Fuck! I tore at the strap on my right hand.
And it gave way.
I was free.
I jumped off the table and ran at The Phantom. I launched myself onto his back, screaming.
He yelled.
I dug my fingers into his neck. I reached under his mask, searching for his eye sockets.
He threw me off of him.
I landed hard against the cold floor, stunned by the pain of impact.
Get up, I urged myself.
The Phantom had turned back to Vigil. He smacked him with the club again, right in the face. More blood.
Vigil reached for him.
The Phantom danced away, laughing.
I tried to get up. I couldn’t.
The Phantom kicked Vigil.
Vigil curled into a ball, his hands over his head.
I dragged myself across the floor. Away from them both. I had an idea.
The Phantom wouldn’t stop kicking him. He wouldn’t stop laughing.
I crawled faster.
Vigil groaned.
And I was there. Next to the legs. I grabbed the edge of their makeshift stage and hauled myself to my feet.
“Hayden!” I yelled. “You care about these legs?”
He looked up from the huddled form of Vigil.
I grabbed one of the legs. Don’t think about the fact it could be Darlene’s, I screamed at myself. “I’m thinking maybe they’d make good—”
“Don’t touch those!” The Phantom’s voice was shrill. He ran for me, Vigil forgotten.
I clutched it, backing away from him. That was right. Leave Vigil alone. Come for me.
Behind him, Vigil struggled to his feet.
“Put it down,” said The Phantom. “Put it down!”
“Oh, could I hurt it?” I said, feigning innocence.
Vigil stumbled across the floor to us. Blood streamed over his lips and chin. He grabbed The Phantom, hurling him to the ground.
The Phantom shrieked in anger and pain.
Vigil climbed onto The Phantom’s body. Vigil grabbed The Phantom by the shoulders and slammed his head into the floor.
The Phantom made a small mewling noise.
Vigil slammed him into the floor again.
And again.
And again.
The Phantom stopped moving.
Vigil did it again.
I set down the leg. “I… I think he’s—”
Vigil did it one more time.
There was a growing pool of red behind The Phantom’s head.
I went to Vigil. I put my hand on his shoulder.
He looked up at me. Then he buried his face in my stomach and started to sob.
I was wrapped in a blanket and standing outside the law office. Vigil stood next to me, but he wasn’t touching me, because the police were there. We watched as they brought Hayden Barclay out on a stretcher. They’d removed his mask to put a ventilator on him. He was alive.
When I’d seen the blood on the floor underneath his skull, I’d thought that Vigil had killed him. But Hayden apparently had a thick skull. He hadn’t regained consciousness, and he was badly hurt. But he was alive.
“And you went down there because you were chasing a story?” said the police officer, raising his eyebrows at me. I was being interviewed about what had happened, but I felt like they kept asking me the same questions over and over again.
“Yeah,” I said, still staring at the unmoving form of Hayden Barclay. He looked so vulnerable and helpless now. I could hardly believe that an hour ago, he’d been frightening and violent. That I’d thought he might kill both me and Vigil. “I had a lead, and I followed up on it.”
“You didn’t think to call the police?”
I shook my head. I figured it wasn’t wise to point out that no one in the city trusted the police department because everyone was convinced they were corrupt.
The officer sighed. “Well, it’s a good find, Ms. Kane. In one fell swoop, you got all the evidence we need to put this guy away.”
I looked up at Vigil. “I would have been dead if it hadn’t been for him.”
The officer nodded at Vigil in acknowledgment. He gestured to us. “We owe you both a debt of gratitude. But I have to stress that you are both amateurs and that you really should leave the detective work to the professionals. In the future, it would be better if you called us instead of investigating on your own.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Trust me, I’m not in any rush to go after another bad guy like this.”
“Good,” said the officer. He snapped closed his notebook. “That’s all I have for you right now. We might need you to come into the station at some point to go back over it. But for now, if you hop in one of those ambulances, they’ll get you to a hospital and get you checked out.”
I shook my head. “Oh, that’s not necessary. I really wasn’t hurt.”
Vigil spoke up. It was the first thing he’d said in quite a while. “Maybe you should go to the hospital. If there’s evidence against him, it’s important that they find it.”
I turned to him, confused.
The police officer drew his eyebrows together. “Ms. Kane, what happened down there?”
“Nothing,” I said, looking at both of them. “I don’t understand. How does my going to the hospital mean you’ll find more evidence?”
Vigil looked up, drawing in breath. “Evidence on your body.”
I furrowed my brow, not getting it.
The officer cleared his throat. “I think he means a rape kit, Ms. Kane.”
I felt hotly embarrassed at that. I pulled the blanket even tighter around my shoulders. “No. He didn’t do that. I told you he didn’t. You got there just before…” I trailed off, staring at the ground.
The officer’s voice was gentle. “If something did happen, Ms. Kane, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not your fault.”
“It didn’t.” I wanted to walk away from them. From everything. But I didn’t have any clothes. I only had this stupid blanket, and I felt trapped. I looked up at Vigil. “I just want to go.”
“You probably want to get in touch with Callum Rutherford. Isn’t he your boyfriend?” said the officer. “If you need a phone—”
“Oh, no, that’s okay,” I said.
“I’ll take you to him,” said Vigil, looking deep into my eyes.
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
He was covered in bruises and blood. I helped him peel away his costume in his bedroom. His back was black and blue. His face was red and swollen.
“You should have gone to the hospital,” I said.
He shook his head. “No way. I can’t do that. I’d reveal who I was. Just help me get cleaned up.” He touched my face. “I mean, if you can. I don’t know what you went through down there.”
I looked away. “I was… afraid. I couldn’t get back through the door, and it was dark, and then he was there, and…”
We were both quiet.
I looked at him. He’d wiped blood off of his face, but it had dripped down his chin and over his neck and chest. It was crusted all over him. “You need a shower.”
He nodded. He headed for his adjoining bathroom.
I followed him.
He stopped in the doorway. “Are you going to…”
“Oh,” I said. “I just assumed that you wouldn’t mind if I… But if it’s not cool, then I’ll just wait and…”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “But I assumed you wouldn’t want…”
We were quiet again.
Suddenly, he pulled me tight against him. He kissed me on the forehead. “Do you want to take a shower with me?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Even after…” He took a shaky breath. “When we were down there, I had a moment. I was tempted. You were tied up on that table, and you were almost naked, and I thought about taking you. About…”
I swallowed hard. “But you didn’t do it.”
He l
et go of me. “You shouldn’t even be around me right now.”
I reached for him. “You’re the only person I can be around right now. You’re the only person that can possibly understand what I’m feeling.”
He dragged a hand over his face. “Cecily, you don’t know what went through my head. I’m just like him. He was right. He and I are the same.”
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re not, because you didn’t do it. Thinking about something and doing something are different.”
He was agonized. “But what if I—”
“You won’t,” I said.
I pushed past him, into the bathroom. I went over the shower and turned on the water. I busied myself with testing the temperature.
I spoke at the gushing water. I didn’t look at him. “I trust you, Callum. I trust that you’re good. I know you. And something very not good just happened to me. He didn’t rape me, but he… touched me. And…” I fought tears. “I just want water running over me. I want your hands on me. And I want it all washed away.”
At first he didn’t respond.
But then he was behind me, his hands gentle as he helped me undress.
I turned back to him, peeling off the rest of his costume.
And then we were both nude.
We stepped under the shower head. Callum winced as the water hit his cuts. But he also sighed in relief. In pleasure. And I had to admit that the water felt nice.
I picked up soap, and I began scrubbing the dried blood off of him.
“Why?” he said. “Why do you trust me? Why do you think I’m good?”
I kept scrubbing at the blood. “Because of what you do. Because you saved girls. You didn’t hurt them. Because you’ve never hurt me. And because I’ve fallen for you so completely and utterly, and I couldn’t love you this much if you weren’t good.”
He shut his eyes. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
He took the soap from me. “Okay.” He began to soap up my back.
I pressed my body against his, my breasts into his chest. I kissed him.
He sighed, hands sliding over my back, slippery from soap. His mouth was wet and slippery too.
My nipples tightened against him. My body was waking up.
His was too. I could feel his cock lengthening and thickening against one of my legs.
He broke the kiss, turning away from me, setting the soap on a ledge. “Sorry.”
I turned him back to face me. “Don’t be.”
His gaze flitted down over my naked body. “Cecily, after what happened to you—”
“I know,” I said. “And maybe this is fucked up, but I don’t care.” I reached down between his legs and wrapped my hand around him.
He groaned.
I stroked him. He stiffened at my touch, growing hard and long.
He gasped. He raised his hands to cup my breasts.
I moaned, pleasure surging through me.
He kissed me. He pushed me back into the slick, smooth wall of the shower.
Now our bodies were pressed together. I nudged my tongue into his mouth, and I lifted one of my legs, pressing my sex against his cock.
He groaned again.
“Please,” I whispered. “I want to wash it away.”
“Cecily, you know I can’t…”
But he was slipping inside me.
I pushed with my hips, angling, taking more of him.
It was an awkward angle, but he was big enough that it worked, even if the penetration was a little shallow.
He grasped my thighs, held me in place.
We looked into each other’s eyes for a few moments.
He tried a tentative thrust.
I moaned. It felt good to have him inside me. I felt connected—one with him. And when he moved, it sent little earthquakes all though me.
He thrust again. Deeper this time.
It was magnificent. I threw my head back, sighing.
His hands went under my ass. He lifted me, settling my legs around his hips and bracing me against the shower wall.
His next thrust went even deeper, piercing the center of me, priming my pleasure.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He let out a long, shuddering sigh. “I don’t believe I’m doing this.”
I stroked his forehead. “Of course you are. And you’re doing a very good job.”
He chuckled. He kissed my eyebrow, and he picked up the pace, rhythmically plunging in and out of me.
It felt so, so good. I wrapped my legs tight around him. I ran my hands over his body, cupping his ass, urging him on.
He moaned. He buried my face in my shoulder.
Then, “Shit.”
“Shit?” I repeated.
“I’m not wearing a condom.”
“I know that,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“It is?” He looked unsure.
I nodded.
He swallowed. Then he kissed me. “You’re right. It is. This isn’t a fling. This is something real. I’m willing to take risks. Accept consequences.”
I grabbed his face, one hand on each of his cheeks. “Stop talking serious and fuck me, Callum.”
He laughed.
I kissed him while he was laughing, and his laughter filled both of our mouths, bubbling up, searing into me. I needed the joy to wipe away the darkness.
Our bodies slid against each other, sweet, sleek, and a little soapy.
He filled me, spearing me deeply, barraging me with bliss as I opened to him, as I surrounded him, accepted him, took him into me.
His cock found the center of my pleasure, teased it, coaxed it, nudged it. And I rode the sensation until I was teetering on the edge of ecstasy.
Everything seemed to blur together. The hot water pounding into our bare flesh. The slippery walls of the shower. His warm, wet body moving against me and inside me. I struggled for breath. I was lost to the rapture that was just out of my reach.
“I’m going to come,” I managed.
“Me too,” he said in a strained voice. “Should I… should I pull out?”
What? The first shocks of it were traveling up my thighs. I could hardly understand what he was saying.
But then I felt him start to disengage. I stopped him, held him in place.
“No,” I gasped. “No, it’s okay. I’m on birth control.”
He let out a ragged moan, grabbed onto my hips and stabbed me deep and hard.
Our releases came in seconds of each other. I felt his tremors inside me at the same time as my own climax was pulsing through me.
I’d never felt such togetherness. My pleasure twined with his, both growing and grasping for the sunlight before bursting into fireworks of blossoms, flowering and exploding and showering us both with euphoria.
His mouth found mine, sweet and soft. I dragged my tongue against his.
And we were joined. Completely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“So, was this benefit your idea or Callum’s?” said Airenne. She was holding a recorder in my face, and we were standing in the corner at the Darlene Perry Memorial Gala. She was interviewing me for Bold!
“It was a tag team effort,” I said. “Obviously, it’s named after my friend.”
“Who was brutally murdered by The Phantom, correct?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“So, in your own words, tell me who exactly this gala benefits and why.”
“We’re raising money for a newly formed foundation,” I said. “Callum and I have created it, and its job is to give girls who are faced with the choice of working as exotic dancers other options. It’s basically a scholarship program, but it’s more than that. It pays not only for college tuition, but for room and board and living expenses. It really is designed to give girls who don’t usually get one a fighting chance.”
“Wow,” said Airenne. “That’s really amazing. And close to your heart, I suppose, given your own history?”
“Absolutely,” I said. It was kind of
fun to interact with Airenne like this, both of us putting on our best professional faces.
“Well, speaking of college, your senior year begins in just a few weeks, doesn’t it? Are you leaving the fair city of Aurora?”
I laughed. Airenne already knew the answers to these questions. She just had to get my answers down on tape so that she could write her article. “No, I’m not leaving.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Airenne. “Everyone would miss you.”
“I’ve transferred to a local university,” I said. “And I’m going to continue as an intern for The Sun-Times.”
“Right,” she said. “I imagine they wouldn’t let you go after you broke that amazing story about The Phantom.”
I shrugged. “They seem to like me there. I like them too.”
“Most of the stories you wrote were about Vigil. But we haven’t heard anything about Vigil in quite some time. Do you know what’s happened to him?”
Ooh. That wasn’t something she and I had talked about. Surprise question. “Vigil decided to retire,” I said.
“Really?”
I nodded. “He was after The Phantom, and he got his man.”
“So no more Vigil?”
“No more Vigil.”
“Do you think the city still needs him?” she asked.
A tough question. “Well… I don’t know if Vigil is really up for any more work. I think he’s content to leave it to the police.”
“But he said that the police were corrupt.”
“I think things are changing.” I raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think this is getting a little heavy for a fashion magazine?”
“Not a fashion magazine,” she said. “It’s a women’s magazine.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“My editor made me promise to ask about Vigil.”
“Okay, well you have. So, let’s move on.”
She sighed. “You always get weird whenever anyone brings up Vigil.”
“I do not,” I said.
“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Deep down, he was actually like a big creep, right? I mean, what kind of guy would dress up like that?”
“He wasn’t a creep,” I said. “Next question.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Um, next year, you’ll be going to school full time and working part time at the newspaper. Do you anticipate having any trouble making time for your relationship?”
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