Beautiful Villain

Prologue

Finley

Five years ago

The scream that fills the air chills me to my core.

Who is it? Who’s crying out? Who’s in trouble?

Someone sounds like they’re hurt.

Or worse.

This isn’t the innocent scream of surprise when your friend jumps out and scares you on Halloween. This isn’t the kind of scream that happens because you’re shocked.

No, this scream is something different.

Something much more horrible.

This is the scream of someone who is in pain.

The entire town seems to fall completely silent except for the scream. I’m standing next to my car in the high school parking lot. The football game ended an hour ago, but I’m still here talking to Susie and James.

“What the fuck was that?” James asks. He tenses, and I know that I must look just as scared as he does right now.

“It came from the woods,” Susie whispers.

We all look in that direction and the scream comes again.

“We should call the cops,” I say. I’m not going over there to find out what’s going on. No way. No how. That’s so not my thing.

Just as the words leave my mouth, though, we hear sirens. A lot of them. They rush past us: three different cop cars. They all have their lights on and every single one of the cars is speeding.

“Where the fuck are they going?” Susie asks.

“More importantly, who the hell are they after?” James asks.

We stand in silence for a long time, but something has changed in the air. I don’t know what’s going on or what’s going to happen next, but one thing is for sure: nothing is ever going to be the same after this.

Chapter One

Finley

Present Day

Kurlin isn’t exactly a town that’s known for its incredible night life. In fact, the most interesting thing that’s happened this year is that Mrs. Walker’s prized petunia plants were eaten by a feral cat. She’s out for blood and has started a petition to clean up the town of cats.

All of the cat lovers have been taking in all of the strays they can find for fear that Mrs. Walker will go after them or drive them to animal shelters and drop them off. Nobody thinks she’ll do anything crazy like shoot them, but I saw her talking to someone about getting some cat traps for her yard, so I don’t think I’d put it past her.

Kurlin is, generally speaking, a very quiet town. There’s not a lot to do and not a lot to see. With a small population, it’s a pretty gossipy sort of town. Everyone knows everyone, and their mom, and their grandmother. It’s not the type of place where anyone really ever forgets anything, either, and I think that’s why I was so totally surprised when everyone stopped talking about Neil Coleman.

He was the bad boy at my high school and even back then, he was like a delicious truffle I just couldn’t turn down. No, he never really looked twice at me, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. Even then, with my head in a book, I was always thinking about him.