Free Wrath James White presents Poisoning Eros I & II by Monica J. O'Rourke

edge of the table, legs
dangling, and Vlad slid between her thighs. He leaned into her
until their foreheads were touching. “I can make this miserable for
you. I can make you suffer.”
    “Your breath already is.”
    “Very foolish to make jokes right now, Gloria.”
    “Who’s joking?”
    He leaned his head back a few inches but stayed
between her legs, pressed himself against her. “You know what I’m
capable of. You’ve seen what I can do.”
    She nodded. “But I also know that you need me.
Otherwise you would have killed me by now.”
    “I’m just making your transition to hell complete,
Gloria. Don’t think you ever had any hope of anything else—not with
your past.”
    “So that’s it? I’m an easy target? What, do you get
bonus points for every soul you condemn to hell?”
    He smiled. “Something like that.”
    “She’s gone,” Ryan said, rushing into the room.
“They’re gone.”
    “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Vlad snapped.
    “I searched the fucking apartment. They’re
gone.”
    Vlad stepped back, his eyes slitted, his upper lip
twitching. “Where the fuck would she go?”
    Ryan ran his hand over his hair and dropped his
head. His way of producing deep thoughts, Gloria knew. Or his way
of attempting to, at least. “The park, probably.”
    “Central Park? At this hour?”
    Ryan nodded. “Shouldn’t be that hard to find. Young
girl carrying a baby.”
    “Let’s go then. What can we do with her?” Vlad
jerked his head toward Gloria.
    Ryan dropped his head again, scratched his scalp
this time. Then grabbed Gloria’s wrist and yanked her off the
table, pulled her behind him down the hall and into another
bedroom. He threw her inside a small closet and slammed the
door.
    The closet was pitch black. A small crack of light
tried to sneak in through the bottom of the door. She heard
something scrape along the floor and then bash against the closet
door. She assumed it was a chair or a large piece of furniture.
    There was no point in yelling or crying or
protesting. They weren’t letting her out of that closet. She sank
to the floor and rested against a pile of shoes and boxes, pulled
her knees against her chest. She thought she would be terrified
right now but found herself numb, found that she was resigned to
her dreadful fate and just wished they would get it over with.
    There was no way she was going to kill that baby.
She didn’t care what Vlad did to her.
    About ten minutes had passed, she guessed, when she
heard the noises outside the closet door. Scraping sounds,
grunting. And a minute later, the door opened.
    Angela held out her hand, and Gloria took it, got up
off the floor.
    “Where’s the baby?”
    “In her crib. We were hiding when Dad was searching
the apartment. I left the front door open a crack so he would think
I had left.”
    Gloria hugged her daughter, held her face in her
palms. “I always knew you were a smart girl.”
    Angela smiled, a blush blossoming on her cheeks.
“Where can we go?”
    “Anywhere but here.”
    Gloria followed her to Angela’s bedroom, and they
gathered the baby from the crib.
    “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Gloria said,
leading them to the front foyer. She threw open the door, and Vlad
and Ryan were waiting on the other side.
    “Good try,” Ryan said. “But I’m not stupid you
know.” He pushed his way into the apartment before Gloria could
slam the door shut.
    Angela began to scream, and Vlad wrapped his hand
over her mouth.
    Ryan shoved Gloria, sent her reeling down the hall.
They were headed back in the direction of that black room, the room
where they expected her to murder a baby.
    Vlad threw Angela into the room, and she went
tripping in until she stopped herself against the far wall. Vlad
had already taken the baby from her.
    Ryan had his hand clamped on the back of Gloria’s
neck and pushed her inside the room as well.
    Vlad lay the baby on the table, unwrapped the
blanket, her small legs kicking, small hands