Obsession (Dangerous Love #1)

CHAPTER 1

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IN THE DEPTHS OF DARKNESS

KATHERINE

PRESENT DAY

NEW YORK CITY

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There was this thing my mother always used to tell me:

“ When you love someone deeply, their presence fills your life with happiness. But the moment you lose that person, happiness turns into pain. Pain turns into acceptance, acceptance turns into memory, memory into oblivion and eventually, oblivion turns into happiness .”

A circle of life.

I never fully understood the meaning of that saying because I’ve never lost anyone. No one had ever broken my heart. She spoke those words to me repeatedly and, as it turned out, she was also the one who tore my heart to shreds.

I gritted my teeth nervously as I played with the syringe between my fingers, willing myself to hold back, to turn the pain into acceptance, to move on to the next phase, but I failed.

Again.

I used my teeth to remove the protective plastic from the needle.

One dose per day – that was the limit I had imposed on myself. I hadn’t set a specific time to take it. It wasn’t a medication that had to be taken religiously, because that would have led to a stressful schedule, which in turn would have made me feel like I had a disease. The plan was to resist the urge each day for as long as possible and take my dose when the pain became unbearable. The later the better, as the hunger peaked at night. That’s when I craved drugs the most.

I told myself not to break this one rule.

Since I hadn’t listened to anyone for a long time, I had hoped I would manage to stick to my own advice after coming a little too close to death in the last few weeks. Maybe I enjoyed the taste of the end. It smelled like freedom and tasted like oblivion. Or maybe it just didn’t matter anymore. If I died, who would care? In any case, death felt more inviting than my own parents… or parent, because I only had the one left, and he didn’t seem very capable lately either.

And drugs… well, drugs were a false and dangerous friend that made you feel like you finally belonged, with a back pocket filled with the pretty little lies you so desperately wanted to hear – much like a charming assassin, with an amazing sense of humor and irresistible eyes. You knew you were going to die, that you would suffer terribly at the hands of the predator, but you were still tempted to become the prey.

I had stopped feeling the pain of the sting a long time ago. My skin bore too many marks, silent witnesses of my fall into the depths of the abyss. These marks were the battle scars of a defeated warrior.

“Kath, you with us?”

I turned my attention from the syringe in my veins to the source of the voice. Nicky made a disapproving face and argued quietly with me about doing it again, even though I had promised her I wouldn’t.

I broke that promise, too.

She jerked her head towards the window and motioned for me to follow her gaze. She sat in the passenger seat while I sat in the back. Adam watched me in the rearview mirror from his place behind the wheel.

I looked out of the window and squinted to see the inside of the restaurant clearly. The windows were steamed up from the rain; the improvised establishment built on the first floor almost seemed to be falling apart. The cheap insulation that was fitted directly over the cracked bricks didn’t seem very resistant. Above the door they had put up a pathetic nameplate, held together by nails that were no doubt rusty. Decepticon Fast Food . The owner probably couldn’t afford one of those custom-made neon signs, which in a place like this would have resembled a homeless man wearing a gold watch. So, neon fantasy gone, he improvised with a few normal light bulbs to illuminate the lettering. They didn’t really go hand in hand with the rain and would either burn out soon or set the whole building on fire.

The only attractive thing about that place was its name. As pathetic as it was, it did attract some customers. Surely the owner was a big fan of Transformers, otherwise I couldn’t explain the reason for naming this joint. The idea seemed to catch on though, as I had heard of a new underground club with the same name. The guy won’t be too happy about it, mainly because the name suited a nightclub much better than a seedy fast-food restaurant. The location of the place didn’t help either. It was on the corner of shit and even shittier, Brownsville. Even the most obnoxious, disgusting cab drivers in New York didn’t like driving in or out of this neighborhood. That’s why it was better to have your own car or a black belt in martial arts if you planned on adventuring on such grounds.

I was pretty sure no one took midnight strolls around the block for the sheer pleasure of it. At any second you risked walking into the middle of a shootout between two rival gangs.

I turned my attention back to the inside of the car, only to meet Adam’s displeased scowl.

“I think you should stay in the car, Kath, or better yet, we should all stop this nonsense. We’re playing with fire.”

I rolled my eyes while Nicky mumbled something to herself. She wanted to contradict him, but Adam stopped her with a rough look, his ice-cold blue eyes warning her not to interfere. When an almost six-foot man with Adam’s demeanor looked at you like that, it was pretty clear that you should keep your mouth shut. It was confusing and sometimes funny, because he was one of the nicest guys I’d ever met, even if he did have the facial features of a modern-day Thor. Actually, that was his nickname.

Nicky was in the mood to trash a fast-food joint. I could read it in her eyes as she turned to me. The dashboard lights seemed to make her red hair glow brighter than the restaurant’s pathetic sign.

“You look like crap. Stop with that shit already!” He snarled at me and leaned between the front seats to snatch the syringe from my hand, but I managed to pull away in time.

I couldn’t argue with him. I hadn’t seen myself in the mirror yet, but after my fourth PCP shot that day, I was pretty sure that even the most fucked up Halloween costume didn’t have my charm. The thought made me laugh hysterically as I removed the needle from my arm and tossed it under Adam’s seat.

“Coward! Afraid of a bit of rain?” I countered, avoiding the real issue.

I pulled the hood over my head and the scarf over my face, high enough to cover my nose, and took the gun from the seat. Of course, he didn’t want to stop because of the rain, but it was better for me to blame it on that.

I opened the door and sprinted out of the car before he could catch me and lock me inside.

“Come on, let’s shoot some burgers!” I grinned and pretended to load the gun, but it had no bullets.

Fuck it, the thing didn’t even have a loading mechanism. It was a stupid toy that had once been yellow before I’d painted it black to give it some dignity. It even had something like a loading mechanism. You could fill it with soap and water and shoot bubbles. Yes, just like the one Alex used to scare away the bad guy in Home Alone 3. That’s where we stole the idea from.

Nicky followed me and we clinked our guns like they were two wine glasses, and we were making a toast, then we laughed.

The rest of our group joined us. Keith had on a ridiculous ski mask that he seemed to be suffocated by. It had a fluorescent skull on the front, which he thought made him look dangerous, when in reality he resembled a drunken firefly. I wanted to laugh at him, but I felt faint. My knees gave way under my weight, so I had to hold on to Nicky’s arm to steady myself.

“You okay?”

She leaned closer to see me better. The light was dim, most of it coming from the restaurant, but thank God my face was covered. I didn’t need Nicky to tell me how awful I looked, too. A flash of lightning split the sky, mocking me, and revealing what I could not hide – my eyes. I knew the picture they painted: They were red, bloodshot, and pushed back into my skull.

Nicky’s face was also covered by a black scarf that she had pulled over her nose, and she had pulled a large chunk of her red hair over one of her eyes.

I took a deep breath and straightened my head at the same moment the thunder struck, creating a dramatic effect I didn’t want.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

I didn’t bother waiting for an answer because I knew she’d tell me I looked like crap. Well, I felt like crap too, so it was convenient to look how I felt.

A strong hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me backwards. I was sure it wasn’t Nicky. It wasn’t a brutal touch, but I was so weak that I instantly lost my balance and bumped into Adam’s chest.

I angled my head up towards his face because the guy was objectively tall. He had a ski mask on too, only his was all black. Out of all of them, he was the only one who really looked like a dangerous burglar. His eyes had the ability to turn even Medusa to stone – after she had fallen head over heels in love with him.

“If anything happens to you tonight, I’ll skin you alive. You have gone too far again.” He made sure I could stand on my own, then pulled the hood over my head. “Stay close to me,” he whispered before letting go of my hand and disappearing in the direction of the restaurant.

I smiled after him. Nicky always teased me that I would eventually succumb to Adam’s charms–just like every other woman since Eve. But he would never catch me falling for him while he acted like an overprotective older brother. I knew he wasn’t interested in me like that, and I was glad about it. That’s why we got along so well.

I pulled my sleeves over my palms to cover my fake gun. Only one of us had a real gun, and that was Adam, of course. We weren’t a high-class gang of criminals. If a member of the clan that owned this neighborhood had caught us, we would have all ended up in body bags, toe tags included.

We were playing with fire, just like Adam had said, and the police were the last thing we cared about. We were untrained hyenas venturing into the lions’ den.

Keith and the other three guys burst in like a tornado, slamming the door against the wall and screaming their heads off. Adam stopped for a few seconds and shook his head, probably amazed at their stupidity. Nicky and I laughed behind them. They burst in like a pack of rabid animals, all talking at the same time, each saying something different so that no one understood anything.

Inside, there were two clerks and two customers who sat at a table in the back. Skimpy teenagers who didn’t want to get involved. For the moment, we were safe.

“Be a doll and pass the green.”

“No…”

“Shh, now,” Keith interrupted the frightened girl.

She was wearing a red apron and a ridiculous-looking hat with a robot hamburger printed on it. Probably a reference to Transformers.

“Don’t tell me the register’s empty. I know how much people love fries. Now put the money in the bag before I put a bullet between your eyes or something else between your legs… on the house.”

Even if you could only see his eyes thanks to the mask, it was enough to notice the cheeky wink he gave her. The drawing that covered his mask didn’t shine as brightly indoors, but he still looked like a lunatic.

We all laughed at his words. Nicky cursed in his direction for his inappropriate words, but she laughed too. Adam stayed calm, keeping watch so we didn’t get attacked and making sure I did not faint. I winked at him to reassure him, and I think he smiled because the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly. They were all looking at him. No doubt he was the one they feared the most.

I leaned against the counter and shook the drops of water off my jacket. Nicky kept an eye on the other girl to make sure she didn’t call the police or press some sort of panic button under the counter to alert the authorities. Although I highly doubted there was such a button in a place like this.

While my friends ran madly through the store, screaming, scaring the others, and smashing everything in their path just for fun, I couldn’t find the strength to join them. The dizziness from earlier had returned, much stronger than before, possibly exacerbated by the heat in the restaurant.

The bell above the door rang.

We all turned around in a flash and suddenly there was silence as a tall man entered. He was dressed in black and had the hood of his jacket pulled so far down over his face that you could barely see his mouth and half his nose. He had a lit cigarette between his lips and didn’t bother to stub it out when the door closed behind him.

He did not react, just walked up to one of the tables and sat down as if he hadn’t even seen us or had come in to enjoy the show. My heart began to pound in my chest, caused by the uneasy feeling in my stomach. I noticed Adam watching him the same way, then he turned to me.

“We’re playing with fire.”

The phrase played over and over in my head, and now I really believed it. The fire was starting to play with us.

“Move it!” Keith shouted at the girl when he noticed her eyes were on the stranger, as if she was silently asking him to shoot us all.

He smoked his cigarette and did nothing else, but continued to watch us.

“We have to go,” I heard Adam whisper authoritatively, while Keith and Dredd urged the girl to fill the bag faster, threatening her with their toy guns.

I wanted to agree with Adam, but the scarf suddenly suffocated me. Unable to resist any longer, I pulled it down, bent over, propped my hands on my knees and breathed frantically. It felt as if the earth’s rotation had increased to 200 miles per hour. Everything was spinning around me, including the brain in my skull, and my ears were ringing. A wave of heat ran through my body and burned my skin, then suddenly I was freezing cold. My body began to shake, and I tried to find something to hold on to.

Fucking PCP. Every time I thought I could control it; it proved me wrong.

I managed to straighten my spine and take a deep breath, not realizing that my face was exposed. My eyes found the somber stranger again. He wore a single black leather glove on the hand that held the cigarette.

The smoke he blew out camouflaged his face with a mist that foretold death.

He was watching me, I could feel it in my bones, even if I couldn’t see his eyes, then he discreetly jerked his head to the left and motioned for me to look.

Before I could assess whether his gesture was meant for me or not, sirens spread silent fear among my friends. I turned my head to the left and saw the flashing lights of the patrol cars outside the window.

Panic deepened my dizziness.

A familiar voice screamed at me, becoming frighteningly thick for a few seconds, then growing high-pitched, almost cartoonish. It was as if my brain had turned into a video editing program. I could play with the sounds and images around me without having control over them. Fear helped me stand up again relatively quickly, and I grabbed the arm of the person pulling me outside, but he let go of me as if someone had yanked him away from me.

“Kath, run,” another voice called out, which was probably Nicky’s.

The first voice was probably Adam’s, because he was standing next to me.

When I managed to get out of my head and look around, everyone was running in each and every direction. They were like ants in a nest that had been invaded by an anteater. Two police cars were parked in front of the exit.

We were kind of lucky, the cops would arrest us rather than shoot us. I had no intention of coming face to face with a gang member. The silly thought reminded me of the Grim Reaper inside the restaurant, so I looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Was he ever there, or was my drug-fueled brain just imagining him?

I ran out too and followed the others, even though I wasn’t really trying to escape. The cold air sobered me up for a few moments, as did the rain, which washed the sweat from my face. Someone was attacking me. My hands were pulled behind my back and my shoulder bones cracked. A scream escaped my lips as I tried to free myself, but I was hit in the back of the knee and fell to the ground. A man’s voice ordered me not to move, as if I was capable of much movement.

All hell was breaking loose around me. The others were trying to escape, chased by police officers. They screamed, jumped on cars, and fought with the pursuers. Everything blurred, the images were no longer distorted, but they became darker. My brain was now losing information, something was erasing my memory. This place had put too many images of computers and robots in my head.

My name was being spoken by many unrecognizable voices. I looked around and saw unfamiliar faces.

I had forgotten how many of us were there when we entered the restaurant, I couldn’t even remember how I got there in the first place. In fact, I didn’t remember who the fuck I was, and I realized why I couldn’t stick to my rule of one dose a day.

Because I wanted to forget who I was.

Katherine Wrise had to disappear forever.