The real James.
The James he’s been warning me about this whole time.
Stupid me, I didn’t believe him.
I didn’t believe he was as bad as he was saying.
When he told me he had murdered before, I thought it was just some stupid kinky roleplay.
And now…
Oh god, now…
I believe him. I believe everything he’s said.
Maybe it’s the horror on my face, or maybe it’s something else, but some of the crazed gleam in his eyes starts to fade.
“Fuck!” he curses then spins away from me.
Grabbing at his own head again, he starts to tug on his hair, and shouts, “Fuck!” again.
And, even after watching him murder a man, I have the strongest urge to go to him.
To hug him and ease some of his pain.
Because I can’t stand to see him hurting.
God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me… Maybe I’m fucking sick too because I don’t know if I want to run away or run to him.
I should run away. I should totally run away from him, his obsession, and this crazy shit…
Yet I can’t seem to get my feet to do it. I can’t seem to move at all after what I just witnessed.
“James,” Lucifer says, “are you done now?”
“Done?” James repeats and goes still for a minute, as if he’s surprised or considering it. Then he laughs a laugh that sends chills down my spine and pulls his hands from his hair. “Not by a fucking long shot.”
Lucifer grins a wicked grin. “What do you need to finish this?”
James shakes his head, as if he’s trying to shake something loose.
Then he slowly turns around.
All traces of the madness that gripped him just seconds ago is gone, replaced by an unsettling calm.
A calm I find more terrifying than the rage.
“Knives…” James says, looking at Lucifer. “I need knives, Matthew, and… I want Simon’s bag.”
Almost at once, the men in the room move into action, as if they were waiting for this moment. Whipping knives out of their belts or fishing them out of their pockets.
And I have to wonder if I’ve suddenly stepped into the fucking twilight zone.
Because this is so surreal, it can’t be real…
Can it?
No one seems the least bit disturbed by James’s sudden and complete one-eighty, or the fact that he just murdered a man, like I am.
They’re not trying to talk him out of anything. No, they all seem eager to help him. Whipping their knives out as if they were simply waiting.
Some even wearing grins on their faces.
I’m stuck in a room full of psychopaths.
Simon, the closest to James, walks up to him and offers him a thin stiletto. “I need to head out to my car and get to work on this new information. We need to seize this opportunity before it slips away. I’ll have Johnathan bring my bag in for you.”
When James accepts the stiletto, Simon looks over at me for a second. “I’ll also make some calls and see if there’s something we can give Sophia for the pain that’s safe.”
James looks a little surprised at that and some of his calm seems to crack. Rage starting to ooze out again. But then he shakes his head hard, getting a grip on himself.
Gripping the stiletto, James tells Simon, “Thank you.”
Simon smirks at James before he starts to walk away. “What are brothers for?”
The big blonde man that was pointing a gun at Dickers’s head before James killed him calls out, “Brothers, huh? You never do shit for me.”
“Well, Gabriel, I actually like James,” Simon says and pauses at the door to sharpen his smirk at the big blonde guy. “And his wife just made my fucking year.”
“Yeah… well, I don’t like you either, pansy-ass motherfucker,” Gabriel grumbles under his breath as Simon walks out of the room.
“Our knives are yours,” Lucifer says, bringing James’s focus back to him. “Just tell us what you need us to do next.”
James looks around the room, at the men both standing and kneeling, calculating his next move.
Watching him, I wish I could speak. I wish I could ask him to take me home. To forget Jacob and Trent. Forget them and let the others deal with them.
But every time I try to make a noise, my throat produces nothing but silence.
It’s almost like I’m stuck in one of those nightmares… the kind where you can’t speak or move.
“Uriel,” James says, turning to him. “Help me with this fucker.”
Uriel grins at James and saunters over to him from the wall he was leaning against. “Sure. Which fucker?”
James shoves the stiletto into his belt and moves two steps over to Jacob. Grabbing Jacob roughly by the arm, he yanks him up to his feet.
“This fucker,” James says and points to the left wall. “I want to get him up against that wall.”
Uriel nods and shoves his gun back into the holster on his hip before grabbing Jacob’s other arm.