Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

26. Luz

Chapter twenty-six

Luz

W aking up surrounded by a cloud of Egyptian cotton and the faint scent of lavender, my body ached as though I had put it through a punishing ten-kilometer run.

The woods . . . the sheep . . . Everest . . . Alister . . .

My toes curled, as I wet my lips, swallowing down the memory of their taste.

There was something so perverse about what I’d done, what I had allowed them to do, and yet it felt so . . . right?

I didn't struggle with the darkness in my soul.

I never made the decision to kill lightly, so when I did, it was with judicious certainty. The need to kill was a part of me that I could turn off with ease. Survival always came first.

That was why I recoiled at the idea of being a serial killer when Everest brought it up. There was something . . . indulgent about killing for pleasure.

But last night had been delightfully wicked. Primal. There was no calculus of risk, no efforts at thinly veiled control. Just the pursuit and the punishment.

Maybe I was more wicked than I had ever dared to dream.

Sitting up and out of bed, I stretched my legs, surprised to find myself still in my clothes from the night before. The knees on my leggings were filthy and stretched out.

The familiar buzzing of my phone sounded, and I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear the lingering fog.

Someone else had put me to bed last night, and I couldn’t remember where I’d left my phone. And having just woken up, I had more pressing needs.

As I hurried to the bathroom, I finally looked at myself in the mirror and was relieved to see it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected.

My hair was wild, my smooth waves having given way to loose, frizzy curls due to the wind and the sweat. The bags under my eyes were a little more pronounced, my skin a little duller from not having been washed. But other than that, I looked rather unremarkably the same. You would never have known by looking at me that I had let two violent men use my mouth for their own needs and reward me in return.

By the time I finished up in the bathroom, my phone was silent again, and I looked around the room, wondering where on earth it had wound up.

The creak of a door opening had me spinning around, and I found the quiet twin standing there, head cocked in observation.

Huh, I would’ve thought Ever would be the one to check up on me.

“He’s working on something for Lucian,” Alister said, apparently having read my mind again.

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry you got stuck with . . .” I wasn’t sure what this was, so I gestured vaguely. “But as you can see, I’m fine, so . . .”

With three long steps, he was in front of me, close enough that I could smell the clean scent of soap on him, cutting through his natural scent. “So, what? Scurry along? ”

“I just meant you don’t have to worry about me having regrets or second-guessing what we did last night. I’m a big girl.”

His lips pinched together flat as his eyes turned icy, and I wondered what I’d done now to upset him.

For a man who seemed immovable, he was awfully sensitive around me.

“Is that what you think? That I’m here because Everest told me to be?”

I tried in vain to smooth my hair. “No. It’s not like you listen to each other.”

“Then you think, what? That I’m covering my bases, making sure you won’t run to the police crying about what the big bad Blackwells made you do?”

That wasn’t it either. I’d wanted everything we’d done last night. Craved it in fact, without even knowing it. And it wasn’t as though the police of Shady Harbor would be any help against the Blackwells.

“Let me tell you why I’m here, little demoness,” he said, grabbing my wrists and pulling my body flush to his. “I’m here because you’re mine.”

My phone buzzed again. Alister ignored it.

“Mine to hunt, to chase, and soon, to fuck.”

My jaw dropped open, and I began to protest again, but Alister would have none of it .

“Mine,” he growled, slamming his mouth onto mine to shut me up.

My lips welcomed him even as my mind warred against the intrusion.

“Mine to care for . . .”

He nipped at me, and I hated how little I could deny this man.

“Mine to keep,” he growled before finally pulling away.

“But Everest . . .”

Alister remained indifferent. “We’ll figure it out. Now, go answer your phone, it’s still going off.”

Zut.

The barely there hum of a phone vibrating could be heard in the background, and I began to search around the room for the source, only to find it laying under one of the armchairs.

My stomach turned sour as I turned it over in my hand. There were half a dozen missed calls, along with a bunch of texts.

“What?” Alister was immediately at my side.

“I don’t know, Autumn’s freaking out.” I swiped my phone open.

Bestie: Hey Luz, I know you said you were in the city, but did you come back early ?

Bestie: The door to your room is open, but it looks like you aren’t here.

Missed Call: Bestie

Missed Call: Bestie

Missed Call: Bestie

Bestie: Luz, someone broke into your room, please answer your phone.

Missed Call: Bestie

Bestie: I don’t know what to do . . .

Missed Call: Bestie

Bestie: Please answer your phone!

Bestie: Luz, it’s trashed, I don’t know what to do

Bestie: Call me, please!!

“Someone broke into your room?”

There was no such thing as privacy with the Blackwells around.

“I need to call Autumn.” Before he could say anything, I was hitting the Call button. She quickly picked up the phone.

“Oh shit, Luz, are you okay? Please be okay. Everything here is such a mess. Natalie saw me hanging around your room and she wanted to know what was going on and then she insisted we call the cops and now everyone’s freaking out—?”

“Autumn, take a deep breath. You sound like you’re hyperventilating.”

“I know but—?”

“Deep breaths.”

Alister looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

“In and out,” I repeated slowly until my friend no longer sounded like she was having an asthma attack.

“Luz, it’s terrible . . .”

“My room was broken into?” I kept my tone even and unemotional.

“It was this morning. Simone had an early class, and so I was up to walk her out, and that’s when I saw that your door was open, so I knocked, because like, maybe you came home early and I thought we could grab breakfast together—?”

“Slow down and deep breaths.”

Across from me, Alister rolled his eyes and I shot him a death glare.

“Okay, so I knocked on your door and you weren’t there, which was weird because I know how careful you are after, like, the pig heart thing. Anyways, you didn’t answer but I thought, ‘Okay, maybe she’s in the shower,’ so I walked Simone down and decided to check on you when I came back.

“And when I did, the door was still cracked open, and you weren’t answering, so I decided to go in and look—?”

I cut her off before I could stop myself. “That was dangerous, Autumn, why would you do that?”

“It’s, like, a freaking dorm room, Luz. How many axe murderers could be hiding in there?” she said in a high-pitched voice.

At least five, maybe seven .

“All it would take is one, Autumn. One.”

She ignored me.

“So, I opened the door and it was, like, immediately clear that you weren’t there. Your room, Luz, it’s destroyed. Someone came in and they went through, like, everything, all your stuff. Your clothes, your books . . .”

Alarm bells went off in my head.

I wanted to ask Autumn if the minifridge had been disturbed, but I couldn’t afford to tip her off. So, I tried another tack. “Was anything left untouched? The bathroom? My closet? The fridge?”

“No, Luz, everything. All your clothes were tossed out and a bunch of them are ripped up, everything in your bathroom is smashed, and the minifridge was dragged out and emptied.”

Actually, it’d been emptied early this semester by Ever, who’d insisted I couldn’t keep poisons in my room when there was a killer hunting me and the police could show up at my dorm room at any time. My stash was safely tucked away at the twins’ place.

Poor Autumn sounded close to tears.

“It’s okay, Autumn, it’s all just stuff, and I’m safe and sound.”

“No, Luz, that’s not the problem. Or like, it is a problem, but it’s not the only problem.”

“Okay . . .”

“I started freaking out, and Natalie, the RA, came by and wanted to know what was going on, and I tried to keep her out of your room at first but then I didn’t know what to do and she saw inside and she freaked out and she called cops and now they’re here . . .”

Not ideal, since I didn’t need to be on Detectives Denver and Marques’s radar any more than I already was, but . . .

Autumn’s voice dropped, and I detected a quiver in it. “Luz, where are you?”

I was supposed to be in NYC for a death in the family, and my head spun as I tried to figure out what to say.

My phone was snatched from my hands.

“Luz is safe with me. Now pass the phone over to the senior officer there.”

Autumn made a choking noise that was audible even without speakerphone .

“What are you doing?” I said, leaping forward to grab my phone from him. Alister expertly dodged me and simply held the phone high above my head, out of reach.

I jumped but barely made it past his forearm. “Give it back!”

Alister frowned at me, and we were interrupted by the sound of arguing over the phone.

“Who the hell is on the phone . . . Blackwell?! . . . Which one . . . Aww, fuck.”

A voice suddenly came clearly through the speaker. “Officer Samuels here.”

“Alister Blackwell. I understand there’s been a break-in?”

“Ehhhh, I’m not sure—?”

“You know who I am, Samuels. I won’t ask again.”

There was the sound of throat clearing. “It’s not, uh, entirely clear. It appears someone broke into the girl’s room, but until we can confirm her whereabouts—?”

“Ms. Torres is not a suspect.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Blackwell, that’s not for you—?”

“She was with me at my family's estate all night. It would be impossible for her to escape the property without my noticing, let alone sneak onto campus and ransack her own apartment.”

“Yes but—? ”

“Are you accusing me of lying, Officer?”

“Uh, no, no, Mr. Blackwell, but this is, uh, new information—?”

“What I am hearing is that someone broke into Ms. Torres’s room and destroyed it, but you have no idea who that might be.”

“Yes, well, the security cameras were disabled, and the kids on her floor didn’t notice anything unusua—?”

Alister hung up on the stumbling officer, his nostrils flared.

I grabbed my phone out of his hands, although the damage had been done. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that the police of Shady Harbor would be happy to write you off, and I just provided you with an alibi,” he said, whipping his phone out and texting furiously.

“Not the police, I mean, yes, they’re an issue too, but Autumn. You had no right to tell her that.”

Sure enough, my phone started buzzing again, her name on the screen.

Alister’s lips curled up. “You hadn’t told your friend about us. ”

I huffed, fighting the urge to stomp my foot. I was a grown woman, a skilled killer, and somehow Alister Blackwell pushed me to a near fit every time.

“There is no us,” I said weakly. Even I no longer truly believed that.

“Your lips still swollen from my kiss say otherwise,” he said confidently, wrapping his arms around me.

“A kiss means nothing,” I pouted.

“My kiss means everything, petite diablesse. And if you’ve forgotten that you are mine, I’ll be forced to devour those wicked lips until you admit it.”

He leaned forward and nipped at my lips—only this time, we were interrupted by his phone ringing. “Fuck,” Alister cursed under his breath, pulling away from me.

I feigned indifference at the loss of his touch.

“What’s the matter?” he snapped at whoever was on the other end of the phone.

Whomever they were, they were more discreet than Autumn, because I couldn’t make out a word being said.

Alister let out a heavy sigh. “How long ago? Where?”

My stomach turned as my brain whirred, slowly piecing things together.

“How many?”

No .

Alister looked at me, his brow pinched. “She’s with me, she’s safe.”

Before he could finish, my phone vibrated in my hands again.

UNKNOWN: Rose are red, violets are blue, those girls are dead, soon you will be too.