Page 62 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
They all turn on me in the end. They all hurt me. I should have known Brian would be no different, but heseemedso different. I thought we had something real, but Brian is a sociopath. I’ve forgotten that fact a thousand times in his arms. He has no soul, no conscience. Everything is a mask, a game to him. He is an actor on the stage of life, perfectly playing his part.But the man who plays the character I’ve grown to love… that’s the man I’m faced with right now, and he isnothinglike the character he plays.
“Not at all,” Brian says. “In fact, we should fuck and kill her together. Put the past in the past.”
My ears are ringing as every piece of his carefully crafted mask slips away and all I’m left with is the monster underneath.
Brian stalks me, his fierce black gaze locked on mine, as though he could consume me and burn me to ashes with only a look.
“Are you ready to take us both like a good little whore? Be good, and maybe he’ll keep you. I’ve certainly got no use for you anymore. You cramp my style.”
Tears stream down my face, and I shudder as Gregor’s other hand begins to drift down my back as the zipper slides down inch by creeping inch.
“Master…” I can’t beg him again because I know it won’t matter. I can’t break past this wall he’s erected between us.
Gregor finally lets go of the back of my neck, as he begins to move his hands slowly over me.
I look to Brian, hoping to see the tiniest flicker of any emotion that exists in the whole gradient of human feelings. But he’s empty. I’ve lost him. I can’t believe I’ve lost this one person I thought I’d have forever.
“Kiss me like it’s your last time, Mina, because it is.” Brian grips the back of my neck and pulls me into him. When our lips touch I feel all the coldness he’s held back from me, but I also feel intensity, passion, fire, anger. There are so many contradicting things inside this kiss, I can’t name them all, and I don’t understand how they all exist together.
The tears flow harder down my cheeks as his… friend? enemy? begins to kiss a trail down my back, and I shudderagainst the mouth I can’t believe I thought was Brian’s. This one miscalculation will cost me everything.
Then, a moment later, Gregor isn’t touching me anymore. I hear his body slump to the floor. I startle and turn to find an empty syringe in Brian’s hand. It clatters to the ground and he pulls me into him, just holding me, and I can feel his heart pounding against me. My heart beats just as hard, and it’s as though our two hearts are tiny panicked birds, flapping against the walls of our cages trying desperately to get to each other.
“I really thought it was you. I’m sorry, I know it was stupid. I…”
He pulls back from me and all the coldness has dropped away.
“I know, baby. But I once killed the woman he loved. He would have snapped your neck before I reached you. I’m sorry I had to go so cold. It was the only way he’d believe me. Anything less than a perfect show would have gotten you killed.”
I can’t stop crying.
I look up and our eyes meet. “It was a really convincing show,” I say.
Brian brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes and smirks. “What’s Halloween without a little scare?”
I feel his hard length pressed against me, and I wonder what part of this entire situation has him so worked up.
He wipes the tears off my face with the pads of his thumbs while he holds me like I’m the oxygen that makes his life possible. And I let out a long slow, steadying breath.
“What about him?” I ask, nodding at Gregor.
THIRTY-THREE
brian
I leaveMina alone in the room to gather myself, under the guise of getting something to transport Gregor. I’ve got about an hour before the drug wears off, and I want to be fully set up before that happens.
Everything inside me is racing around, panicked, angry, unsettled, buzzing with worries and lists inside my head, but outwardly I’m the glassy surface of a lake, completely unperturbed.
A thousand emotions fight for dominance. Nothing has gone according to my plan tonight. Why make such elaborate plans if they crumple to dust at the first interaction with the real world? I don’t regret taking out the target when and how I did—you don’t return a gift like that to the universe unopened—but it feels like a million tiny loose threads that I can’t tie back together, and everything inside my brain is a chaotic storm.
Then there’s the lingering fear of what could have happened to Mina if I hadn’t gotten there in time, if I hadn’t been convincing enough to get close and get Gregor distracted enough to sink that needle into his throat. I can’t let my mind go there. I don’t know what would happen if I ever lost her.
I love having a partner to do this with. I never thought I would, but I do. But maybe I’m being selfish putting her into all this risk and danger. For what? To fulfill some latent Bonnie and Clyde fantasy? We all know how that story turned out.
And then… there’s the cold anger, a gnarled and twisted thing resting in the pit of my stomach. However irrational, that anger is at Mina for allowing herself to be lured away by a rival. For kissing him. For not knowing it was me. Rationally I get it. Adrenaline is high. I get how he could feel a lot like me. We have a similar build, same hair color, same eye color. Logically I know, but there is a part of me so angry at her, and that anger terrifies me because though I may do dark and twisted things, my rage has always felt very controlled to me—even if it’s felt chaotic to others.
My rage doesn’t feel controlled right now. Now that the danger has passed I’m not sure I trust myself to be in the same room with her. I take a long deep breath. This is not what I need to be focused on right now. I need to finish this and get us safely off the radar before bodies are discovered.
