แชร์

8

ผู้เขียน: Crystal Lake Publishing
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2022-07-20 18:03:21
8

As we walk the block to my house, our senses are on overdrive, searching for even the slightest sense of danger.

“We’ll need to be careful going in,” Jason whispers. “We didn’t see anyone go in while we were here, but they may have already gotten in before we showed up.”

“Jason, please,” I reply with my most derisive snort. “I may not be as organized or fiscally responsible as you, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

I pull out my smartphone and open up the app which connects to my house’s security system. A quick check of the house’s sensors confirms no one has even put a foot on the front lawn since I left the house yesterday morning for my mother’s funeral.

As we approach my driveway, I use the app once more to unlock the alarm system, then return the phone to my purse, thinking I can’t wait to get out of this damn dress and into some clothes with pockets.

Despite my confidence in my alarm system, we still proceed cautiously into the house—better safe than sorry right now. The house appears to be just as I left it and all is quiet . . . too quiet.

“Let’s make this quick,” Jason whispers, confirming that he’s as uneasy as I am. “Just grab what you absolutely need to survive on the run, and let’s get out.”

I nod in agreement.

I lead the way to the back of the house where my bedroom is and cautiously open the door. I consider asking Jason to stay in the hall because I’m still not sure I trust him to know the secret of my hiding place, but 1.) splitting up right now is probably not the best of plans, 2.) it’s probably moot anyway since I doubt I’ll ever be able to come back to this home again, and 3.) I suppose I should lend him a little bit of trust, considering he’s saved my life and all.

I cross the room to my second walk-in closet—the one where I store my extremely large collection of stuffed plush animals. No, it’s not that I like to cuddle them. Sheesh. It’s just that I frequently find the need to unleash my rage and kill something, and since I haven’t been allowed to kill outside of work for the last several years, I found ‘murdering’ stuffed animals made a relatively decent substitute.

I briefly consider taking a couple of the fluffies with me, just in case, but then remember I’m no longer bound to T.H.E.M., and can kill someone if I want to, as long as I cover my tracks and don’t get caught. After all these years of being under the umbrella of T.H.E.M.’s contract, I’m not sure how I feel about this sudden, unexpected liberation.

I start tossing the fluffies out of the closet to make my way to the back.

Jason makes no comment about my out-of-character collection, as he was well aware of my hobby back when we were dating. Hell, there were a couple of times he joined me in slaughtering a bunny or two. I could lie and say it hadn’t been a warped form of foreplay for us, but who am I kidding. Yeah, it was. What can I say? Killing things—even inanimate objects—gets me off.

Before I was hired by T.H.E.M., I was known as the Preying Mantis due to my proclivity of killing men mid-coitus. Jason is just about the only man I’ve ever had sex with more than once that I have not had the urge to kill. Duke Anderson in Tennessee was a close second to getting that distinct honor, but considering I did end up having to kill him—even though I felt really bad about it—kinda disqualifies him from actually getting the trophy.

Anyway, I clear a path through the fluffies and push back against the bottom corner at the back of the closet, which gives way to a hidden compartment I’d built myself after moving in. I reach into the darkness and pull out a small black lockbox. Just to make sure, I pull a key out of my purse and confirm that the contents of the lockbox are all in place: a large wad of cash, along with several fake driver’s licenses and passports, each with forged photos of me in various disguised looks.

“All’s here,” I say, as I lock the box back up and return the key to my pocket. “Just let me grab some clothes and other essentials and we can get out of here.”

The universe, in its infinite love of fucking with me, of course, chose that moment to rear its ugly head once more, as my phone begins playing ‘Call Me Maybe’ from inside my purse, harshly shattering the monotonous silence of the night. No, I don’t like the song. I fucking hate it with every ounce of my being. It fills me with a murderous rage whenever I hear it, which is precisely why I set it as the specific ringtone for my house alarm app.

“Fuck, we’ve got incoming.”

อ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้ต่อได้ฟรี
สแกนรหัสเพื่อดาวน์โหลดแอป

บทล่าสุด

  • Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides   Epilogue

    EPILOGUESo, where doesthis leave us now? I don’t have much more to say on the matter. I’ve now killed both my parents, a surrogate father figure, and the only man I’ve ever even come close to feeling what some might describe as love for. I suppose I could spend my energy hunting down the rest of the Marching Tides and make sure they don’t spill T.H.E.M.’s—and therein my—secrets to the world, but honestly, I don’t have the energy to care about all that now. I got the revenge I was looking for, and it cost me all of the people I ever cared about.I suppose I’m a little concerned that the remaining Marching Tides may try and hunt me down and avenge the death of their leader—my mother—but I say let them try. I will be more than happy to kill any one of those fuckers who tries to fuck with me.So, what now? I have to admit Jason’s idea of finding the beach from The Shawshank Redemptionhas a certain appeal. If only he hadn’t felt the need to go all ‘patriarchal protector’ o

  • Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides   24

    24I slowly cometo my senses, dazed and confused. Gradually, I remember the seizure; my radar intolerance frequently results in temporary memory loss. I take a look at my surroundings and see I’m in some sort of abandoned warehouse—obviously not the same one from Vegas where Jason and I had confronted Chuck, Gale, and Jared, but as far as abandoned warehouses go, there’s not that much variety. You end up kidnapped in one abandoned warehouse, you’ve ended up kidnapped in them all.I’m in an old, splintery wooden chair but I don’t appear to be restrained at all—verytrusting of my elusive captor. They do not appear, however, to have been so trusting as to leave me with Borden for it is conspicuously missing from the sheath under my waistband. This fucker is going to pay ... no onetakes Borden from me.I survey the rest of the room and see two other chairs across the warehouse, both occupied by captives who are unconscious—but breathing—andbound fir

  • Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides   23

    23I wake upthe next morning before Jason and decide to check the Dark Web. I start up the pay-per-use phone, log into the app, and immediately see there is a new post from Rick. It reads, simply: “Dear Sarah, I know you’ll read this. I will see you soon. Hasa Diga, Ebowai.”The world drops out from under me. The meaning of those last three words is clear. There were only three people in the diner when I made that Book of Mormonreference to Zeke; myself, Zeke, and Jason, and unless we’re going for a Fight Clubtwist ending here where it turns out I’ve had a split personality working against me this entire time—for fuck’s sake, I sure hope we’re not going down thattired out trope—that means either Jason or Zeke have ratted me out to Rick, or might even beRick.I climb out of bed, doing my best not to make too much commotion and wake Jason, and start pacing the room, trying to sort out my thoughts. It makes absolutely zero sense for Zeke to turncoat on his

  • Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides   22

    22In the morning,I decide it might not be a bad idea to give myself a bit of a cover story so I call down to the front desk to complain about the noise from the room next door last night. “They were blasting their music so loud, and it was after three in the morning, it was so damn obnoxious. They woke me right up out of sleep!”“Did you call to notify us at the time of the incident?” the operator asks. I can tell from the tone of his voice that this is a conversation he has had one hundred times too many.“Well, no ... ”“Then what exactly do you expect us to do about it? If you’d told us about the incident at the time it was happening, we could have addressed the matter and resolved it without causing you any further discomfort. Unfortunately, our engineering team has not yet cracked the secret of time travel, though I assure you they are working diligently on it, so at this point of the morning there isn’t anything we can do to address the problem.”I sudde

  • Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides   21

    21First thing thenext morning, we check our new Dark Web app. Sure enough, the first post on the Marching Tides board is a bulletin from the enigmatic Rick, increasing the bounty on my head to six million bucks. On the plus side, Rick still wants me brought to him alive at all costs, so I guess I should be thankful for that small favor. Jason’s life is, apparently, still considered expendable, though. Stupidly, I break the number one rule of the internet, which is even more true for the darkside of the internet: neverread the comments. Not entirely surprisingly, the majority of the comments are along the misogynistic lines of, “Oh, I’ll bring her in alive ... what I do to her beforethat is a different matter ... ” And people honestly wonder why I killed twelve men—I killed one woman, just to try it out, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying—for pleasure before T.H.E.M. recruited me? Seems pretty self-explanatory, to me.Rick doesn’t app

  • Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides   20

    20We find a restaurant—a realrestaurant, not just a diner, for once!—to have some dinner, then seek out a motel to spend the night. We agree we shouldn’t check the Dark Web app until we’re ready to leave Phoenix, or whatever location we are currently at whenever we check in, just in case we do set off any silent alarms. After checking into our motel room, we decide it’s a good time to switch up our appearances and identities again. I adopt a chin-length blonde wig accompanied by brown-tinted contact lenses and a new prosthetic nose. This time Jason decides to be the one to go ginger with hair dye and a fake beard.Our new disguises donned, Jason asks, “So, what do we do now? We’ve got the whole night ahead of us since we can’t check the Dark Web app until the morning.”“Well, we could ... you know... ” I smile.“I don’t think we should repay Frank’s hospitality by killing some random Phoenician immediately after Frank risked his career to help

บทอื่นๆ
สำรวจและอ่านนวนิยายดีๆ ได้ฟรี
เข้าถึงนวนิยายดีๆ จำนวนมากได้ฟรีบนแอป GoodNovel ดาวน์โหลดหนังสือที่คุณชอบและอ่านได้ทุกที่ทุกเวลา
อ่านหนังสือฟรีบนแอป
สแกนรหัสเพื่ออ่านบนแอป
DMCA.com Protection Status