Trying to keep my distance from Toska was like continually shooing away a needy puppy because she was always there. She craved attention, not just from me, but from all those around her. She was hard to escape. It took two more weeks before I agreed to go anywhere with her again—this time it was to a different party.

Her brother was driving us to this one, so I didn’t have to. That felt odd to me, to not be driving, to have someone else do it, someone I barely knew driving me around. Especially someone who had such a powerful effect on me, an effect that I didn’t want. Syler Hunter was my own Kryptonite, and each day I spent with them, new barriers where broken and each step forward led me to him.

His black Ford Mustang pulled up in front of my house. I was thankful my father was never home because the noise that car produced brought Betty out on her veranda. She squinted while looking at the car.

Toska stuck her body out of the window, cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled my name. Loudly.

“Jaya, Jaya... acid, Jaya. Acid,” Betty said to me as I walked toward the car. Lifting my hand, I offered her a small wave, not glancing her way as I stepped closer to Toska, whose head was still sticking out the window.

“You’re going to get laid tonight,” Toska sung in a high-pitched voice as she disappeared into the car.

Pulling open the door, I found myself face to face with Syler. Tonight, he was clean-shaven, his dark hair styled, his lips so fucking kissable. His wrist had a bracelet I hadn’t seen before, wrapped around a few times with something else tied to it. He noticed me staring and dropped his hand from the wheel.

“So where are we going?” I turned to peek at the back. Toska was on her cell, her feet up on the back of her brother’s seat. She was smirking.

“We’re going to be bad tonight, Jaya, so fucking bad.” Her eyes sparkled with intensity and something sinister before she glanced back down at her cell. Syler started the car and took off. I watched him from the corner of my eye and then turned to face him, so he knew I was watching him. It didn’t faze him in the slightest. Rock music blasted through the speakers and rain came down hard on the car as the sun disappeared and the moon shone brightly.

“Do you speak to everyone as much as you talk to me?” I asked him, knowing the only way I would get anything from him was if I asked for it. Syler didn’t seem like the kind of man who gave anything willingly. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, then turned ever so slightly toward me.

“You’re a lucky one.”

A smirk touched my lips. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call me lucky.” My hands dropped into my lap, and I turned back to face forward.

He didn’t look at me as he changed gears, pulling down a quiet street where cars were lined up along the sides, letting me know we were close to our destination. His jaw twitched, and I knew he wanted to say something more, he was just thinking about the right words.

I never bothered to think about anything before I said it. I’d always said what was on my mind and let it fall freely from my lips. He was quiet and a thinker.

He pulled to a stop behind a blue sedan, and I turned to see Toska swaying her head to the music in her ears. I tapped her foot, and she pulled the earbuds out then climbed from the car. Syler was the last to get out, and when he did, we were already walking into the party. I glimpsed behind me to see his head down, but his eyes were looking at me as he walked.

“Do you have one?” she asked as she intertwined my arm with hers. She had a knife in her hand, and she smiled and finished with, “For protection.”

It was a lie. Toska wasn’t very good at lying because her eyebrow twitched when she lied. It was something I picked up when I worked with her. I would ask her a simple question like ‘Have you cleaned the toilets?’ and she would reply ‘yes’ but her eyebrow would twitch. So I’d check it out and soon realized she’d done fuck all.

“She doesn’t need one.” His words came from next to me, and Toska dropped my arm.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe she only needs you, big brother.” Then she skipped off, leaving me with Syler again. I would say it felt like déjà vu, but this time he spoke to me. His eyes penetrated me more than any other person had ever looked at me before, but I liked it. I liked the way he looked at me, like he needed to figure me out, because right at that moment he couldn’t. I was an egg he couldn’t crack, and it was clear he didn’t like that.

“You’ll protect me from the big bad wolf?” I joked with him as we sat on the stone wall out front of the house. I didn’t really want to go in. I was more than happy to sit out front all night, instead of inside listening to the drunks. I turned toward the door to look for Toska, and I felt Syler before I saw him. His hands came to either side of me, trapping me in as he leaned down, so his mouth was right next to my ear. His smell was intoxicating, his breath hot.

“I’m the big bad wolf. It’s me you need protection from.”

I believed him, but I didn’t care. He pulled his head away from my ear, so he was searching my eyes. I wanted to kiss him, I wanted those gorgeous lips on mine, and I wanted to taste what he tasted like just once.

Only a taste.

He seemed to know what I was thinking because he went to pull away, but I didn’t allow him to. He may have thought I was shy or even a nobody, but I was about to become somebody to him. I moved forward and touched my lips to his, but he didn’t move to kiss me back, and I didn’t move for a second, remembering he didn’t like to be touched. I felt him exhale, and so I moved my lips against his, tasting a man who had done nothing but look at me like he couldn’t figure me out. Instead of steering clear, I was drawn to him, and now I was officially his Mouse. Scared of the big bad wolf in every way possible, but also deeply attracted to him. I wanted what he could give, and I had a feeling only he could give it to me.

An idea popped into my head, of hostages and how they fell in love with their captors. I could see him being that cold. He started to kiss me back, his lips moving after the initial shock, and then his hand moved into my hair. He gripped it fiercely, pulling me back. I had to move my hands down, so I didn’t fall, but his lips didn’t stop moving. Our tongues danced together. Then his lips left mine, his forehead touching me as he breathed hard. He pulled away from me, grabbing his cell to check the screen. He smirked and stood tall.

The Wolf.

His smirk definitely scared me.

“Go home, Mouse.” He walked off, leaving me half on the stone wall and half in the garden. I jumped down and chased him through the house to spot him going upstairs. I was chasing him up, and he didn’t hear me. The music in the house was too loud, but I managed to catch him as he opened a door. He turned, but it was too late, I saw it.

“Jaya,” Toska said my name.

Syler growled at me as he pulled me into the room, slamming the door shut. My feet were frozen. My heart was ready to leave my chest.

“Jaya,” Toska said my name again.

Glancing up at her, I couldn’t say or do anything but stare.

The blood, all the blood reminded me of my mother and the day she died.

“Okay, maybe it was a bad idea! Just end it for her,” Toska said as if her words meant nothing.

Eyes wide, I stared at Syler, and in his hand was a hatchet.

My first thought was, where did he hide that?

As I glanced up, his face held a blank expression—mask on and all business.

Wait! End it for me?

I stepped back, knowing clearly now what she’d just said. Toska was naked, and below her was a man who was also naked. She frightened me. Dread was rooting me to the spot as I looked at her, and the way she seemed, she was the happiest I’d ever seen her.

Staring down at the guy below her, it was clear they’d just had sex, but then she must have slit his throat. The knife she showed me earlier was in her hand, and it was covered in blood.

All the blood slammed me back to that day.

To her.

My mother.

To how the blood became my favorite thing.

To that stand-out factor.

Blood.

I later learned it was head trauma—the man who tried to rob our house didn’t expect anyone to be inside, least of all my mother, who he snuck up on and hit on the head so hard that it fractured her skull, killing her instantly. I found her, and it was hours before my father came home to find me sitting in blood next to her.

I’d come to like blood, it was intriguing. The way it moved, its crimson color, its consistency, the metallic smell.

Ever since that day I had changed, maybe not in the best way either. The older I got, the more I realized my thoughts weren’t normal.

But Toska, well Toska, was less than fucking normal. Maybe my normal and abnormal thoughts about the blood weren't as bad now that I saw her in action.

Toska and the victim were both covered in blood, but another thing that shocked me more than the blood—not the blood I was good with, the blood I was used to—was that there was another man naked on the floor. There were two men, but only one was dead. And the second man, well, that was what freaked me out the most.

Did she plan to kill him, too?

Syler moved just the slightest bit, and I pushed back.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I swore at him and he smirked at me.

“You like it, don’t you? You like the blood?” These words came from Toska. She rose to stand over the man with the slit throat and his cock slipped from inside her.

She was fucking him when she killed him.

I wonder if Syler saw this all the time.

Did he watch his sister getting fucked then come to clean up her mess?

“Your eyes are glistening, maybe you can live,” Toska said, walking to the bathroom, leaving me with Syler.

The man who was unconscious was moving. He groaned and stood just as the noise of the shower came on from within the ensuite. Syler didn’t look back to him as he watched me. He knew the man was up, and the hatchet in his hand moved only the slightest bit. Then he threw it, his eyes leaving me just for a second before they returned.

“Do you want to run, little Mouse? Because I will find you.”

No words left my mouth. The shower stopped, and he stepped away from me to pull his hatchet from the body lying inches from his feet.

“Do you do this often?” I asked.

He pulled out a cloth from his jeans, wiped the blade and with those sea-green eyes, he glanced up at me.

“Yes, she needs it.”

My head couldn’t wrap around that statement. Then I remembered the other party on the news.

“Do you need her?”

His head dropped to the side while I looked at the man who was naked, the one she was fucking, then back to him.

“If you’re asking if I fuck my sister, then the answer would be no. If you’re asking do I kill for her, then the answer is yes.” He stepped closer to me. The blade from his hatchet touched my leg, the coldness of the metal sent a shiver through my body.

“Do you want to kill me?” I asked him, but before he could answer, the door to the ensuite opened, and I felt her presence as she stepped out.

Toska was someone you knew was near without even seeing her, and her brother was the same.

“No.” Syler didn’t say it loud enough for her to hear, but it was the last part that sent a shiver through me. “Unless she asks me to.” He stepped back, and I saw a now clean Toska. She clapped her hands together and reached for a bottle of alcohol then lit a cigarette as she placed it to her lips. She offered it to me, and usually, I’d say no, but right then I didn’t. I put that cigarette to my lips and took the longest drag, enjoying the nicotine hit.

“The last party...” I let the rest drop from my lips.

She smiled, and it shook every bone in my body, but she didn’t answer me.

“I’ve always wanted a woman to play with me. Syler doesn’t like to play, he only comes to clean up.” Her bottom lip pouted out as I blew the smoke from my mouth. She skipped out of the room, leaving me standing next to Syler.

“Let’s play,” he said, then walked out leaving me in the room with two dead bodies.

What had I gotten myself into?

I wasn’t sure, but he was there. And that seemed to be the only glue holding me in place, because the blood I could handle, her however, I wasn’t so sure about. She scared me, and I had no trust in her. At all.