Bryan Smith - The Killing Kind

But Joe was another story. He wasn’t afraid of him at all.

His grin felt ugly. Probably looked even worse. “When I came back that night, after nearly getting my ass fucking killed, I couldn’t find Zoe. I came over to your room, but I didn’t knock. I stood at your door and listened for a long time, Joe.”

Joe’s face began to turn pale. “Chuck-”

“Shut up. It was hard to tell what was going on in there at first. It was a lot of damn noise. A big fucking party, from the sound of it. I didn’t leave until I heard something I’d recognize anywhere. Wanna guess what that was, friend?”

Chuck waited a beat. Joe didn’t say anything.

“It was Zoe having an orgasm. She’s a loud one, isn’t she?”

Joe knocked back his drink and set the glass on the bar. “You know what, man? You can shove this high-and-mighty shit right up your fucking ass. Seriously, where do you get off? You think I don’t know you fucked Emily the same night?”

“What?”

Joe’s grin returned. “Yeah, she told me. Hell, she told me right after.”

Chuck seethed inwardly. What Joe was saying astounded him, yet he had no reason to doubt it. And if she’d told Joe, why wouldn’t she have told Zoe? Hell, maybe she had and Zoe had simply decided to let it go in light of the beating he’d taken.

“What the fuck is wrong with your girlfriend?”

Joe frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Why would she tell you about that?”

Joe laughed. “Man, she always tells me. We have an open relationship. It’s a whole swinging-seventies thing.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah. Why not? It goes both ways, you know.” He grinned. “Sort of. She gets to fuck whoever she wants, and I get to fuck whoever she tells me to fuck. And she’s such a freak that I wind up fucking a lot of people, man.”

“Nice.”

Joe laughed again. “No shit.” He picked up his glass. “Now how’s about a refill?”

“Get it yourself, douche bag.”

Chuck left Joe standing alone at the bar as he walked through the living room and then down the hallway that led to the big master bedroom he shared with Zoe. He shut the door, stripped down, and went into the bathroom. He stepped into the shower stall and turned the water on, adjusting the temperature to a point just shy of scalding. The water felt good rushing over him. The steam felt good, too. He closed his eyes and tried not to think of all the things that were pissing him off, because there were just too many of them. As he began to relax, his mind drifted back to his brief glimpse of Annalisa squatting over Emily’s face. A predictable physical result ensued.

His eyes snapped open when he heard the stall door open.

Emily peeked inside. She looked him up and down, smirking at the sight of his hand clenched around his erection. “Joe told me about your little spat. Said you could probably use some consoling. But, ah…” She laughed. “Here, let me help you with that.”

She started to step into the shower stall.

Chuck stared at her.

She was naked.

And she looked as enticing as ever. More.

He knew he should tell her to go away. But desire overwhelmed his better judgment. He reached for her and pulled her into the stall. She laughed as his hands pawed at her. That mocking quality he recalled from the encounter in the van was there again. A wave of self-hatred assailed him. His erection began to wilt. He stopped kissing Emily and gripped her by the shoulders, prying her off of him.

Her expression was a mixture of confusion and anger. “What the fuck?”

“You’re getting out.”

He steered her back toward the open stall door, turned her around, and gave her a hard shove in the back. She cried out as she stumbled out of the stall and fell clumsily to the floor. Her knees smacked the plush bathroom rug and she cried out again. She got up and glared at Chuck. “You son of a bitch.”

“Get out, Emily. Now.”

She made no move to leave. “You could have hurt me. That was assault, Chuck. I could call the cops.”

“I don’t give a shit what you do. Just get out.”

“You’ll give a shit when I tell them you tried to rape me.”

Chuck smirked. “You do that. And maybe they won’t laugh in your face when they find out what a gigantic fucking slut you are.”

Her glare turned murderous. She retrieved her bikini from the towel rack and began to put it on. “Nothing good ever comes of pissing me off, Chuck. I’ll put you in your place before long. You’ll see.”

She was gone before he could respond.

Chuck closed the stall door and stepped under the spray again, a smile stretching across his face as the hot water streamed down his body. He didn’t doubt the sincerity of her vow to get back at him. She would try to exact revenge, somehow, some way. But for the moment it didn’t matter. He felt like he’d won something. It was a little thing, really, but it felt important to him.

He’d made a stand.

And hadn’t given in to temptation.

He felt a small flicker of some initially unidentifiable emotion. He needed a few moments to recognize it as something resembling pride. He felt good about something he’d done.

He smiled again.

It’d been a long time.

March 26

Rob was getting pretty sick of motel rooms. Roxie preferred to stay in the real sleaze pits to conserve cash and blend in with the other shady characters. The Starline Economy Inn, located on US 17 just outside of Myrtle Beach, was typical of the type. These dumps all looked basically the same, with some small variations in overall grime level to spice things up. He was missing the small but neat and comfortable apartment he shared with Lindsey a little more each day. He was weary of all the killing and drama, of course, but an even bigger factor in his deepening disenchantment with the situation was Julie Cosgrove.

He stared at her from his seat by the table. She sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, with the stolen notebook computer propped open in her lap. Her eyes were intent on the glowing screen as her fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard. Every so often she’d start typing a little faster and a little harder, and when she did this, the tip of her tongue would emerge at a corner of her mouth and stay there until the typing pace slowed again. The girl was a fucking Internet junkie. Even Roxie, who generally treated her like a long-lost little sister, was showing signs of annoyance with the girl’s online obsessions.

She laughed at something on the screen and her fingers started flying over the keyboard again.

Rob shook his head and took a slow pull from a longneck Bud bottle.

He and Roxie had been sort of flying under the radar, but Julie’s face was all over the cable news networks and the front pages of newspapers nationwide. She was a missing cute white girl and the media thrived on that shit. At least she’d done some things to alter her appearance. The hair was the most obvious thing. It made her look like Linnea Quigley in Return of the Living Dead. The shoulder tattoo and the eyebrow piercing helped some. Neither, obviously, were in any of the pictures circulating. Some subtle makeup tips from Roxie even seemed to change the shape of her face a little. But if you stared at her long and hard enough, it was still possible to discern the girl from the pictures. He was worried someone would guess who she was and bring the law down on them in a hurry.

Roxie came out of the bathroom wearing a black skull shirt and the short black skirt he liked. She scrubbed her wet hair with a towel and tossed the towel aside. She saw Rob staring at her and struck a pose, placing a hand on a thrust-out hip. “You like?”