Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck #3)(5)

The drawer doesn’t budge as he jerks on it, and she laughs as she charges him this time. He tries to grab her, but she’s too fast, and her knee collides with his groin so hard that he topples backwards, sobbing as he most likely swallows his balls back down.

“They’ll believe a good knee shot to the jewels,” she says, jerking the knife out of the drawer before opening it and pulling out the gun. “Nice try, by the way. Too bad I know where I hide my own guns, huh?”

She’s the cat and he’s the mouse.

The man who has terrorized Boston for so long, and now DC, is just a toy on her strings.

Who the fucking hell is Lana Myers.

I don’t make a sound, scared for a whole new reason. I walked in and threatened a girl who has a sexual sadist sobbing on the ground.

“The big bad Boogeyman,” she sighs, circling him while holding the knife. “I’ve always hated the horror movies. You know why?” she asks as he cups his crotch, still rocking on the ground in pain.

“I’ll tell you why,” she goes on, turning her back on him as she walks toward the living room again. “Because they always portray the women as pathetic little screamers who can’t save themselves. The bad guy is always walking. The girl is always running. Yet somehow the big bad Boogeyman catches up to them regardless.”

I watch as Plemmons manages to get to his feet, and her back is still turned. My eyes are wide, and I don’t know who would be worse to face.

Two devils in one room.

How did this happen to me?

“I also hate how they paint them as the idiots with a stroke of luck,” she goes on, oblivious to his stealthy approach. “How the girls grab a knife at the last second, and the killer runs into the blade. So anticlimactic. He usually ends up disappearing when they finally run to call for help too. Then he makes one final attempt to kill them.”

He quietly creeps up behind her, then charges at the last second.

She grins, and my heart hits my throat as she drops to her hands, kicking her feet up so fast, and her ankles grab his throat before she flips him, all of it happening in one smooth motion.

Holy fucking ninja assassin.

He slams to the ground, and she chokes him, her legs now binding his throat.

“I like choking men the same way you like choking women,” she hisses, her tone so dark and sinister that it makes me sick, confirming my worst fears. “But I don’t prey on those weaker than me. I don’t prey on the innocent.”

She releases him and flips back to her feet with the same ridiculous, almost unnatural speed. Her words slowly sink in, and confusion rattles through me at their meaning.

Revenge killer. Leonard said it was a revenge killer.

Kinship.

All the little pieces try to add up.

Plemmons coughs, strangling on the air that enters his lungs. “Who…are…you?” he asks through labored breaths.

Her smile deepens. “I’m the girl who takes on the darkest of men. Men who’ve done things dark and twisted to the weak. Men who preyed on the innocent. Men who thought they killed me when I was weak. Just like the women you’ve killed.”

She crouches near his head, as he flops around on his back, still clutching his neck. It’s an act. He’s a horrible actor. Damn it! He’s faking it!

I try to warn her, finally choosing a side, but the words are drowned by the layers of the gag and the steady stream of music.

She brings the knife to his cheek, running the back of the blade against it. He stops struggling, going perfectly still.

“You’re like me,” he says, more surprise in his tone that fear or malice.

“No,” she says quietly. “I’m so much worse and better than you. I’m the thing the monsters in the dark fear. And now I’m even the Boogeyman’s nightmare.”

She steps away, and he rolls to his feet. When he’s facing her, she winks—fucking winks—at him. She’s enjoying every second of this.

She’s doing what she promised; she’s stripping away his pride and power, shattering the immortal feeling of being untouchable he had.

He grabs a lamp, chunking it at her head. As she ducks it, laughing, he picks up the end table, and throws it at her.

She dodges it, using that speed she has to her advantage. It’s like she wanted this to happen.

“You can’t even get it up like a real man,” she goads, grinning when his nostrils flare and fury creases all his features. “You need to cut women up, watch them bleed, just to get a good boner. You’re weak,” she says, walking across the room. “I shouldn’t even bother with you. The men I kill are strong, powerful men who can fuck a woman without forcing her. They only rape when they feel a woman needs to be put in her place.”

She’s saying all the right things to provoke him, to tear away the fa?ade he’s built, and emasculate him. She’s so good at profiling because she’s studied it. She’s learned how to demean and debase all her victims.

The way they debased her.

She’s a victim. Or, at least, she was.

Her words add up, telling the story she’s yet to lay bare.

“You know what I take from them?” she asks, letting her eyes drop to his lap before looking back up to his face. My stomach roils. I know what she takes. “I take everything,” she says at last. “They have more to give.”