Free RECRUITED: A Mike Humber Novella (Demon Series Book One) by RR Haywood

sharing a room,’ she mutters, ‘my stuff is already up there.’
    ‘You’re the boss.’
    ‘Well, you said you needed some company.’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘And you said you would invite me out for a drink.’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘So I…’
    ‘But you were already here,’ I cut her off.
    She falls silent and still I refuse to look at her. I don’t want to look at her. She’s pretty and my eyes deserve to be punished by staring at the ugly ashtray and the ugly bottle and…
    ‘How did you do it?’ she whispers after edging closer. Her arm brushes against mine and the contact is uncomfortable. I want to move away but can’t be bothered to expend the energy involved.
    I shrug and sip vodka.
    ‘Tell me,’ she urges, ‘how?’
    ‘Why? What difference does it make?’
    ‘Did he suffer?’
    This time I do look over with some consternation at the question posed. She stares at me with an expression I can’t quite make out. Hunger? A desperation? ‘Did he suffer?’ she asks again with a hard edge to her voice.
    I nod, once and softly. She locks eyes on mine and stares as though searching for something. The softness of her features makes me want to cry. The femininity of the woman. Big blue eyes and skin so soft and warm looking. She doesn't belong here. This is a place for the broken and dirty, the tainted and ugly. But there is a hardness to her gaze, an iciness there that I start to fathom might be the real woman and the softness is a projection of what she wants men to see. Still. She makes me want to cry so I look away and take a big swig in the hope that getting steaming drunk will ease the pain.
    She pushes on, leaning closer still and dropping her head to look up at me, ‘I want to know.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because,’ she nods firmly, ‘I want to know.’ Her tone is demanding, almost petulant and I half expect her to tell me she paid for it so she has the right to know the details.
    Fuck it. I turn and stare at her. ‘I choked him with a pair of boot laces until he passed out. Then I poured neat bleach down his throat, into his eyes and up his nasal passage…’ she watches me with fascination, ‘then I doused him in lighter fluid and set him on fire,’ I finish and turn away, then turn back to face her, ‘then he died,’ I add with a nonchalant shrug.
    She watches me closely, hanging off every word I say. When I finish and she doesn't look away I can’t help but think she wants more. She swallows, blinks and widens her eyes.
    ‘Wow,’ she whispers, ‘you did that?’
    A strange question to ask given the circumstances. ‘That’s what you wanted isn’t it?’
    She nods again, seemingly unable to find the right words. ‘What does it feel like?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Killing, what does it feel like?’
    ‘Fuck, Elizabeth,’ I shift with discomfort from her penetrating gaze, like she’s trying to see into my soul, ‘it doesn't feel like anything…’ I take another big swig and refill my glass, and being the gentleman I am, I fill Elizabeth’s too. ‘It feels awful,’ I add softly, ‘numb but…fucking terrible all at the same time…ah fuck it, I’m getting drunk.’
    ‘No, go on,’ she urges me softly with a gentle placing of her hand on my forearm.
    ‘What do you want to know?’ I blink quickly, startled at the slight slur in my speech. Christ my tolerance has dropped if it’s hitting me already. ‘Like,’ I glance away and trail off.
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘You look hungry,’ I say to her.
    ‘Hungry? I’ve eaten…’
    ‘No…no no,’ I shake my head, ‘like hungry for the details…like…you want to know the morbid details.’
    ‘I do,’ she whispers, ‘really.’
    ‘Why?’ I ask like a child. ‘Why’s that then?’
    ‘It fascinates me,’ she says with brutal honesty, ‘and I want to know how he suffered…’
    ‘Oh yeah,’ I nod emphatically, ‘you were abused too weren’t you?’
    Pain crosses her face at the clumsy way I say it. ‘I was but…’ she stops to