When my hand darts up to switch off the drill pounding my skull into the next century, a soft moan makes me freeze midair. Against better judgment, I snap open my eyes. Mousy brown hair is fanned across my chest, and a cushiony ass is nestling my stiffened shaft.

Pain flies through my body when I scoot backward, lost and confused as fuck.

Where the hell am I? And how the fuck did I get here?

It takes me several minutes of scanning the dingy space to gather my bearings. I’m in a cabin my dad uses for hunting. Not the hunting you’re thinking, but that’s a story for another day.

You are probably also thinking, How convenient you happen to own a cabin a few miles from the psych hospital you were admitted at.

Once again, it’s not what you’re thinking.

My father owns many cabins, more than four in each state. When you hunt as regularly as he does, you take advantage of any location you can get. The closer, the better. That means his arsenal of properties is well into the thousands. Not all of them are as rundown as this cabin, but he doesn’t need comfort for what he is doing. He needs seclusion.

Ignoring the throb shooting through my back, demanding I remain still, I slowly rise to my feet. The world spins around me as the contents in my stomach threaten to spill at any moment.

While tugging on a pair of discarded pants dumped near the bed, my eyes drift to my sleeping companion. The scent of her hair already gives away who she is, but the impish thoughts drifting through my mind triple its guarantee. Even with my brain back to standard working order, my cock still wants to sink into Claudia’s heat.

Or should I say, “Wants to sink into Claudia’s heat again?”

Did we fuck? Is that why I’m so sore?

To say my mind is hazy would be an understatement. I have no clue what happened last night. I assume since I am sleeping in my dad’s cabin that Claudia and I escaped Meadow Fields, but how we got here, and why we’re naked are complete blanks. The last thing I recall is biting Lee. I assume that’s why my mouth tastes like garbage?

My confusion deepens when my eyes stop tracing Claudia’s curves at the lower half of her body. She’s wearing panties. If we had fucked, they’d be shredded on the floor like her dress. I don’t like panties. They represent the very essence of why I hunted with my father.

I love the smell of a woman’s cunt. It is as enticing to me as the scent of her blood. Even now, though doubtful her near-unconscious state is from me fucking her brains out, I can smell Claudia’s seductive scent. It’s as alluring as the aroma of fresh blood filtering through the air.

Casting my gaze down, I discover the cause for the cock-thickening scent. A t-shirt is crumpled at the side of the bed. It’s the same style all the male patients at Meadow Fields wear, it just has an added accessory: a large circular hole in the bottom left hand corner surrounded by a ring of blood.

What the fuck?

I take off for the attached bathroom, my body screaming in pain with every step I take. After clearing away the gunk from the mirror with my hand, I twist around to face the cracked shower stall at the back of the dingy space.

Fuck it. I’m too short to see the area throbbing in pain.

After throwing down the filthy toilet lid with my foot, I balance on the rim of the seat. This is no easy feat with how woozy my head is, but it gives me enough leeway to see a line of stitches in the lower quadrant of my back. If I had to guess, I’d say there are fifteen to twenty butterfly knots holding together a recent bullet wound.

I jump down from the toilet, hoping a few minutes of silence will ease my confusion. All it gives me is a truck-load of pain.

I’m the most lost I’ve ever been. I’m also in the most pain.

Did Claudia shoot me? If so, why stitch me up? I couldn’t have been shot by a guard; otherwise, how did I get to my cabin? It’s miles away from Meadow Fields. Claudia is a little firecracker with more gusto than her demure mousy composure displays, but she struggled carrying two logs of wood last night. She’d never manage a man of my height and frame. . .

I freeze, stunned. That was a memory. It was as worthless as a stripper who doesn’t give extra services when you hand her a hundred, but a memory all the same.

Realizing there is only one person who can give me answers, I charge back to the main area of the cabin. My steps aren’t as thunderous as my earlier ones, weighed down with both confusion and pain.

Claudia rouses when the mattress dips under my frame, but she remains asleep. Even with her back facing me, I can tell her chest is rising and falling in rhythm with mine. I’d even go as far as saying her breaths are just as regular. Her hair is tousled from a restless night, and her face is void of makeup. She looks peaceful. So much so, I almost feel bad sneaking a peek at her breasts.

For a lady with a fucked-up head, she has a nice rack. Her rosy pink nipples sit high on her chest, as puckered and inviting as her ruddy lips. She is more attractive out of her clothes than she is in them. I’m not surprised. Lee didn’t have her on his radar for no reason. Her tempting body was the second thing I noticed after her virtuous eyes and face. Her fantastic tits were most likely the first thing Lee noticed.

I remain rooted in place for the second time when another memory breaks through the fog in my head. It is of Lee and his soulless eyes. Not the lifeless ones he generally carries. Soulless—soulless. As in dead.

I killed him. He’s dead because of me.

Damn—my morning just got ten times better.

Feeding off a surge of adrenaline and eager to get back to the game I started years ago, I snag a set of keys from a canister in the makeshift kitchen then exit the cabin.

I like Claudia—my fingers itch to corrupt her curvy frame—but she’s all types of fucked up, and I’ve got business to take care of.

Business that doesn’t include bedding a psychotic woman.

The gleaming grin I’ve been wearing since my Pontiac GTO kicked over at the first turn of the keys thirty minutes ago turns blinding when the radio switches to a news broadcast. I’m not just grinning at the report that two long-serving guards at a penitentiary for the criminally insane were killed last night. It is knowing my dad is still at the top of his game. I’ve been locked up so long, my GTO’s battery should have died years ago. The fact it started on the first try proves he’s still playing the game he taught me the day of my sixth birthday.

I didn’t get a toy truck or any other gift you’d expect a normal child to receive. I was given an invitation to an exclusive club, a club so secretive, only the founder knows each member’s name: my father.

I’m not going to lie; I pissed my pants when I spotted their target for the day. The girl was young, around my mom’s age when she had me—approximately sixteen. The welts on her body and face were so disfiguring, the only thing I can recall about her now is the scent of her blood.

Although I did the occasional hunt with my dad in my teens, my interests did a one-eighty when Shelley entered the equation. My dad was disappointed, but he understood. He didn’t have much choice. He had done the same thing with my mother. She was supposed to be his victim, not occupy his bed.

I don’t know if my father altered the rules because my mother’s stomach was swollen with me, or because he had an instant connection with her like I had with both Shelley and Cleo. But whatever it was, I’m certain it was fate.

He raised me as if I were his own flesh and blood. His parenting methods were unheard of by the many doctors my mother had probe my head in my early teens, but I wouldn’t be the man I am today if it weren’t for my father. For that alone, I’ll be forever in his debt.

My mind drifts from fond memories when the radio crackles, announcing a new bulletin. “Police are on the lookout for three patients who escaped Meadow Fields Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane last night. Dexter Elias, Claudia Brown, and Ashlee Vought are considered armed and dangerous. Extreme discretion is advised before approaching the assailants.”

“Three?” The rest of my curiosity comes out in a groan.

Claudia’s escape makes sense—I played the game right. But Ashlee. . . I’m at a loss.

From the pieces of my memory I’ve pieced together the past thirty minutes, I’m confident Claudia was with me during my escape. But Ashlee hasn’t come up once in my endeavor to clear the fog from my mind.

We interacted a few times when I strategized a way to put my game plan into play, but I never clued her in on my plans to escape. As far as she was aware, my interest in Claudia was purely to bed her. Hearing Ashlee escaped with me is more shocking than waking up with a sleeping Claudia in my arms.

Snickering at my stupidity of being lumped with two loons, I continue my trip. I make it another forty miles before I have to pull over to pump gas. My father’s staff kept my battery charged, but they weren’t as courteous with the gas tank.

With police two counties over seeking Dexter Elias, I secure one of three wallets in my glove compartment before clambering out of my car. The gas stations have drastically improved from what they once were. I can watch the news broadcast of my escape on a small TV in the pump while my gas guzzler’s tank is replenished.

Every image of Lee and Bryce flashing across the screen spikes my pulse. I don’t feel remorse when the broadcast shows their blubbering families. They should thank me. I saved them from a life of misery by taking out their trash. Once the dust settles, I’m sure they’ll understand that.

After filling the tank to the brim, I head to the restroom inside the gas station. All their money must have been spent on the fancy gas pumps, as their washrooms aren’t up to standards. They are dingy and old, nearly as rundown as the cabin I left over an hour ago.

While taking a leak, my mind wanders to Claudia. Not because she bores the piss out of me, but because I can smell her on my cock. My mind is still hazy, but it’s clear enough for me to remember what happened last night. We didn’t fuck. We snuggled.

Just the thought has my cock wilting in my hand.

I don’t spoon. Come to think of it, I’ve never slept in the same bed as a girl. I hurt her, fuck her, then leave. I don’t do sleepovers. I didn’t even break the rules with Shelley and Cleo. Don’t get me wrong. I watched them sleep. I just never slept over. That’s entirely different.

Claudia is still on my mind when I stomp past an ancient computer advertising a minute of internet usage for a quarter. Although I want to pretend I’m feeding coins into the meter as a means to track down Cleo, the article Ashlee gave me last month ensures I know which direction to head.

Marcus didn’t just upend my chessboard when he joined my four-year game with Cleo; he upended Cleo’s entire life. She’s no longer a resident of Montclair, New Jersey. She’s a shiny new citizen of Ravenshoe. I wonder if the mayor of that nondescript town in Florida knows the vile man it raised in its carcass?

As I wait for the wired connection to find a match on Claudia Brown, I slouch in my chair. I’m not tracking down Claudia’s info to finish what we didn’t start last night. I’m merely curing weeks of confusion.

I hate that I can’t read Claudia. But secretly, I also love it. It kept things interesting the past two months, which is a task in itself when you’re locked in a mental asylum. Easing my curiosity will make the transition to the next phase of my game plan a lot easier. It has nothing to do with Claudia’s fruity smell on my skin. Nothing. At. All.

Ignoring the recurring denial echoing between my ears, I lean in close to the monitor. It’s blank. I’m not talking I’m a seventy-year-old geriatric who doesn’t know his way around a computer blank. It is blank, Claudia isn’t who she says she is blank.

I take a few moments to ponder my next move. If I were half the man I was before being locked in a mental asylum, I’d leave this gas station and continue my quest for revenge. But since I am as inquisitive as I am determined, I search a different subject.

Nicholas Holt brings up more information than a standard Google search. Thousands of paparazzi pictures of him and his bandmates, an extensive list of musical accomplishments, and one lonely request for a restraining order against a woman named Megan Shroud is presented before me.

“Megan Shroud? Who the fuck are you?”

My fingers fly wildly over the keyboard when I replace Nick’s name with Megan’s. It brings up the standard stuff you’d expect to find: a driver’s license, a dated Myspace page, and a handful of old photos every school nerd uploads when preparing for a class reunion. But it’s the stuff behind the search I’m the most interested in, the stuff I’m certain is the cause for Claudia’s mute state.

Claudia Brown is Megan Shroud. If her dazzling hazel eyes and heart-shaped face weren’t already telltale signs, the hairline crack in Claudia’s front tooth when she smiles is a surefire indication. Megan’s photos display she had a cracked front tooth; it is in the exact spot Claudia’s tooth has been patched. They are the same person; I’m certain of it.

The only thing I can’t fathom is why Megan’s family admitted her to psychiatric care under an alias? My family ties must remain obscure since my father’s last name is infamous, but that can’t be the reason Megan’s family hid her identity. She is from some bum-hick town in the middle of whoop-whoop, so what secrets could she be possibly hiding?

Deciding there is only one way to satisfy my curiosity, I sign out of the general public search forum and log into a more secure one. This one isn’t assessible to the general public. I have to perform numerous magic tricks just to ensure my search will be undetectable, and I’m a genius at this shit.

This search is a lot more interesting. Megan Shroud is twenty-eight. She’s been missing for over five years—presumed dead. My lips twist in surprise when I discover a man is currently serving life for her murder in a state penitentiary not too far from here. Her mother’s name and identification is not listed on any records, and her father has been deceased longer than Megan’s been missing.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

I scoot in closer to the screen, certain what I am reading is wrong. Megan Shroud killed her father. The coroner’s report states he was poisoned over a twelve-month period. That wasn’t the cause of his demise, though. He was strangled to death before being hung from a beam in his barn. By the time local authorities were alerted to his death, his body was well on the way to decomposition. During preliminary investigations, police discovered a second body. This person was also murdered, albeit years earlier. She was a female—believed to be in her late-twenties and a mother.

As my brain struggles to sort through the facts, I slump into my chair. I don’t know what detail to work through first: the fact Claudia. . . or should I call her Megan? . . . is an orphan, or that she is a murderer?

No matter how many ways I look at it, the facts never alter. The arrest warrant must be wrong. Claudia has seductive curves, but she is tiny. There is no way she could have hung her father. She wouldn’t have been able to lift him when he was alive, much less dead. Trust me, people are heaviest when they’re lifeless.

The image of Claudia lugging a man up rickety stairs makes my tenth memory of the day smack into me. This one is so vivid, it launches me onto my feet.

Claudia carried me! She fucking carried me on her back for over two miles.

I fall back into my chair with a thump as memories of last night steamroll into me. I didn’t kill Bryce. Claudia did. She hit him with a shovel, her smile brightening before her second hit. Then she dug the bullet out of my back and stitched me up before protesting my proposal to sleep naked to keep warm.

She kicked and screamed for several minutes when my stiffened shaft pressed against her ass. When I told her to stay still or I’ll fuck her to death, she took my warning literally. It was for the best. I wasn’t joking.

The more I read Megan’s police record, the faster my heart gallops. How did I not see this earlier? Claudia’s not psychotic. She’s not even fucked in the head. She’s a female version of me. She’s inhumane, determined, un-fucking-scrupulous. She wasn’t just my ticket out of Meadow Fields; she is the bullet. I am the gun. Together—we will be unstoppable.

Don’t misunderstand, though. Claudia is still a woman, which means she’ll always be below me, but she doesn’t need me as a reward. She needs him.

I lower my eyes to the monitor displaying pictures of Megan’s childhood bedroom. Every inch of the pale white walls is covered with photos of one man. Claudia isn’t obsessed with Nicholas Holt. She wants to own him.

I’m going to give him to her, and in the process of doing that, I’ll distract Marcus from my true endeavor. It’s a win-win for all involved. Claudia gets her man; I get revenge. . . and Marcus gets what’s coming to him.

Slowly, very, very slowly, I type a string of text into the Google search bar. It is the exact set of words every FBI agent from here to Ravenshoe will be searching for. But instead of directing them at Marcus as I have in the past, I direct them to Jenni—Nick Holt’s wife.

By dangling a carrot to their right, they’ll fail to notice me sneaking up on the left.

What did I tell you? Brilliant.