Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

11. Luz

Chapter eleven

Luz

R unning in the winter was an entirely different sort of beast.

It hurt to breathe. This had to be wrong.

The skin on my legs felt only pins and needles, otherwise numb under my flimsy leggings, and my Hollow Oak hoodie had first grown damp with sweat and was now a cold weight that dragged me down with every step.

It’d been a couple days since I went to the twins’ home, and I hadn’t seen them since. I hadn’t seen Everest either, but the constant texts I received proved that he was always watching.

CrazilyEverAfter: You look beautiful, Starbright.

CrazilyEverAfter: Alister says you need a warmer coat.

CrazilyEverAfter: Also, how do you feel about knives?

CrazilyEverAfter: You know, sharp, pointy? Good for stabbing??

CrazilyEverAfter: NVMD on it (thumbs up emoji)

What was I supposed to do with that? I didn’t know what was more overwhelming, his insanity or his obsession. Could there even be one without the other?

Still, the memory of how they had all reacted to me sharing the information about the sheep stung.

Then there was the fact that the Blackwells were killers. All of them.

Was it hypocritical of me to judge them, given what I did to Aaron?

Maybe.

But I killed monsters.

Alister and Everest killed . . . I didn’t know who or why, beyond the Blackwells’ reputation as the “assassins of the elite.”

Could I judge them? Could I trust them?

As I crossed over from the campus to the forest, a sense of calm came over me .

Killing Aaron didn’t just end the life of a pathetic rapist, it helped me reclaim my power over him.

Once, he hunted me here. But I was the one to end him.

I think I won.

Humming, I carefully made my way down the right trail, back to my favorite spot.

Thanks to Alister and Everest’s help that night, the police were none the wiser about the real kill site.

Which meant there were only four people who knew precisely where Aaron really died.

Soon to be five.

In the aftermath of Melody’s murder, the boys had made it clear that there was still no trust between us, forcing me to take matters into my own hands.

Never rely on a man to do something you cannot master yourself, mija.

I hadn’t needed their help to take out Aaron, and I didn’t need it to catch the killer.

Unfortunately, my attempts to bait the killer had been unsuccessful since then.

The text I sent from the townhouse, shortly before Alister mauled me, had gone unanswered.

I didn’t like it.

They were supposed to be spiraling further out of control after Melody’s death, not showing restraint .

If at first, you don’t succeed . . .

When I woke up this morning, I received a text from Alister informing me that he, Nixon, and Everest were away until the afternoon and telling me to stick to my dorm until then.

Not one to waste an opportunity, I slipped into my running gear and immediately headed out for the woods.

There was a good chance they still had one of their lackeys watching me, who would no doubt report to Alister the instant I left Jackson College House.

The cold must have deterred a lot of the usual Sunday crowd as the trails were quiet, and save for a small group who had been exiting out the main path as I headed in, I hadn’t seen a single soul.

When I reached the familiar bend, I paused to rub the burning skin of my thighs.

The killer had stopped texting me, and I hadn’t found a sticker since the one when I’d returned from break.

The sensation of being watched never fully went away, though. And while I knew the boys kept eyes on me, something about this felt different.

The body remembers what the mind forgets.

Glancing around, I looked for any signs that I’d been followed but found none. The winter had thinned the vegetation, making it that much harder for someone to hide in the woods.

Not impossible though.

Still, without a visible tail, there wasn’t much I could do but forge ahead and hope my plan worked.

The familiar sound of frozen leaves crackling underfoot greeted me as I stepped off the main trail and headed for the old oak tree.

Nary a trace of what had occurred that night remained, despite how hard I looked for any evidence I’d left my mark there.

A twig snapped in the distance, and I spun around to face the trail.

Empty.

Shaking it off, I returned to stand in front of the tree and raised my phone to take a selfie.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

My phone fell to the forest floor as I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Dressed in all black, from his military boots to his knit cap, Alister looked every bit the killer he was.

How had he tracked me without me knowing?

“I’m much, much better at this than those pieces of shit, petite diablesse. ”

His words had their intended impact, and surprise roiled me even though it was impossible that he knew what I was thinking.

“I like it when you forget to wear your mask.”

I took a tentative step back. Something crunched beneath my heel.

“Putain de merde.” I whirled around, but it was too late.

The phone lay broken on the ground.

Two hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me into Alister’s solid frame. “I asked you a question.”

Indignation flared in me as I spun around in his arms. “Are you kidding me?!”

“The phone is easily replaced. You are not.”

“That’s not the point!”

“So, you weren’t taking the first opportunity you believed you had to sneak out to the woods and try to bait the killer into coming after you?”

I shoved against his chest to create some space between us with no effect. “Excuse me for trying to save my life. Or did you forget that your brother plans to kill me if I don’t deliver the killer to him?”

Alister frowned. “The deal is for you to find the killer, or killers if that’s the case. Not to single-handedly capture them.”

“I don’t need your help!” I yelled at him .

These men, these Blackwells, had a way of getting under my skin.

“Oh? And how did you plan to subdue the killer? We both know that statistically speaking, they are most likely male, and larger than you. This isn’t Aaron, they won’t be drugged out of their minds, making it easy for you,” he snarled, holding me even tighter.

“I brought my taser,” I argued, wriggling in vain.

“Go on then, petite diablesse. Grab it and tase me.”

We both knew I couldn’t.

“So, what was the plan when the killer had you pinned like this?”

“Carajo.”

“Come on, little demon, show me what you got. Would you have at least put up a good fight before they carved your heart from your chest? Or would you just give up?”

The world went red.

With everything in me, I shoved again.

This time, he let go, and the unexpected move sent me falling backward. Hard. Onto my butt.

Pain shot up through my tailbone, and blood rushed to my cheeks.

I felt like an idiot.

Alister stood over me, hand outstretched. “You’re smarter than that, petite diablesse. ”

The throbbing ache in my spine warred with the adrenaline of my anger. Part of me wanted to scream at Alister, to unleash all of my rage on him. It would feel so, so good to just let everything I felt be that big, just this once.

But more than that, I wanted to catch the monster killing innocent women.

I wanted justice.

And I wanted to live.

Reaching forward, I wrapped my hand in his, and he gently pulled me to stand.

As I dusted the leaves and debris of the forest floor from my legs, Alister inspected me. “You need better running clothes.”

I rolled my eyes, as I bent over and scooped up the broken remnants of my phone. “Oh really, I hadn’t noticed.”

His brow furrowed.

“This,” I said, gesturing up and down, “is the best I could do with what I had.” Turning to inspect the back of my pants, I muttered under my breath, “Especially now that I need to buy a new phone.”

Alister’s hand was on my shoulder, turning me to face him. “We’ll get you a new one,” he said, brow still creased.

“It’s a phone,” I argued.

“It’s . . . a phone?” His voice was absent of both judgment and understanding.

“They’re expensive,” I began to explain, my mind suddenly going through the calculations needed to readjust my budget. “And I hadn’t planned for this, and it’s my phone.”

“We’ll get you a new one,” he repeated. Gloved hands wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me into the warm panes of his body.

I stiffened, not ready to give in, before a sharpness in my spine had me taking a breath. “You can’t just buy me a new phone.”

“I can.”

“That’s not—?”

“Do you really suppose I would let you run around campus without a phone for even a second? That Everest would?”

“I—That’s not the point!” Placing my hands on his chest, I stared down my nose at him as best I could from nearly a foot below. “I don’t need your charity.”

“And I don’t do charity.” His hand slid down my shoulders and past my waist to cup my butt, pulling me flush to him once more. “I do, however, protect what’s mine.”

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but whatever fight I had left in me seemed to burn away in the heat of his embrace. “I’m no one’s,” I managed to say, my last stand.

It sounded weak and hollow even to me .

His lips met my neck just below my ear. “If that’s true . . .” He feathered his words like kisses against the sensitive skin there as he wrapped a hand around my ponytail, then tugged my head up to face him. “Why do you taste like mine?”

His lips descended on me without mercy.

Digging my fingernails into his chest, I gave in entirely and opened my mouth to accept him. His tongue danced with mine, and I remembered just how easy it was to lose myself in Alister Blackwell.

Every inch of me had ached since he’d brought me to the edge, only to deny me.

SNAP.

Lost as we both were in the moment, the sound of a twig breaking had us pulling away from each other as fast as we could, with Alister stepping in front of me to face the direction it had come from while I spun to face behind us.

My heart raced, and I swallowed as I looked around to find a still-empty forest.

Turning around, Alister was staring eagle-eyed toward the main trail, but there was nothing to see.

That didn’t mean there was nothing out there.

After another minute, Alister seemed to come to a decision. “Come on.” He jerked his head .

I was surprised when we started walking toward the main trail, and he slipped his arm around my shoulder. “Stay close,” he barked, but the command didn’t chafe me the way it once would have.

Suddenly, I saw them.

I didn’t know if they’d been waiting for us to approach, but out of nowhere, about a hundred yards ahead, a fast-moving black blur burst through the brush running away from us.

“Damn it,” Alister growled as every muscle in his body went tight.

“Let’s go!” I said, dropping his hand and taking off.

He muttered more curses at my back, but before long, he was at my side as we sprinted down the path, running parallel to whomever we were pursuing.

They were fast.

It was hard to get a good look at them at this distance, but they were tall enough to have to duck under low-hanging branches, with long legs that we were struggling to gain on.

They started veering away from us, and I realized they were cutting through to the other trails, which would let them loop back to the main campus.

I pumped my legs even harder, willing myself to go faster .

Our prey reached the apex of one of the smaller trailheads, came to a sudden stop, and turned to face us. A sheep mask stared out from underneath a black hoodie, just as they had that night.

Alister roared and charged toward them at full speed.

It was too late.

Before we could get any closer, they were out of sight, and by the time we reached the trailhead, it was impossible to tell which direction they’d taken off in.

“Fuck!” Alister roared. His frustration was palpable.

We had been so close.

But close didn’t cut it.