Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

I paused, gazing off as I thought about the difference between someone like him and someone like Priest.

There was an honesty to Priest. To look at him was to know you were looking at a man closer to the dead than the living. Every inch of him screamed other––monster, villain, abnormal man. There was no remorse in those cold green eyes, no animation in the full, firm mouth and sharp-edged jaw. He was vacant and deadly as a living weapon.

But killers like Bundy were wolves in sheep’s clothing. They hid in plain sight, they enjoyed playing games and proving they were cleverer than anyone else.

Like the serial killer who seemed to be playing games with me.

“Bundy scares me because he proves that monsters don’t just live in the dark,” I finished softly, my words chased by spooky music Eric played over the speakers.

“Um, Bea?” Eric said after a brief pause where he stared at the list of questions submitted by our listeners. “There’s something here.”

I frowned, but the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, this question is weird,” he said slowly.

“Read it to me.”

“Do you ever look under your bed before you sleep in it?” Eric read reluctantly. “Do you ever look under your desk before you sit down in your pink velvet chair and speak about murder like a perverted little princess?”

A thousand needles tattooed fear into my skin simultaneously.

Eric looked up from his screen into my eyes, mirroring my horrified expression.

I didn’t breathe, the air congealed in my lungs.

I didn’t blink, my eyes dried by the whirlwind of anxiety that seemed to sweep me up in its gale.

I only moved, slowly as if against a gravitational pull.

My Converse-clad feet pushed against the thin carpet, dragging my chair away from the counter that was my desk, and then I bent.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Head peering into the shadows beneath the table.

And there it was.

The twelfth piece of Brenda Walsh presented like a gift on the twelfth day of Christmas.

Her severed head in a sealed bag strung up to a cable.

A scream ripped from my lungs like torn Velcro, the sound thrown across the room violently so that it crashed into the walls.

A second later, the door to the studio hurtled open and rebounded so hard against the wall, it swung back. Priest stopped its progress with the side of his raised gun, shattering the glass as he moved into the room on long strides.

I was still screaming, doubled over in my chair, hair half-obscuring my gaze as I watched Priest come for me.

Eric tried to move into my closed portion of the room at the same time as my psycho, but Priest shoved him aside casually yet so powerfully, Eric went reeling back into his chair then toppled onto the ground.

Then Priest was there, hauling me up from my chair into his arms, perching me on one hip as he crouched to view the horror beneath my desk.

I clung to him like vines, so tight I probably made it hard for him to breathe.

But I didn’t care, and he didn’t complain.

If I could have, I would have crawled beneath his very skin and lived there.

He was the only place I felt safe. I wanted to make his body my address and his soul my home.

Priest growled so loudly it was almost a roar, rumbling through him into me. I watched as he lowered his gun back, tucked it into his waistband, and flipped open his ancient phone.

“Lion, they sent another motherfuckin’ piece’a that bitch to the studio,” Priest said so coldly, I shivered. “Get a unit down here right fuckin’ now, ’fore I kill whoever gave that motherfucker access to this studio.”

His head snapped to the side, pinning Eric in place where he had been making his way toward us. He blanched so white, I worried he was having a heart attack.

Priest closed the phone with his chin, then slid it into his back packet while also lowering me to the floor, pushing me behind him as he started toward Eric.

“Priest, no,” I protested just before he slammed Eric into the wall with an arm banded across his chest and a knife pointed at his throat.

“Who the fuck has access to this place?” he demanded.

“Just Bea, me, Mrs. Appleton because she owns the building, and maybe…” He gasped as Priest pressed the knife tighter to his Adam’s apple. “Maybe Catherine! She runs Honey Bear Café.”

“You let someone in here you shouldn’ta?” Priest asked as he ran the blade up his neck, so close he collected the ends of Eric’s stubble on the steel. “Or maybe it’s you. Fixated on pretty Bea, not a chance in the world of gettin’ in there with her so you resort to perverted ass shit like this to get her attention? Huh?” Another flick of the knife opened a thin slice along Eric’s jaw from below his ear to his chin. Priest shifted to run his thumb firmly over the wound just to hear Eric’s pained curse. “Which is it and I might kill you quickly. Don’t believe much in mercy, but we could make a trade.”