Cason
At least I can rely on Lily being exactly what she is. Not that I blame her, to be honest. I’m not sure I’d believe me either. I’m a killer, so why wouldn’t I kill her?
She’s crafty. I have to give her that. But I’m craftier. Hers is tinged with desperation and inexperience, and that will always be her downfall until she becomes more jaded and distrusting.
Then again, I can’t deny I like how naïve she is, and not only because it makes my job easier. It’s refreshing to be around someone who still believes in good. I don’t think I ever can again after all I’ve seen and done, but Lily still does, and I like how that looks on her.
Reaching across the bed, I grab my phone to see how far she’s gotten. I’m guessing maybe out toward the edge of the estate where she went that first day I brought her here. Will she dare to touch the fence I told her was electrified?
See, that right there is fucking charming in its naiveté. It’s like everything she knows about bad guys has come from old TV shows. Nobody’s used electrified fences in over a decade. Hell, maybe even longer. I’m not even sure my father has a goddamned fence up anymore. With cameras and drones, in addition to those asshole guards of his, who needs to fry people who trespass?
I tap on my phone’s screen to get a sense of where she is and where I’m going to have to hike to get her. As I wait for the map, I smile. She really did think I just bought those clothes for her because I’m a nice guy. It’s almost like this was too easy.
But my amusement quickly evaporates when I see she’s at the edge of the estate and still moving. Fuck. Maybe she’s cleverer than I thought.
Jumping out of bed, I throw on my pants and shirt before slipping on my shoes to go get her. It’s the middle of the goddamned night, and I’m forced to spend my time chasing down some girl.
A girl I just promised not to kill.
By the time I get outside, I see that asshole Doc’s car speeding away out the front gate. A quick check of the tracker on my phone shows me she’s in that car with him.
Fuck! I told her not to speak to him. Why the fuck can’t she listen when she’s told something? Doc gets his kicks fucking with women. I expressly forbade her from even talking to him ever again. Now he’s got her and only God knows where the hell he’s taking her.
After running upstairs to get my gun, I get to the car and tear off, hoping to catch them before he does something to her. Stupid girl! Why would she trust him?
It’s that ridiculous fucking name of his. Doc. Like he’s some cartoon character and couldn’t hurt a fly. Except he isn’t and hurting people is what he loves to do.
Adrenaline courses through my body as I floor the gas. They’re only a few minutes ahead of me, but what he likes doesn’t take long, especially if you’re a clumsy fuck like Doc and just want to inflict pain.
I shouldn’t care what the hell he does to her. After all, she’s been nothing but a hassle. I should just leave her to Doc and let him handle her. If he fucks her up, so be it.
Even as I say that to myself, I push my foot down on the gas even harder to catch up with them. Yes, she’s been a pain in the ass, but she’s my pain in the ass. Not his. That fuck will just rip her apart for kicks because he gets off on hurting women and then bragging about it to other guys in the organization.
The memory of him grinning like a fucking cat who swallowed a canary that one time he sat in Victor’s office talking about cutting up that girl just to hear her cry while he fucked her races through my head and makes my stomach turn. He laughed his ass off as he gave the details about how all her blood and his cum mixed to get him off the best of his life.
Fucking animal. I kill people for a living and I’m not even that bad. Killing is killing, and fucking is fucking. Only a goddamned savage would combine the two.
I wanted to punch the asshole in his smiling face that day, but Jaxon beat me to it and broke Doc’s jaw. He should have put a bullet in his fucking head. Tearing up girls for no reason is the surest way to get us all thrown in jail, and that son of a bitch is probably up to it again with Lily.
Rage makes paying attention to the road in front of me next to impossible, but I have to watch for any sign of his car. Grabbing my phone, I take another look at the tracker map and see the car has stopped up ahead.
Probably at that super-secret hideout he and the other security assholes use when they’re too tired to drive home after a long shift at the estate. They like to act like it’s their clubhouse, the fucking jackasses, like it’s some exclusive place only the cool security guards can use. None of them think we know about it, but the truth is the rest of us who aren’t ten year olds don’t care about their stupid little hideout.
I take each turn on the winding road leading to the cabin like a bat out of hell. Every second he’s with her is another chance for him to hurt her.
When I see the cabin and his car parked out front, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and floor it as I mumble to myself, “Doc, you better hope you didn’t do something stupid because I swear to fucking God I’ll blow your head off if I see one drop of blood on her, asshole.”
I can’t even let myself think about the idea that there might be his cum mixed with her blood like with that poor girl he was bragging about that night. If he touched her like that, I swear to God I’m going to kill him.
The car barely stops rolling before I’m out with my gun in my hand. I press my palm to the hood of his car and feel it’s still warm. They haven’t been here very long. He better hope it wasn’t long enough for him to make a mistake he won’t live to brag about with his buddies.
My foot hits the front porch when I hear a bloodcurdling scream come from the inside of the cabin. It’s Lily’s voice. I’d know it anywhere.
The sound makes my heart skip a beat. She’s in there with him and he’s hurting her. Fucking asshole! One sign of blood—one fucking drop— and I’m going to blow his fucking head clear off his shoulders.
A single kick sends the front door flying open, and what I see when I take that first step inside makes me nearly blind with rage. Naked on the floor, Lily’s fighting to get him off her while Doc hovers over her with his dick out and a knife in his right hand while he holds her down with the other. I can’t hear anything but her screaming my name over and over like some horrible, desperate plea she hopes will save her.
“Cason! Help me!”
I rip him off her and shove him across the floor into the wall. He’s stunned for a few seconds, but he’s not knocked out. Lily scrambles to grab her clothes, curling up in a ball on the other side of the room as she gets dressed.
“Go out to the car and wait for me. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Her eyes wide and full of pure fear, she still bothers to ask me a goddamned question. “What are you going to do to him?”
It draws my attention away for a second, and I look over at her in disbelief. “Go! Now!”
Before she can run away, Doc gets up on his feet, his stiff dick still poking out of his fucking pants. It’s not every day I interrupt an attempted rape, and as much as it’s against everything I am as a man, I want to shoot that fucker’s prick right off with one clear shot.
He takes a step toward her, and I point my gun straight at the center of his forehead. “Don’t move one more inch from that spot, or I’m going to blow your head off.”
Lily makes a whimpering sound as she stands up to walk to the door, but my attention is firmly on Doc. One move. That’s all he has to make and I’ll pull the trigger. Just one twitch of any part of his body and he gets what he deserves.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to threaten me while the cunt you’re supposed to kill gets to walk out of here? What is it that makes this girl so fucking special? Tell me since you stopped me before I got to figure it the fuck out. What is it, Cason, that makes you want to kill me over her?”
Every word out of his mouth makes me more eager to blow him away. I’m not supposed to kill her. Not yet. What I do with Lily is none of his goddamned business anyway. It’s nobody’s business but mine.
“Shut the fuck up. You took something of mine. Now you get to see how I feel when someone does that, Doc.”
His name comes out of my mouth in a hiss I hate it so much. One move is all I want him to make. Not that I can’t just shoot him without it. He’s a fucking security guard who watches a house my father doesn’t even like to visit, for fuck’s sake. This time, even my father would have to agree a son beats some easily replaced security asshole.
Behind me, Lily lets out another piercing scream like the one before, and a second later, Doc makes that move toward me I knew he would. He barely gets two steps closer to me before I do what I’ve wanted to do for a while. The gun goes off, the bullet exploding out of the chamber, and a second later, he drops to the floor like a bag of wet shit.
I walk over and look down at him in disgust. Stupid fuck. I watch him for a moment to make sure he’s dead, but it’s not necessary. I aimed to kill, so that’s just what I did. The proof is his brains splattered all over the wall behind him.
Instantly, I know what I have to do. Turning around, I see Lily staring at me in horror. No wonder she didn’t believe me when I said I wouldn’t kill her. Now she’s gotten to see what I am in full view.
“We need to go.”
“What are you going to do? Bury him?”
Again, with the old TV shows shit.
“No. I’m not going to bury him,” I answer while I walk over to see if he cut her anywhere.
Lily looks up at me far too innocently for what she’s just been through and seen. I can feel those dark eyes of hers focus on me as I scan her body for what he did to her.
“So what happens now?”
The truth is I don’t know what happens now. I just shot one of my father’s employees, so I’ll have to deal with that when the time comes. At this moment, all I can process is the utter relief that Lily’s not bleeding, as far as I can see.
“You come with me. That’s what happens now,” I say when I finally let my gaze move back to her face.
“Back to the house?” she asks sheepishly.
I shake my head. “No. We need to go somewhere else now.”
Turning to walk out the door, I feel her touch my arm and look back to see her eyes filling with tears. I’ve never seen the aftermath of a kill. There’s nobody left standing when I do my job. Nobody to cry over the people I’ve killed.
“I’m sorry I ran away, Cason,” she says before she covers her face and begins to cry. “I didn’t know.”
Her tears anger me. Is she crying over that fuck I just shot to protect her?
“Yes, you did. I told you not to ever speak to him again, and you went ahead and did it anyway. Why did you think I said that?”
Lowering her hands, she sniffles. “I thought you might be jealous because he was so nice to me.”
I can’t decide if her innocence is something I still like or if she’s just plain stupid. Either way, she wasn’t entirely wrong. I knew about Doc’s penchant for hurting women, but I also didn’t like the way he talked to her because it made me jealous.
She doesn’t need to know that, though.
“What I was doing was trying to make sure he didn’t get a hold of you and cut you up. That’s his thing. He likes to cut girls while he fucks them. Cum and blood get him off. But then, I guess you know that.”
I don’t know why I say that. It makes no sense, and it’s intentionally cruel. At least at this very moment, I shouldn’t be that way to her. Still, the words come out before I can stop them, and they have the exact effect they’re supposed to.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs and covers her face again.
Part of me wants to ask if she’s okay, but another part of me hates how easily she read my jealousy over that asshole. The shitty part wins out, and I say nothing before pushing her out the door of the cabin onto the porch.
“You must think I’m really stupid, don’t you?” she says as I guide her to the passenger side of the car.
Whatever a decent man would say to that, I have no idea. I want to tell her I think she’s incredibly stupid at times, but that will only bring about more crying and then more questions. I don’t want to deal with either.
So I say nothing and slam the car door behind me before walking around the car and getting in. I need to figure out where to take her now that the house is no good. I need time to get my answer straight in my head for why I killed Doc because my father is going to be asking as soon as they find the son of a bitch sprawled out in that cabin with his brains all over the place.
Most of all, I need some peace and quiet, but with Lily around, that’s not going to happen.
I drive about a mile before she starts talking again, and I silently remind myself I could just tape her mouth closed for the rest of the time she’s around. I won’t, though. As much as she practically drives me insane with all her questions, I think I might miss them if she stopped now.
“Are you angry with me because of what I did?”
That wasn’t a question I’d expected to hear, and as I slow down to drive onto another dark country road, I turn to look at her. “I told you I wouldn’t kill you. I don’t think good old Doc would have made you the same promise.”
A sound like a tiny whimper escapes from her, and I wait for the tears to come once more. But they don’t. Instead, she says in a voice barely above a whisper, “Please don’t be angry. I thought he was going to be nice to me.”
And that, right there, makes me angrier than I can even explain.
