Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck Series Book 3) Read online

  I try to fight, but he digs his fingers into my jaw, wrenching it open. He ties the gag, securing it, then I hear the telltale rip of duct tape seconds before it covers my mouth.

  I struggle again, fighting, but with my hands and feet bound together. He laughs again as he lifts me, carrying me effortlessly down the stairs, intentionally dragging my head against the wall.

  I cry out, only hearing a barely-there, muffled sound through the layers of gagging he’s secured. My head slams against the side of the wall when he turns sharply.

  “Oops,” he says, snickering.

  He drops me to the ground, and I whimper, the sound not escaping at all as my elbow hits too hard, along with my hip. The creaking of two folding closet doors becomes noticeable as I see the doors swing open, and he slams his foot into my stomach hard enough to crack some ribs and kick me into the small space.

  He kneels as he slides me in the rest of the way, and I twist my head away when he tries to brush the hair from my eyes.

  “Enjoy the show, Agent Grace. At least you’ll know what’s coming next.”

  With that, he slams the doors shut, and the small, blind-like centers let me see through the slats as his feet move away.

  Music filters through the house, a soft, classical song. I can see the front door from here, and I watch, wishing I had never suspected her of anything.

  A tear rolls from my eye, feeling like fire licking against my skin.

  Logan will be with her. He’ll die right in front of me. And I can’t even warn him.

  I can feel my phone in my front pocket, taunting me—so close, yet so far away. No matter how I twist, I can’t reach it.

  It seems like hours later the door is finally opening, and I try to scream. Try to warn her. But the small sound I’m able to make is drowned out by the music in the house.

  It’s just her as she shuts the door; no Logan. No hope of being saved.

  It happens fast.

  Plemmons blindsides her, punching her right in the side of the face. She drops the keys and phone she’s holding and slams into the wall from the impact, dazed and confused.

  He throws his body against hers, and she cries out as he twists her hand that she tries to hit him with, while simultaneously choking her with his arm. Despite the music, I can hear every word he says.

  “Feisty. I like that. And so pretty. Agent Bennett picks them well,” he taunts. “He left you all alone finally. Tell me, princess, are you afraid of the Boogeyman?”

  He lifts off her and throws her into the wall across from him. She hits hard before bouncing to the ground.

  What has my ears perking up is the sound of her laughter as she slowly lifts herself from the ground.

  “Boogeyman,” she says, looking up at him. “Took you long enough.”

  His footsteps pause as confusion mixed with anger crosses his face. He gets off on fear. On pain.

  Yet she’s acting immune.

  Did Logan coach her on how to act?

  Or is she really that fucking stupidly unafraid?

  He charges her, kicking her in the stomach, before grabbing her by the hair of the head, jerking her up to her feet.

  A strangled sound of pain escapes her, and he pushes her into the wall with enough force to crack something. Her face is to the side, and she’s smiling as he comes in behind her.

  “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 th
e 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.

  I failed so many others by trusting the lies.

  She brought his evil deeds to an end.

  What happens if others are hurt because I stopped her before she finished? I’m barely living with the guilt I’ve yet to face.

  I have no idea what to do.

  As I agonize over the options, Lana sits down, watching him bleed out, holding onto the knife as casually as if it’s the TV remote and she’s watching her favorite show. He chokes and gurgles up blood, staring at her in disbelief.

  He came to kill a weak woman, only to find he was really the prey who ran into the lion’s den.

  “This is my favorite part,” she tells him softly. “The look of resignation. The moment the hope slips away and you know you won’t be saved. I’ve been there. It’s terrifying, so I know exactly how panicked you are right now. How helpless you feel. The difference is, you won’t get up and live to kill them all one day.”

  Live to kill them all one day.

  I file away each bit of information, deciding to make a list of reasons why I should or shouldn’t tell the world who she is.

  “They took too much. Left too little. I had nothing to lose,” she whispers, the words barely making it to me. “Until him.”

  My heart thumps faster. Logan. She’s talking about Logan.

  “Then you wanted to kill him. He’s too good to die. He’s everything opposite of us. His light still shines. I hope they have fun with you in hell. You sentenced yourself there the day you targeted the only thing that makes me feel as though there’s still a soul inside me left to be saved. The only thing I love more than revenge.”

  Just like that, I have my answer. And I watch with her as the Boogeyman dies by his own knife. At the hands of a woman.

  The hands of a victim.

  In a way, it’s poetic justice.

  Chapter 3

  The course of true love never did run smooth.

  —William Shakespeare

  LANA

  My brother was a Shakespeare lover. He lived and breathed the words of a man his generation took for granted. The people of that time didn’t respect or appreciate the anguish and torment tied into each tragedy he produced under the guise of true romance.

  Marcus was a romantic to the core, with nothing but light and beauty shining from him.

  The world around us snuffed out that light.

  They stole his grace.

  Shamed his name.

  Killed him.

  Destroyed us.

  With great amusement, I watch as the Boogeyman exhales his last breath. No longer will he steal lights as bright as my brother’s.

  The Boogeyman will no longer be seen as the immortal that taunts the police or FBI. He’ll no longer be the nightmare who terrorizes women, haunting their lives. He’ll be revered as a mortal who died at the hands of a weak woman he failed to kill.

  A woman who got lucky enough to kill him first.

  Curious, I pull on a glove and check his pockets, finding a remote. Hmmm…

  I look around, and spot what the remote goes to. There’s an out-of-place little contraption next to my fireplace. I’m fairly positive it’s a cell phone jammer. My phone was working before I came in, so he shut it on at some other time.

  Putting the
remote back in his pocket, I stand to go to my cell phone. It was dropped within the first five seconds that he blindsided me. Sure enough, there’s nothing going on when I try to dial out. No signal.

  Good. That gives me an excuse as to why I watched him bleed out for over thirty minutes—the same way he let his victims die.

  I glance over my shoulder, a horror movie flashback hitting me, but he’s still dead. No disappearing act for the mortal who has drawn his last breath.

  I return my gaze to my phone and carry it toward the couch. A normal girl wouldn’t notice a cell phone jammer—or even know what one was—so quickly after the traumatizing experience of killing a man.

  I turn off the music, removing my iPod from the dock. Asshole.

  I hate my things being touched by people. Now he’s gone and bled all over my floor too. It’ll take me forever to clean all that up.

  I’d call him inconsiderate, but since I’m the one that sort of stabbed him, then I guess it’s my own fault. I should have let him run into the knife on the tile floor instead of the carpet.

  Oh well. I can finally get that hardwood I’ve been considering. I usually don’t update my homes, but with Logan living somewhat close by, I’ve had more reasons to stay than go.

  I wonder how long it’ll be before someone checks in on me. Or should I run and scream down the street? How does a normal person act after being attacked by a homicidal maniac and miraculously killing him by fluke?

  Do they rock in a corner? Do they cry? I hope not. I can’t fake tears, and I don’t like rocking. Makes me nauseated.

  Do I scream and pretend to be inconsolable or terrified? I don’t like screaming. Hurts my throat. And acting terrified will be hard to pull off, because…I can’t remember how to be afraid.

  Obviously he wanted to rape me. I do remember how to feel after that. Numb. Broken. Suicidal. But that was much more than one man that brought me to that point.

  It was much more than the rape that left me so broken.

  So really, I guess I don’t know, which it doesn’t matter. He sure as hell never made it that far.

  Do I act stunned or shocked? Do I show remorse even though he deserved to die? I’ll start laughing if I try to fake remorse for that sadistic piece of shit.