“Get it over with already,” she snarls through gritted teeth. “What are you waiting for?”
I haven’t decided yet, I want to say.
But before I can say that—or say anything—there’s a sudden, clumsy knock on the front door.
I wrench the girl off the wall, tuck my gun away, and clamp my hand down over her mouth. I take care to make sure her lips are sealed underneath my palm. I have a feeling she’s a biter.
“Excuse me?” a raised voice comes through from behind the door. “We received a distress call from this address.”
“You called the fucking cops?” I hiss furiously in her ear.
There’s no way she would have been able to make the call since I’ve been in the house. And there’s no way she could have known I was coming.
Which means…
I glance down at her. She made the call before I turned up.
There’s something here I don’t understand yet.
More knocking. This time louder. More impatient.
I meet her gaze. “You will fucking play along,” I snarl. “If not, you die. So will every other man who walks through that door. You want their deaths on your hands? Go right ahead and sound the alarm.”
I pull my hand away from her mouth, half expecting her to scream.
She doesn’t, though. She just stands there, as though waiting for instructions.
“Hello? Open up! Open the door!”
My eyes slide down her body. “You’ve got blood on your clothes,” I note. Whose blood, I wonder? Mine? Hers? …Or someone else’s?
I spot a sweatshirt thrown carelessly over one of the armchairs and grab it. “Put this on.”
Surprisingly, she does exactly what I tell her. Then she turns to me, the anger still burning in her eyes.
I need to think fast. My eyebrow is still throbbing from the slash she’s made in it. I turn to the closest mirror and take a look at myself. It’s not bad as I’m expecting. But it definitely looks like a fresh cut.
Guess I’ll just have to wing it.
I close the distance between us in two steps and tug up her sweatshirt before she can stop me. Then I grab the side of her t-shirt and rip off a long ribbon of fabric.
“What the fuck?” she protests.
“Sorry,” I say casually before dropping her sweatshirt back down.
“Are you actually?”
“No. Not even a little.”
She glares at me furiously while the knocking continues. “Well, now what?” she snaps.
I raise my eyebrows. “Now, you answer the goddamn door.”