The images leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I see myself, trembling, shaking from my core—okay, an exaggeration, but it’s not that far-fetched. With each piece of clothing that drops to the floor, my eyes are more and more distant. I’m rewatching my past, memory by memory. I don’t even see myself trying to fight it. That ghost from the past, that is now nothing more than an unfortunate event, is back to haunt me and in full control. Again.
Throughout the entire session, Azrael just stands there, trying to look unimpressed and cynical, but he broke character a couple of times and almost touched my body, almost kissed my neck. This is the silver lining in all this chaotic experience—he needs to restrain himself from reacting to my body. Well, that’s something I can work with.
I open my laptop and pull up the file from Alex.
The “full profile” on Azrael Lennox is exactly forty lines long, based on less than ten sources, most of them being archived websites. In a few words, a huge waste of kilobytes. The little bitch gave me a fucking résumé.
Rage blooms through my veins so fast, and before I realize what I’m doing, I’m already on a call with Alex.
He picks up on the second ring. “Something wrong?”
Something wrong?Something wrong?The audacity!Yes, your fucking existence.Fucking bastard. Cutting his throat? Forget that. I’ll skin him alive, piece by piece, fry it and feed it to him on a plate made out of his balls.
“Yes, update your testament,” I say too loudly through the speaker.
Silence.
When no reply comes through, I continue, “You told me he is boring with slightly psychopathic tendencies, but not violent. A thinker. Someone I could manipulate if I mirror enough of his intellectual ego.”
“Yeah? And?” His uninterested tone makes me wish I had the ability to punch someone through the phone.
“Are you fucking joking? Do you have any idea what this stupid mistake cost me?” I ask, the volume of my voice even louder this time. “He made me look pathetic, useless, a puppet in his game. The Professor knew about the cameras I installed, Alex! He knew everything. He fucking stalked me! Me! Not the other way around. Me!”
Alex exhales. “That’s not possible.”
“Then explain how he knew everything. He had access to my phone, my fucking phone! Gabriella’s and your locations. All my schedules for the missions. I was about to foot the cost of this bullshit, but fuck no. How the fuck did he do that when you were supposed to prevent something like this from fucking happening?”
He goes quiet again before answering in the most monotonic voice possible, “I gave you everything I had.”
“No. You gave me a résumé. I’m not fucking hiring him!”
He is irritably disinterested while I’m fuming here. “What do you want, Victoria? I’m not a magician. This hobby of yours is not something I want to be part of.”
Breathe in, breathe out.
“No, but you were supposed to know everything and anything about whoever even looks at me for a second, and you failed. Listen.” I’m now slightly calmer. “If he ends up killing me, I’m coming after you from my grave.”
“He’s just a professor, Tory,” he answers while sounding practically done with this conversation.
“I know,” I sigh, exasperated. I can’t wrap my head around this obsession either. “But I really think he’s planning on killing me.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
I stare at the ceiling, trying to gather my thoughts.
Yes, how do I feel about that? I’m pissed, and until I find a solution to my sudden weakness, I will sleep even worse at night. But I’m also intrigued. For the first time in what feels like ages, the numbness has been shattered to pieces, and I feel my core burning.
“Potentially turned on.” I can’t help but smile.
“You’re a psycho.” He laughs, but there is no amusement in his voice.
“No. I’m just finally with someone who plays games without stupid rules,” I answer, and this is true. Not a fan of how it went, but it just proves how much fun we will have in the future.
I continue, “I’m pretty sure I can at least get a couple of orgasms from him in return for what he did. I think Azraelwants me, wants me.”
What follows next takes me by surprise, when Alex screams, “You are not, under any circumstances, going to sleep with him. You’re going to get hurt.”
Oh…okay? If I didn’t know better, I would think Alex is being protective. But considering he doesn’t give a shit if I die or not, there must be something else. But right now, I have no time for his riddles.