A Hand in Hell

Chapter 5

"Why are you doing this to me?" she all but growled. "Why can't you just leave me and my friends and my family alone?"

"Because getting run out of town by a bunch of human hicks doesn't really appeal to me," I said simply, then pointed to the other end of the room with a smile on my face. "Now, get your ass in that elevator before someone sees us."

She turned from me and stalked her way over to the elevator, even being so kind as to slam her palm against the "up" button when she reached it. It took only a second for the doors to part, and we stepped into the well-lit and brightly colored interior together. She jabbed the button for the third floor, then pressed herself into the corner across from me with her arms crossed tightly beneath her breast, scowling straight ahead.

"Come, now, Dexter," I said lightly, taking a step closer to her and clapping a hand on her arm. She tensed. "There's no need for you to be this way. We can be friends after this over, you know? Just one quick kill, and we'll never have to go through this again." If I didn't know any better, I might have thought I was telling the truth, smooth as the lie was. "Shouldn't you be scared, anyway? Worried? Anger doesn't seem right for this situation." She didn't respond, and the second the doors opened, she stepped out into the hall, dragging me along by the handle of the leash.

Just down the hall, she stopped in front of a door bearing the numbers "312" in ugly gold plating, pulling the set of keys I'd given back to her from the pocket of her shorts. I said nothing as she unlocked the door, turned the handle, and pushed the door open, but my mouth fell agape at what I saw inside. In the center of the living room, right across from us and just past the tiny kitchen to the left, sat not one lonely woman, but one woman and three older, angrier men — men with fucking semi-automatic rifles on their laps.

"Lauren?" the girl cried, lurching to her feet from where she sat in an armchair, her eyes wide.

"Who the hell are you?" one of the men, a tall, bearded guy with salt-and-pepper hair, snapped, his intense gaze on me. All three of the males were on their feet now, guns still at rest for a reason I couldn't fathom.

"A friend," I answered politely, offering the group my best smile as I gently pushed Dexter into the apartment ahead of me.

"Oh, yeah?" another man snapped, shorter and even more grisly looking. "Then why do you have her on a leash?"

"Haven't you ever heard of BDSM?" I asked, shutting the door quietly behind me. "It's a thing, you know."

A gun was leveled on me suddenly, and the clanking of metal sounded as the other two men followed suit. "You're the one, aren't you?" the first man said, glaring at me hard. "The one who keeps taking people?"

"Oh, come on," I laughed sweetly. "That's just silly! Do I really look like someone who could be in the business of taking people?" The man's eyes flicked to Dexter, and I followed his gaze to find her lips moving, mouthing the words "Help me." My expression instantly soured. "You stupid cunt," I snapped, jerking the girl backward and into my arms with a tug at the leash, my hand simultaneously slipping into my pocket and retrieving a black-handled switchblade. "I told you not to say anything!" I flipped the knife open and pressed the blade against the girl's throat beneath the edge of the collar, glaring bitterly at the men as I did so. "Of course, I suppose it would have come to this, anyway. These bastards have to die eventually, and why not take care of it while they're all conveniently in one place?"

"Don't shoot her!" Dexter's roommate — Nicky? Micky? — screamed, but the man at the forefront had already pulled the trigger. The bullet embedded itself in my upper arm, and I grimaced but made not a sound, continuing to hold my gaze and knife steady. A second bullet, this one fired from a different gun, was quick to follow, and I couldn't help a fierce grin when Dexter cried out in pain and sagged in my arms. I wasn't sure where the bullet had hit her, but I hoped it was somewhere good.