Her chin quivers. “I know.”
Rasputin’s phone is on the bedside table. I hand it to her. “You call Sheriff Pinkwater and you let him know what happened here tonight. He’ll make sure you get somewhere safe. But when he asks you how this happened—”
“I’ll tell him I didn’t see who did this to them.” Gratitude is warm in her voice. “You saved my life.”
I look at her for a moment, trying to place her face when it strikes me. “You work at the grocery store over in Gray Rock.”
Gray Rock is a blink-and-you’d-miss-it town a few miles north of Flintlock.
“Yes, you come in from time to time. You like those fresh mints with the soft centers.”
I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You were always real nice to me. Gave me a tip once… a ten-dollar bill. And Mrs. Bramble, who works at the diner, she said you sent a doctor around to treat her husband’s shingles when they couldn’t afford to see to it. Said you always tipped real good when you rode through town.”
I don’t remember any of those things, so I simply nod toward the phone in her hand. “You’d better make that call.”
I sit with her while we wait for the sheriff, and she tells me how Rasputin’s men had grabbed her off the street when she was walking home from her shift at the store. She shows me the marks on her arms where one of them seared the end of his cigarette into her skin while the others laughed and taunted her with threats of what was to come.
She cries, so I put my arms around her, telling her that when she’s alone in the darkness and the nightmares come to get her, that she needs to remember those men are gone now, and they can never hurt her again.
She cries even harder then and clings to my T-shirt until her sobs slowly die, and we are in complete silence again.
When I hear the wail of the approaching patrol cars, I look into her young face and dust my thumb across her chin before leaving her on the bed and slipping into the darkness like a phantom.
A mile down the road, I climb on my bike and disappear into the night.
Six down.
One to go.
BRONTE
Four Months Ago
There are exactly thirty-three plastic stars on the ceiling. I’ve counted them three times now. They’re old and faded, yellowed by time and unloved, but in the dark, they still have a little glow left in them. For a moment, I wonder who stuck them there. If it was the girl who lived here before me, the one who dropped out of college to pursue a career as a fetish model in Paris? Or the one before her, who’d been busted having an affair with one of the professors, then dropped out of school to have twins.
Had either of them ever laid here like me and stared up at them wishing like hell they could fucking come already?
Closing my eyes, I press my head deeper into the pillows and try to focus.
The man giving me head is hot—blond, good-looking with a body to die for. Strong tongue—a decent technique—but he isn’t doing it for me. Despite his efforts, I’m no closer to coming than I had been before I’d picked him up after my shift at the bar.
It isn’t his fault.
I haven’t been able to come for months now.
One day I was enjoying all the orgasms a twenty-five-year-old should be enjoying, then the next day…
Nothing.
Zip.
Zero orgasms.
No matter how hard I try.
And boy, have I tried, believe me, with and without the help of someone else.
But it’s no use.
Time after time, I feel nothing.
Just like now.
Unaware of the chaos taking place inside my head, tonight’s house guest—whose name is Brad— presses his face deeper into my clit and penetrates me with slow licks of his tongue. I wait for the spark. Wait for the bliss to slowly unfurl in my lower belly, but it’s not happening.
Goddammit.
This is a mistake.
Placing my hands on either side of his face, I pull him toward me.
“You don’t like it?” he asks, his lips slick and glistening.
“Yes,” I lie. “But I want you to fuck me.”
His cock is decent. More thick than lengthy, and it feels nice inside.
But that’s part of the problem.
It’s nice. Not hot. Not erotic. Not mind-shattering. Nice.
I feign enjoyment while he grunts and pants, tells me my pussy is so fucking tight, then finally, after a few more minutes of pumping and thrusting, he stiffens and jerks, and the vein on his neck floods with blood as he groans and spills into the condom.
Collapsing against me, he mumbles something inaudible, his breath hot on my naked boobs.
I lie motionless, my arms at my sides.
I want to crawl out of my skin.
I hate this part the most. The cuddling. The closeness. It’s why I prefer to go to their place so I can make a hasty escape the moment our panting stops and the sweat on our skin cools. On the odd occasion, I bring them to my apartment because it’s closer, like tonight. But it’s a rarity because there’s always the chance my guest will want to stick around afterward.