warned you to keep away from Hadley,” I tell his lifeless body that’s now slumped down in the snow. Stupid fuck. His wife and unborn child will be better off without him.
Hadley is mine.
Tonight I’ll prove it.
Six
Hadley
The bazaar is alive and in full swing when we enter through the side entrance of the community center parking lot. Multicolored lights have been strung along the chain-link fence where freshly cut trees are propped up ready to be loaded up. Maybe I’ll buy one if there are any left by the time I leave.
