Monstrous Intent, page 9
“In on fucking what?” he yells.
“Getting me fired. Trying to drag me back here.”
His expression turns bitter. “I don’t want you back here. I don’t give a shit what you do besides get out of my office.”
Slipping the keycard in my sleeve, I shake my head. “If I find out you were a part of this, you better watch your back,” I growl.
He cusses me out the door, so I head through the hallway and quickly make my way down the stairs. The two hunters are still standing there, watching me go, so I scowl at them before walking straight into the elevator. One of them turns to the elevator, like he’s planning on catching a ride, until he sees me blatantly smash my finger against the door close button until it closes in his face. Then I scan the card and hit the button for B3.
Honestly, I have no idea what to expect when the door opens. I haven’t been down here in years and know it could be a trap. Why the hell am I even bothering to trust Lake when he’s likely lying to me? He could be working with Jameson to create a trap that I’ve allowed myself to get lured into. He killed Jameson? Really? Of course he knew that of all things, those words would be what gets me down here.
I yank open the door, hand on my gun and—
Oh yeah… he totally killed Jameson. Very much killed. He looks very, very dead from here.
Closing the door behind me, I hurry over to just… double-check Jameson’s dead but the open eyes, hole through the head thing kind of gives me vibes that he’s extremely dead.
That’s when I see Lake lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood. There’s a hole in his chest and another in his stomach where he’d been shot which can’t be good as a monster and definitely not good as a human.
I kneel down next to him and feel oddly hesitant as I reach out to check his pulse. It’s like I’ve already forgotten that it was in my daily plans to murder him myself. This just kept me from having to do the dirty work.
His eyes open as he looks up at me. “D-Declan?” he whispers.
“Hey…” I say, not sure what to do or say to someone in the process of dying. I wasn’t raised by a caring and loving family. I don’t know how to express things in soft and gentle tones.
He reaches a bloody hand out to clasp mine. “I-I really think I love you.”
“I think it’s too soon for that,” I say. “Like… years too soon.”
“W-Won’t you let a dying man be cuddled? Hold me like your long-lost lover,” he says.
I really don’t want blood all over my jacket, so I peel it off and toss it on the table before caving and pulling him onto my lap.
“I killed him for you,” he says, aqua eyes watching me closely.
“I didn’t… I don’t think I asked you to kill him,” I say.
He tries to press a bloody finger against my lips but I dodge it. “Shhhhh. All for you.”
“Okay,” I say, deciding that he can think he’s dying valiantly, I guess.
“Stroke my hair, please,” he says as he closes his eyes.
Honestly, dying or not, this whole thing is awkward as hell. I’ve had people I’ve fucked but a lover? No. I don’t know how to… stroke his hair. I sort of feel like I’m brushing it, which is a kind of stroking… I guess? Then my fingers get stuck in a knotted-up clump of waves.
“Ow. What the hell, Declan? Stroke. Love, softness,” he says, glaring at me. “I want to go out of this world with all of my hair.”
“I’m trying. Maybe if you brushed your hair, this would be easier.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was going to die today and that my hair had to look perfect.”
“You really don’t sound like you’re dying.”
He clears his throat. “Well, I am. Now… stroke my cheek.”
I awkwardly pet his cheek as he closes his eyes again. Honestly, it’s a lot of petting. “Are you dead?”
“Not yet, keep stroking,” he says.
I sigh and return to stroking his cheek, but honestly, I kind of feel like this is solving nothing. “Okay so… if you’re going to live this long then maybe I need to get you to a hospital? Because sitting down here just stroking your cheek while you wait to die isn’t going to help you.”
“Shhh… more strokes. Lower, please… like much lower.”
I glance down as he waves at his groin region. “Do you want me to finish you off?” I growl.
He opens his eyes and glares at me. “You’re not going to give a dying man his dying wish? It was the only thing left on my bucket list.”
“No, I’m not going to jerk off a dying man while a dead man watches in a lab that I’m not supposed to be in surrounded by hunters who might kill me if they see me down here with a dead Jameson.”
Lake’s quiet for a moment, making me wonder if he really did die off at this point. It makes me hesitate, but as I reach to feel for his pulse, he opens his eyes and sighs. “Fine. Will you stroke me later then?” he asks as he grabs the back of my neck and uses his shaking arm to pull himself up into a sit.
“Owie, man.”
“Ow… owie? That’s what you have to say about this?” I ask as I pull out my knife and cut his shirt off him.
“Stripping me now? Naughty—fuuuuck,” he cries as I press a balled-up piece of cloth against the hole and start tying it to him.
“You’re not a human,” I decide.
“Totally human. Look at me bleed my human blood,” he says as he closes his eyes while looking a bit weak. “So, there’s this really interesting binder of papers in that safe over there,” he says with a wave.
“Which means?”
“I’ll tell you once you get me out of here alive.”
He freezes.
“What?” I ask.
“Someone’s called the elevator up. Shit. If Roger sees this…”
I look around at the absolute mess along with Jameson’s body. If Roger sees this… not only will there be a slew of hunters on our ass but the whole damn police force. He’ll find a way to pin this on me as well because I’m not supposed to be down here. I’m not supposed to be here at all. I’m supposed to be at home reading a book and scrolling through one of the multiple stupid dating apps looking for someone who isn’t currently trying to shove a dead body into a cupboard.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
He stops mid shove, seeing as the dead man isn’t complying. “Help me! Stop watching and help!”
What has possessed me to help this man? That’s it, I don’t have to help him. I can just dust off my hands of the whole thing. Wash them sparkling clean of every bit of this and trot on home.
“I know what they injected you with when you were a child,” he says.
That snaps my attention to him. “What?”
“And I will only tell you if I make it out alive, and the only way I’m going to make it out alive is if you help me cram this body in this cupboard!”
This is not normal. This is not what I signed up for. This is not what I thought I’d be doing with my Thursday.
Helping a monster stuff a body in the cupboard is not normal, but we get him crammed in one before I turn around and look at the blood massacre.
“What the hell is your plan now?” I ask since it looks like we dumped a bucket of blood on the floor, not to mention how he looks like death. “Now it looks like we murdered people and hid the bodies.”
He stares at it while clenching onto the counter. He honestly doesn’t look too great, monster or not. Then he wheels a cart over some of the blood before looking at where he’d lain and tossing a piece of paper on top of it.
“There we go,” he says with a smile like that clears up any part of it. The paper is floating on top.
Grabbing someone’s lab jacket, I toss it down on the ground and start mopping to the best of my ability as he turns his head. “The elevator is arriving,” he says as he grabs something off the counter and crams it into his pants.
I snatch up my jacket and shove it at him. “Here. Put that on and… get him to leave and don’t tell him I was here.”
“Okay,” he says as he quickly washes his hands in the sink, pulls the jacket on and hurries out the door as I hold the lab coat covered in his blood, unsure of what to do now.
“This is bullshit,” I decide as I look around before pulling open a drawer and shoving the coat inside. The lab doesn’t look sparkling clean, but I grab a cup of coffee and toss the coffee over the spot Lake had been lying before dropping the cup next to it.
It’s not perfect, but now it’s kind of like “Is that coffee or is that bloody coffee?”
This isn’t going to work.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” Roger asks outside the door.
“Jameson was showing me something. He said he was going back up to get something and would be back shortly. Why? Am I not allowed down here? This your secret evil lab or something?” Lake asks.
Now what the hell do I do with myself?
The only place big enough for a human body is in the same cupboard there’s already a human body in. But if Roger finds me down here… he’ll know I was here. He’ll know I was involved with this fucking disaster of a man… monster?
“Whoa, whoa, what’s the hurry?” Lake asks, making me realize that Roger is coming and Jameson’s going to have to share his cupboard.
Quickly, I crawl in the other side, thankful there’s a good distance between us as I shut the door and hear Roger enter with Lake while I’m questioning my life choices.
Do I even care what Jameson did to me as a child… shit, I really do.
Dammit.
“You knocked over my coffee cup?” Roger asks like that’s the worst thing Lake could have possibly done this evening.
“Jameson did. He took one look at it and was like ‘Fuck you, coffee’ and tossed it. Let me go grab a mop, and hopefully you can clean up that rotten personality while you’re mopping up.”
I hear Lake exit the room, which means that now I just have to wait for Roger to leave. After about twenty minutes I start to question if he’s ever going to go. My phone vibrates and I pull it out of my pocket.
Lake: My plan was to tell him that Jameson was calling him, but in my blood-deprived state I didn’t realize that I no longer have the keycard and can’t come back down to help you.
Me: You left me stuck down here?
Lake: Accidentally!
Me: You owe me so much after this. You better not bleed out and die before I can find you.
Lake: I’ll try not to. I like your coat. It’s mine now. Thank you.
Me: It’s not yours. Pull a fire alarm or something.
Lake: God you’re sexy and smart.
And that’s the very moment Roger opens the door to the cupboard and looks me right in the eyes. There’s a moment where they connect but neither of us say a word like if we don’t speak, it’s not real.
From here he can’t see Jameson, which is one plus side to this. But from here he can see that I am someplace I don’t belong.
“Declan?” he asks, confused. I don’t think it’s fully set in how much I should not be in here right now.
“Surprise,” I say as the fire alarm starts going off.
He looks startled. “Surprise?”
“Yeah. It was… a joke. Like… boo, scary. I’m coming out of the closet, surprise, you know what? I’ll just be on my way,” I say as I quickly get out and slam the door shut.
He grabs for me and I shrug out of his path. “You seriously thought you’d just… waltz out of here without answering some questions? Why were you in here? Are you and Lake up to some shit? I knew he was up to something.”
“Just…” I try to think fast. “Trying to find a place to have sex, you know? I like living life on the wild side.”
“You were… having sex down here?” He glances down at his coffee cup in horror. “You broke my cup with your… sex?”
“I like to throw things… when I get close,” I say. What the hell am I even going on about? What the hell is this excuse? It’s so absurd that he’s never going to believe—
“You disgust me. Get out.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I say as I hurry toward the door a moment before I hear a thunk from behind me. Roger’s eyes lock on to the closet where Jameson must have decided he’d get the last laugh by having gravity throw his body into the door.
“Who the hell else is in there?” he says, and he manages to tear the door open before I have a chance to do something otherwise.
Roger screams as he jumps back, his head snapping around to where I’m standing.
“In my defense, he was dead when I came in here,” I say.
“That monster… you’re working with him, aren’t you?”
“To my understanding, Jameson shot Lake first, but you’re not going to care about that, are you?”
He grabs for his phone, so I pull my gun out and aim it at him. No matter what Roger says or does, I will always be a better hunter than him and he knows that.
“Roger, this can go one of two ways. You put your phone down on that desk and I don’t kill you, or I kill you.”
His expression is quite sour as he thinks about it, like it might actually be a difficult decision. When he realizes that it’s not difficult at all to decide, he sets the phone down.
“Just leave.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “The moment I leave, you’re going to try to pin all of this shit on me. And I sure as hell was not involved. So come along, let’s go for a walk and come to a civil agreement about what we’re going to do.”
“I won’t say anything,” he says as I walk over to him.
“Of course you’re not going to,” I say as I press the gun against his back. I pat him down, but the idiot doesn’t even have a single weapon on him. He’s clearly letting himself go. I grab a roll of tape that was sitting out… possibly from Lake or hell, maybe even Jameson had it out for taking care of Lake after he killed him.
Roger grimaces but lets me escort him out into the hallway as the fire alarm sirens go off. Once in the elevator I press the button to go up while questioning all of my life choices. Am I making it harder for myself doing this? I sure as hell look guiltier.
“You’re making a mistake,” Roger says.
Has an elevator ever gone so slow? I don’t think it has. I don’t think anything has ever gone this slow in my life.
The door opens and the band of hunters trying to figure out what set off the fire alarm look over at us, but I can’t tell if it’s a “Hey, there’s the guy that Jameson is still obsessed with” look or a “He just crammed Jameson’s dead body in a cupboard, let’s get him” look.
“Act casual or I’ll kill you,” I whisper as Roger tries to use his eyes to get them to realize that he’s not in the perfect situation. Either they hate him as much as I do or are oblivious as I parade him out.
At this point, I decide Lake is on his own and hurry Roger across the street to the side parking lot where hopefully no one will witness what I’m about to do.
I pop the trunk and motion for him to get inside.
Roger looks at me like I’m insane. “I’m not getting in there.”
“Get in there before I start breaking fingers until you do.”
Deciding he likes his fingers, he scrambles inside. I pin him down as I smack tape over his mouth and wind it around his arms and legs until he can’t move an inch. Only then do I shut him inside and hurry to the front seat, turn the car on and gun it as I realize how royally fucked I am. What should I do? Pay for Roger’s silence and go to the police? Would they listen to me over Roger and that whole organization? Would I be better to just hide and wait it out? Should I—
“I’m glad to see you made it out!” Lake says, scaring the shit out of me. My heart leaps straight up and I instinctively grab for a weapon with one hand and jerk the wheel with the other.
“Hell!” I yell. I can hear Roger’s body thunking into the side of the trunk. Once my racing heart has settled a little, I glance into the back seat where Lake is lying on the floor, covered in my coat.
“Why are you still alive? Do you know how much shit you’ve gotten me into?” I growl.
“Did he catch you?” Lake asks.
“He sure as hell did.”
“Is that why he’s in the trunk?”
“I don’t know why he’s in the trunk! I didn’t know what to do with him!”
“Ah, makes sense. I would totally toss someone in a trunk if I didn’t know what to do with him. Oh well. He’s a dick. You didn’t have a good excuse that he wanted to believe?”
“I did until Jameson’s body practically announced itself by trying to fall out of the cupboard.”
“Oh shit. That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. Do they know where you live?”
“Yeah, they pay for my apartment.”
“Okay. Well, we need to go somewhere else then until this gets cleared up. Possibly the police.”
“The police won’t side with me, you know that. New idea?” he asks.
“It’s the only idea I have.”
“No place else we could possibly hide? You have cash for like a hotel or something?” he asks, looking hopeful.
The issue is that we’re up against trained hunters. Anything that has the possibility of tracing us, whether it’s cameras on the premises or using a card instead of cash, could run back to us.
“How much cash do you have on you?” I ask.
He seems to think about this for a long moment. “Ten dollars. Wait… no, I bought some candy at lunch. Seven dollars.”
I could toss him over to the police. He’s a monster anyway.
“It’s pretty obvious at this point you’re not human,” I say.
“What would give you that impression? Do you not see me back here bleeding my human blood?”
“I’ll just hand you over. Wash my hands of it.”
“Yeah, and then never learn anything about yourself. That’d be sad. You’d be this little old grandpa and be like ‘Oh, if only I’d saved that sexy Lake, my life would have been fulfilled.’”
I technically can do both, right? I’ll take him to a place where he’ll confess everything to me, and then I’ll take the information to the police. Once I assure them that he held me hostage, they’ll have no reason to keep me.
