How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,114

and see a keypad right next to it. Like my hand is possessed, I reach up and press four numbers. The four numbers I saw that monster push when he’d dragged me in and out of the room he’d been keeping me in.

9314

The red light flashes once and for a moment, I think I’m wrong. I did it wrong, and I’m losing my mind. I’m seeing things where there isn’t anything. But the moment it hits green, I know I need to get out of here.

The upstairs door slams shut, and I jump.

No, no, no.

He’s home.

The monster is home.

No matter what I do, I know he’ll hear me. I can try to hide, but I know he could follow my scent down here. He probably already knows I’m down here and nothing I can do will fix that.

I quickly unlock my phone and click on Marcus’s number as I try to think. We’ve already proven again and again that we can’t beat this monster and now… now… I know who it is.

And he won’t let me leave here alive.

Before the phone even rings, it’s snatched out of my hand and my guns are torn from my side, but I do nothing to stop it. I have to be smart. I have to not panic even if my body is fighting against me.

“Oh, doll,” Watson says as he tosses my phone and guns. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” His voice is deeper, much like the one he uses when he has me cornered, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s his real voice. Had he even learned how to change his voice just to fuck with me? Just to make people think he was innocent and average? “I just… I just try so hard sometimes and you won’t fucking listen!” He kicks a table in rage, sending it flying across the room and making me jump.

After I’d been taken by the monster, I studied serial killers and people who enjoy torturing others in the hopes I could understand him to stop him. I went to school, I learned all I could, and I became good at this job. Even so, I know this man better than I should. Not as Watson, no, my knowledge about him is probably all lies, but I know the monster. The monster that has followed me nearly half my life. That watches me, studies me, and taunts me.

How had he been able to fool me for so long? Was it just the aura that he exudes that made me incapable of picking out pieces of Watson from the monster? Was it because I truly cared for Watson that I never imagined he could hurt me? I know he kept his features covered up, but I think I was blinded by the idea that someone I cared for couldn’t do this to me.

He loves me. He’s enraged when I’m hurt. He’s afraid he’ll hurt me and tries to keep me away from him so I don’t end up like one of the many victims he’s had.

And I need to play into that.

“Watson… why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, voice as soft and normal as I can make it. If I look afraid or if I try to run, he’ll catch me. I know I won’t get away, so I have to be smart.

He turns to look at me and I notice his eyes show a hint of red. “What’s that, doll?”

“All this time… all this fucking time, I was fighting against you. If I had known it was you… Watson… Watson, you’re one of the most important people in my life and I’ve been… I’ve been trying to kill you. What if Marcus killed you?” I reach for him now, not like I’m trying to grab or hurt him, but like I’m wanting to reach out to hold on to him.

He’s watching me closely and I don’t know if he’ll lean into my lies or pull away from them, but he hasn’t picked either way yet. He snorts, a look of amusement crossing his face. “You try to tell me that you care about me? Oh, doll…”

Miller said he had a lack of emotion which means he probably doesn’t comprehend emotions as well, but he has an understanding of what they mean. If I play on that, will he listen to me?

“Watson… no… what you did to me was awful and horrible and I hated you for that, but… you’re also Watson. You’re