Free Wicked Ink by Misty Simon Page A

saw the way she was sitting in the chair, her back ramrod straight. He’d been babbling in his desire to get it all out. The last thing he wanted was to see disgust and pain in her eyes when she looked at him. Who in the hell would believe him? Certainly not her.
    “So when you’re done electrocuting yourself, all this darkness is out of your body and you can function again?” He cringed as her frank gaze assessed him.
    “On the most basic of levels, yes. It’s something I’ve been able to do for years, but electricity is the only antidote I’ve found that reliably saves me from sinking into the darkness and exalting in it. I have a cop to thank for accidentally hitting me with a stun gun, or else I never would have known.”
    “You’ve exalted in it before, haven’t you?”
    He had really hoped she wouldn’t ask him that. Of course, it was the first real question to come popping out of her pretty mouth. Her hair was up in a soft ponytail, and she had changed from the business suit she’d been wearing earlier into soft jeans and a T-shirt. Until this morning, he’d never seen her in anything but the suit. He liked all of her looks, but this was the most appealing. And he was stalling if he was thinking about her fashion choices instead of looking into her eyes and answering a question he knew the answer to better than he knew himself.
    “Yes.” He folded his hands around each other, only to watch them twitch in his lap. He would never be able to face her again. He’d have to leave this building and start over somewhere else. He’d done it more than once, but he’d hoped this would be the last time. He might not have made friends of the real variety, but he liked the people in this building. They were easy to get along with, and they stayed out of his business. Well, everyone except for the beautiful woman sitting across from him.
    But it just wasn’t meant to be. And though that didn’t surprise him, it did sadden him.
    “How long have you not been exalting in it?”
    The question took him off guard. Why wasn’t she asking what bad things he’d done? Surely she’d want to know more about the monster he’d become before changing into something better but not good? “Almost eighteen years.”
    She sat and stared at him until he became more uncomfortable than he already was.
    “So how old are you? Don’t tell me you’re really three hundred years old and immortal… I don’t think I could take that kind of info.”
    She startled a laugh out of him at the weirdest moment. “No, I’m thirty-five.”
    “So you couldn’t have been truly evil when you were a little kid, and you changed yourself around at seventeen. You’ve been good longer than bad?”
    “I’ve never truly been good, Dory. I don’t know how to be. I can’t give you any more answers right now. I’m doing my best to look out for the tenants of this building. I’ll continue to do that for a little while longer, but then I’m going to have to leave. And you need to go back to your apartment now. There are things I need to do.” He searched his body and soul for any trace of darkness and found nothing, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t lurking.
    “I’m not leaving if you’re going to go back and strap yourself into that chair again.”
    He struggled not to lose his temper. He wanted to be sure, goddammit! But Dory didn’t need to be yelled at. It wasn’t her fault he was a mess. He could promise her this, at least. “No, I won’t strap myself into the chair again tonight. You have my word.”
    “And we’ll talk more later?”
    He wouldn’t lie to her. “I doubt it. Now, I really have to go. You know the way out.”
    She didn’t move from her spot. She sat staring at him, again, until he thought she might have fallen into some kind of trance. He was able to do that when he was meditating—it was another method he used to gain control of himself.
    “Dory.”
    Nothing.
    “Dory? You have to go. I can’t have you