Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

Eric tried to struggle away, but Priest dropped his hold, causing my friend to fall awkwardly onto his side again. Then Priest wiped the bloodied blade on Eric’s head and turned on his heel to leave without a backward look.

“Wow,” I whispered, reeling.

“No fucking kidding. That guy is a fucking psycho,” Eric exclaimed as he stood, fingers pressed to the lightly bleeding wound at his throat.

A giddy little giggle boiled in my throat, bubbling up from a dark, heated place in my gut that Priest never failed to stoke into flames. I felt drugged by Priest’s display of villainy, seduced completely by his demonstration of ruthless dominance.

I was his, his, his.

He might not have said it with words. He might never.

But that was fine with me.

Sometimes, actions were just so much louder.

And his said I belonged to him.

The Fallen’s angel of death had claimed me and suddenly I had gone from property of no one, to property of Priest.

It was hard to curb the force of my smile pulling at my cheeks as I watched Eric put himself to rights and glare at me as if I was responsible.

I guess I was.

I shrugged and flipped my hair over my shoulder, wheeling my chair back so I could face the microphone and get settled for the podcast. “I told you I don’t need your protection.”

“You’re kidding me?” Eric’s mouth dropped open. “You need protection from that…that freak.”

“Hey,” I snapped. “Call him names one more time, and I swear to Heavenly Father, I will strike you down where you stand.”

Eric blinked at me then tipped his head back and roared with laughter. “Fuck,” he finally said as he wiped tears from his eyes. “Only you could make me laugh after something like that.”

“I wasn’t joking,” I pouted slightly, annoyed that I was constantly underestimated.

Women who wore pink were just as capable of defending themselves as women in leather and denim. If anything, I felt it gave me an edge. Let them underestimate me, I’d be only too happy to prove them wrong with a pretty smile and my deadly blade.

Unfortunately, stupid boys growing up fed stereotypical gender roles and misogyny with a silver spoon didn’t understand that.

I tipped my chin in the air like Loulou would do and ignored him.

Eric sighed. “Oh c’mon, Bea. Don’t be so sensitive. I’m the one who just got attacked by your feral guard dog.”

“If you think that was bad, how were you planning to protect me from a serial killer?” I countered as I put on my headphones. “Stop being sore. He warned you, after all, and you really shouldn’t touch me like that without permission anyway. It’s the 21st century, consent is everything. Now, are you ready for the show?”

“Don’t tell me you’re…what? Into this guy?” Eric ventured quietly, almost like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Bea, sweetheart, there’s a difference between being clinically interested in the psychology of serial killers and psychopaths and being fixated on them, romanticizing them. You know that, right?”

“You don’t know the first thing about Priest,” I refuted, checking my episode notes.

He was quiet for a long time. “Clearly, I don’t know much about you either. I thought you were a good little Christian girl, but you’re much more than that, aren’t you?”

“Women are complicated creatures,” I said in answer. “We’ve been friends for a few years, Eric, but that doesn’t make you an expert.”

“I could be,” he said quietly, voice strained by the weight of his hope. “If you let me. Maybe I’m not as good a guy as you think I am. Does that make me more intriguing?”

I could feel his stare on me, but I refused to engage in some childish stand-off. I’d done nothing wrong and, in my mind at least, neither had Priest.

It led me to wonder with mild apprehension, if there was a line Priest could ever cross that would be too much for me to handle. I thought about the hot blood on my ankles as he slit Brett’s throat for endangering me and I knew with cold certainty that there was not.

* * *

* * *

“Okay, we’re going to end today’s episode with our monthly Q&A,” I said into the microphone, my voice skipping over the words, bouncy and light. “If you’re new here, listeners submit their questions by email and my producer, Eric, reads them out for us to discuss. You ready, Eric?”

It said a lot about my friend that he remained professional throughout the episode about Richard Ramirez even though I felt his thoughtful stare on me more often than not. It probably helped that Priest remained outside the doors, probably whittling something in the hall to occupy himself.

“Okay, first question for Little Miss Murder,” Eric geared up. “Which serial killer would you be most afraid to encounter?”

I smiled because the theme of this question reoccurred every month. “Well, I think I’ve answered similar questions before, but I have to say again––because it bears repeating––Ted Bundy.” I twirled a lock of my hair as I thought about the world’s most famous serial killer. “He was prolific and even in the end, incredibly hard to pin down. He once said he would choose his victims just by watching them walk home from university. He was as charming and handsome as he was utterly ruthless and lacking in remorse. All those staple characteristics of a psychopath are clear in him, but what makes him the most terrifying in my eyes is that he was so able to adapt to normal social culture. He had a girlfriend, helped raise a child, had friends who respected him.”