The Psycho (The Soldiers of Anarchy 1)

Chapter Seventeen

Liv

What was the matter with me?

I was losing my damn mind over an ice cream.

Okay, so it wasn’t just about the ice cream… I was stressed and irrational and couldn’t even think straight. But still, an ice cream fucking broke me.

Why was he still following me?

What was so special about me?

I took deep breaths as I sat in my car, trying to calm myself down and I turned the radio on to hear the Kim Dracula version of Paparazzi playing like a flipping omen to my misery. Maybe Kim Dracula had a point though? He would follow me until I loved him, or until he’d got what he wanted. Wasn’t that what all guys were like? The ones I’d encountered certainly were. The minute you opened up, or opened your legs, they lost interest and you didn’t see them for dust. I’d bet money on him being the same.

I turned the radio off, not really feeling the whole stalker vibe of the song, and I suddenly felt guilty. He’d bought me an ice cream. He could have grown a pair and given it to me himself, but if I looked at it from a different angle, wasn’t he just trying to do a nice thing?

No, Liv. Stop it. There are no nice gestures and sweet moments where Adam Noble is concerned. He’s a soldier, a vigilante, he kills people for fun and everything he does has a sinister, gratifying, self-satisfying edge to it.

I shook my head and then banged it back against the head rest behind me. I felt like I had an angel and a devil sitting on both my shoulders and even they couldn’t agree on what was happening in my life. The lines of good and evil were blurred, and I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

I tried to rationalise it in my mind. I’d spoken to him, warned him off, and he still wasn’t deterred. I’d tried ignoring him, that didn’t work either. Maybe I needed to take a different avenue? Maybe I needed to meet him halfway. Invite him in a little. Show him what I was really like. Maybe then he’d lose interest and move on. I needed to change the plan, rewrite the rules. So far, I’d played into his hands. It was time he played into mine, because let’s face it, if there was one thing I usually did really well, it was scare guys off and get left high and dry. What was it Chase had said? I wasn’t the girl they stayed with. I was dispensable. Maybe all Adam needed was to see that.

So, I took my phone out and I sent him a message.

Me: I’m sorry I threw your ice cream away.

The dots indicating that he was responding danced around and I held my phone in a death-like grip, waiting to see what he’d reply.

My Stalker: Why did you throw it away? It had sprinkles on it.

I laughed, despite myself. Nice try at using a bit of sarcasm to diffuse the situation.

Me: Because I was angry and I’m tired. Tired of these games.

I wanted to make sure he knew that this wasn’t a joke for me. It was about so much more than sprinkles and ice cream cones.

My Stalker: I only wanted to make you smile. You looked so lonely.

I was floored by his response. It wasn’t like Adam to be so candid. The angel on my shoulder gave a little whoop as if to say, ‘See? It was a kind gesture.’ While the devil huffed, ‘Always manipulative. He’s even using your emotions to blackmail you.’ I was so confused I didn’t know which one to believe.

Me: How can I be lonely when I have you following me around?

I was lonely. But I would never admit that, not even to my two best friends.

My Stalker: Sometimes, the loneliest people are the ones who surround themselves with others. You forget that I know you, Olivia. I get you.

He thought he got me. But how could he when I didn’t even get myself?

Me: You think you know me, Adam, but really you don’t. I’m a horrible person. I speak my mind and people hate it. I spend way too much time on my appearance. I’m shallow. If you got to know me, you’d realise that.

I thought I’d hit him with the truth. Tell him exactly what sort of a person I really was.

My Stalker: That’s what you want people to think, and it breaks my heart if you actually believe that to be true. Do you? Because I don’t see it that way. You speak your mind because you care. If people don’t see that then more fool them. You are beautiful with or without all the shit you put on your face because beauty is more than just a pretty face, its kindness and love. You do things for other’s even though they don’t know about it or acknowledge it. They don’t thank you because they take you for granted. You’re not shallow, Olivia. You have more depths than you’ll ever let anyone see. I know you, but I want to know more.

He’d just managed a slam dunk with that response.

Me: Where is all this coming from?

My Stalker: I’ve watched you. I understand you. I appreciate you.

That last statement, those three small words, they floored me more than anything I’d ever heard in my life.

He appreciated me?

The guy, who’d shown me so many different faces the other day in his room at the asylum that I’d grown dizzy, appreciated me. How could that same guy send me a message like this?

I really wished it was true. All I’d ever wanted was to be appreciated. But I never was. Not really. My friends were amazing, they were like family to me. But my real family didn’t appreciate me. I was a convenience to them, but not an asset. Even my dad, when he’d told me to take time out to think about what I wanted to do with my life, hadn’t said it because he thought that’s what I needed to hear. He just didn’t have the time to sit with me and work out what it was I wanted. He threw money at the problem. Paid me off so I was out of his hair. And my mum? I wasn’t even hired help; I was a step below that.

Me: You talk a good talk. Well… text that is.

My Stalker: I speak as I find. I don’t do bullshit.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable with his honesty, and so I decided I’d hit him with a curveball of my own.

Me: Truth or dare?

It didn’t take him long to shoot back his reply.

My Stalker: Truth.

Me: Tell me something you don’t like about me.

This one I had to hear.

My Stalker: I don’t like that you put yourself down. It’s almost like you do it to get in first, to beat the rest of the world to the punch. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.

Oh fuck. That was so true. I was an ace at proving to people that they couldn’t belittle me, because I’d get in there first. I was the master of self-sabotage.

Me: Nice answer. You should change your career from psycho killer to psychotherapist.

I replied, trying to stay aloof and not let him know that these new, deeper messages were getting to me.

My Stalker: Tell me something you don’t like about me.

He asked, and I was going to go with some catty comeback to put him down, but the little angel on my shoulder told me, ‘Use this to your advantage. Coax the devil from the darkness into the light.’

Me: I don’t like that you hide behind text messages and in the shadows. If you want to get to know me, come out into the open and do it.

My finger hovered over the send button, wondering if poking the sleeping bear was such a good idea. But I knew I had to at least try. Force him out of hiding and then maybe all this would come to an end.

My Stalker: Maybe I will.

I didn’t know what to reply, so I put my phone back into my bag. I’d leave the ball in his court and see what happened next. I’d cast my net, thrown out my line. Now, I just needed to reel him in, and then throw him back once he’d experienced what being caught by me really meant. Once he found out what I was really like, he’d run a mile.