Darkmore Penitentiary 2 - Caroline Peckham Page 0,130

my ass if anyone saw me. No one ever questioned me taking on extra hours. It was a habit most people expected of me. Besides, the only one who gave a damn about what I got up to was Hastings and he was currently tucked up in his bed for the night.

I’d spent the evening alone after my shift had ended, my rage not having dulled even a little bit. I kept thinking of Nixon touching Rosalie and anger would burn through every inch of me all over again. I wanted to annihilate him for that single act. The possessiveness I felt over her was a headfuck of its own. I didn’t know what to do with all of these feelings.

I was used to being angry, but not jealous. When I’d seen her down by the Fate Room with Shadowbrook, Night and fucking Wilder, I’d wanted to tear her away from them all and never let her near them again. But this had to stop. I didn’t own her. I didn’t have a right to stop her being with whoever she wanted. Especially someone she was fucking mated to. By the stars, how could the moon have mated those two? They were sworn enemies and not only that, but fuck Ethan Shadowbrook. I despised him. Envied him. Wanted to cut out his heart and hold it up to the moon to show her what I thought of her fucking mate bond. But I couldn’t do that. Rosalie wasn’t mine and never would be.

So why did I ache for her to want me too? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about ways to get her alone, to try and make amends for all the bad shit between us? Make her see that I was capable of being good to her. That I painfully regretted leaving her in the hole all that time.

But maybe she was just getting back in my head again. Maybe this was just another game she was playing. Maybe I really was just a fucking idiot who was pussy whipped over a pussy I’d never even had. Maybe she’d snuck under my skin again and was puppeteering everything I did, everything I felt.

But when I’d spoken with her down on the maintenance level, I’d been sure she’d told the truth for once. I could sense the difference, I’d been certain this time. Then again, maybe I really was just a fucking moron living on a damn dream.

I rubbed my eyes as I headed down in the elevator to level eight. Violence would help settle this untamed creature in me tonight. Then tomorrow, I’d wake and I’d be back in control. I’d be able to fight away these strange emotions and bury them deep. Twelve wasn’t for me. But for now, we had one particular goal we shared and I wanted to dig deeper into it. For me, for her. For every inmate who was dragged down into Psych and ended up burning in the incinerator for it after. Burned by me.

I’d played a part in whatever was going on down here. Done my duty. Burned the bodies who were laid out to be destroyed each week. It wasn’t a pretty job, but Fae corpses had to be burned or else their power remained in their bones and that magic could be stolen if it got into the wrong hands. Part of me had always thought of it as the only way a lot of the unfortunate assholes in this place ever got free, pumped out of a chimney into the sky.

I could accept burning the bodies of those who died because of another inmate or a magical accident, but I’d never signed up to destroy the evidence of those killed by the workers here. And I wasn’t going to keep blindly following orders and covering up whatever dark shit they were up to.

I strode down the empty corridor toward Psych, checking my watch before moving into an alcove and shrinking back into the shadows. I was a predator waiting for his prey, my breaths coming faster as the thrill of the hunt made my pulse race. It was just a few more minutes before a door opened at the end of the corridor and I waited for my mark to walk by.

Janice Cunning was one of the lead doctors in Psych and if anyone was sure to know everything about what was going on in there, it was her. I knew her schedule by heart. I’d come down here