Scarlet Angel (Page 3)

“Not laughing now, are you?” he asks, reaching down with one hand to start pulling down her pants. “You won’t be laughing anymore tonight.”

“I think that’s enough damage to make this convincing,” she says before he can finish.

The weird comment has him pausing, while my heartbeat thrums in my ears.

She throws her elbow around, connecting with his face at such an impossible angle. I suck in air through my nose, shocked as he stumbles backwards.

She wipes her mouth, looking down at her fingers as she flips on a light with her other hand, revealing the bloody fingertips.

Her nose and bottom lip are bleeding, and her face is already bruising where he hit her. Yet she seems unaffected by the pain.

His eyes narrow.

“The Boogeyman isn’t so scary in the light,” she says, a dark smile turning up at the corners of her lips.

His nose is bleeding from the shot her elbow took, and he releases some sound of fury before charging her. She spins and ducks his fist, and her knee comes up, slamming hard into his ribs.

As he doubles over, she spins again, bringing up her foot, connecting with his back. He slams into the wall, and she grins broader as he whirls around, confused. Furious. Ready to kill.

“I can’t leave too many bruises. Don’t want them suspicious now, do I?”

My blood freezes inside my body, and I shake my head in disbelief.

He pulls a knife out, the same knife he’s killed so many others with. She eyes it carelessly.

“Oh, how I wish I could sit you down and take from you like you took from all those women. Make you feel the same pain and terror they felt,” she says, eyeing him with a smirk. “But I can’t. I can, however, strip you of all that pride you hold so dearly. All that power you think you have. Then I can kill you.”

He charges her with the knife, his feet rushing, but she dodges two swipes, almost too easily, as though she’s playing with him.

She grabs his wrist on the third strike, and she twists quickly, causing his hand to roll awkwardly as he cries out. The knife drops to the ground, and she spins, kicking his feet out from under him.

When he falls, she kicks the knife to the side, knocking it out of reach. He darts to his feet, rushing toward a table, but she drops and grabs the knife, throwing it into the drawer so hard that it sticks halfway through.

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 façade 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.”

She turns, putting her back to him, acting as though he has no power over her, showing him he’s no threat. The gun is lying in front of the closet doors, but he hasn’t gone for it again.

It’d be too weak to go for the gun.

She’s playing him too well.

She’s playing a man who has played the world.

And she’s winning.

He lunges for her, ready to prove himself, and she spins, the knife at her waist as she faces him. He runs right into it, and I hold back the sounds, now worried about being heard.

She rolls her eyes as his eyes widen in shock, his features paling as he stumbles back, the knife sliding out as she jerks it away.

“And now I’ve gotten lucky,” she mocks. “Just like the horror movies. They’ll never suspect a thing.”

He drops to his knees, the wound in his abdomen bleeding profusely. There’s too much blood for him to survive if help doesn’t come right away.

I’d have been his next victim. Now I wonder what happens when she finds out I know it all.

She could have already killed me, though. No one would have suspected her.

Instead, she tracked down my stepfather, killed him, and then saved a child’s life. A child I let down by not being the hero a devil was.

Lana Myers, or whoever she really is, survived something so dark that she needs revenge.

But Logan is sleeping with her.

He’s falling in love.

And she’s a fucking psychopath.

My own guilt for my failures has me wondering what happens if I stop her. I don’t know enough about her victims to know if they’re hurting others the way I let Kenneth get away with.