Dr. Jekyll hadn’t been able to live with himself.
Laguardia continued stroking my hair, softly, innocently. My eyelids grew heavy beneath the blindfold, my limbs relaxed in their binds. Exhaustion crept over me like night blanketing the earth, dark and peaceful. Sleep, his touch told me, and I will watch over you until morning. The same promise made by the moon. But neither Laguardia nor the moon would keep me safe. No one could promise that, least of all a madman, a man pulled by the tides of cruelty. I succumbed anyway, drifting in an inky ocean and lulled to sleep by a killer.
My killer.
CHAPTER TEN
I woke up choking, drowning. With a painful gulp, I swallowed my own spit, struggling to close my mouth around the obstruction and failing. A gag. Round, rubbery. I flicked it with my tongue, but it didn’t budge. My jaw already ached and I wondered how long it had been there, how long I had been out. Time passed like lights blinking through a tunnel, a flash and then another until they blended into each other. Fitting, because I was underground now, traveling at high speeds, forced to follow this path to its end.
Where are we? I wanted to ask, but instead I just managed to mumble, “Mmmmf.”
A blindfold still covered my eyes, but it had shifted enough where I could see through the bottom. Yellow light concentrated to my right side. A lamp. On a bedside table, maybe. The room as a whole was dark, but when he turned toward me, I caught the impression of brown eyes, almost black. Of a shadow of growth on his jaw. Of a terrifying half smile on his lips. I shut my eyes quickly, not wanting him to catch a glimpse of my eyes open.
Too late. He tugged on the blindfold and my sight was gone. My cheeks heated from being caught. I squirmed in place. Air kissed my skin, awakening every sense. I was naked, while the part I most wanted uncovered, my eyes, were blind.
Powerless. He wanted me to feel powerless.
The part of me that had trained to deal with criminals like him tried to reason it out. To make a mockery of him the way he’d made a mockery of me. He clearly had a small ego if he needed to exert control over someone less strong than him. Maybe his mother had ignored him. Or he had a tiny penis and the boys at school had mocked. There was always a reason. It didn’t excuse his behavior, but it explained it. Like a puzzle piece fitting into place. I just had to find the crazy-shaped square and I’d stop feeling so fucking terrified. I’d stop trembling.
No one had ever hurt me, but that was about to change.
A brush against my ankle was almost too light to feel. But I did feel it, and I knew that my pantyhose were gone. When had he taken them off? I tensed, straining, focusing on the tender flesh. Light fingers ran up the arch of my foot to the inside of my ankle. Over and back, across the bone that jutted there.
“So pretty. So delicate. So easy to break.”
I jerked against the bonds, the ones that held my legs down and my arms up. Oh God. To break me as a person? To break my ankle? Either one was pretty horrifying. What a sick fuck. A really sick fuck with a tiny penis and an emo sob story. He was just like every other criminal on the fucking Most Wanted wall at the Bureau. He was nothing.
But that was a lie I told myself. Because I’d always known he was different. Smarter. More deliberate. He toyed with the FBI like a lion with a mouse, and even as the mouse stared into the jaws of its killer, it felt a little impressed. A little in awe.
The hand smoothed up my calf. His thumb and forefinger framed my kneecap and stroked it. Not causing me pain, but firmly enough to replay the words in my head. So easy to break. If he tried to torture information out of me, how long until I gave in?
Not long, I feared. Once a man gave up decorum and manners, it wasn’t a huge step to giving up honor too. His. Mine. It blended together in a flow of molten fear, incinerating everything in its path.
“Be a good girl for me, and no one gets hurt. Not you. Not, what was his name? Lance.” The pause felt heavy, poignant. His voice dropped. “Not your partner either.”
A shiver ran through me. What did he know about my partner? Knowledge could be dangerous. It could be used against me.
Did he know I cared about Hennessey?
“He’s very worried about you,” he said, taunting me.
At least that meant he was alive. Behind the blindfold, I could see his slight smile. Beneath the soft scent of roses, I could smell the clean-sweat smell of him. The ghost of him stood close so close I could feel him, right in front of me, and a small sound came from my throat—fear, frustration. Longing.