Lovely Bad Things: A Dark Romance (Hollow’s Row 1)

KALLUM

Most obsessions start small, harmless. A tiny niggle in the back of your mind, an innocent fixation. The obsessive thought crawls under our skin and we begin to pick and pick until the desire overwhelms and we have no choice but to tear into it, claws raking and drawing blood.

The wound is a form of relief.

All great minds suffer this affliction. A torment that damns us to a monotonous existence.

But what is art and beauty if not pain? Anything which comes too easily is an insult to both the creator and the consumer.

With pain, we feel, we tear ourselves wide, and we allow the wound to heal over. We accept the scar. With obsession, we mutilate the skin until it’s destroyed, never allowing the damage to repair.

Blood never clots. We want it to flow, to keep feeding the passion, the desire.

Little Halen St. James didn’t start as a tiny niggle. From day one, she flayed my skin wide and buried herself deep.

And I can’t stop scratching.

“Locke, you’re up.”

My name is called over the line of patients in the waiting room seated on a bench. It’s dank and crowded in the small eight-by-ten holding area of Briar Correctional Institute for the Criminally Insane. The plain-white walls are dingy with age and neglect. There’s a constant reek of bleach with a faint undercurrent of mildew, a stench that can never quite be masked.

The psychotic inmates smell worse.

Donning my neutral patient scrubs, I rise from the plastic chair and drag a hand through my slicked hair. A few loose strands creep over my eye, but I ignore the errant stragglers as I’m ensnared by the sight at the visitation table.

I allow all five senses to absorb her fully before I step into the room.

Basic heather-gray thermal with three buttons undone at her collar. A simple, delicate white-gold chain drops a one-carat, teardrop diamond in the hollow of her throat. Her dark-brown hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, out of the way. A defiant streak of white frames the side of her unpolished face.

The only makeup she wears is a swipe of mascara to darken her lashes, and a hint of gloss on her plump lips. But why cover up her natural beauty with layers of toxic chemicals? I appreciate the simplicity, even if those dramatic hazel eyes make me want to draw blood.

As I move into the room, I watch as she observes me just as closely. I like the way she purposely tries not to blink, the way her cheeks tinge the slightest shade of pale-pink. It’s deceiving on her part; she’s not shy or meek or enraptured by me.

Oh, I know I’m a specimen to behold. There’s no modesty in these bones. It would be pretentious of me to fake humbleness. Since I was five, my mother’s friends cooed and marveled over my eyes. My high-school girlfriends soaked their panties over my floppy black hair and crooked smile. Come to think of it, so did my mother’s friends.

At six-one, my body is leanly cut and toned, honed to wreak havoc on the female mind and body.

Which is one of the many annoyances when it comes to the petite criminologist seated across from me; she never fell into my web. She escaped unscathed, unaffected. More so, she slammed a glass over me and trapped me like a common house spider.

A miscalculation I’m determined to rectify.

My bite has venom.

“Hello, Halen.” The gravelly rasp of my voice curls around the syllables of her name. The first tremor of excitement rolls under my skin.

“Professor Locke,” she replies formally. “I’d prefer if you addressed me in kind as Dr. St. James.”

“This is the first time I’ve lain eyes on you in months, and here you sit, making demands. Impressive. Once you stepped out of those shadows, it seems you never returned.” My gaze skims her composed features, probing for the crack in her armor. I thought I found it once, but I was unpleasantly surprised to stand corrected. Amid twelve jurors, no less.

“Am I being recorded?” I ask, not curbing the hard edge in my tone of voice.

“No. This conversation if strictly between us—”

“I thought the last one was.”

She tips her chin higher and presents her phone, proving there are no recording apps, before she slips the device back into her bag. “But I’d like it if our conversation remains formal.”

“Oh, come now,” I say, “we can toss out nominal letters and propriety bullshit. We’re both on equal ground.”

She arches a fine eyebrow. “Does it rub you raw I won’t refer to you as Dr. Locke? Because, given the doctorate in philosophy is the most common in academia, I only presumed you’d find it insulting. Although, I could always tack on the post-nominal lettering if it helps your ego, Professor Locke, PhD.”

She’s been a busy little bee investigating me to learn how I tick.

Ryder—who I suppose one may consider my closest friend—relayed how she’d been interrogating professional associates and what few friends I have left after this debacle. I may have used him to feed her some interesting morsels.

What tangled webs…

I lick my lips slowly, savoring the burn of her arousing scent as it stokes my senses. A mouthwatering combination of lily of the valley and ylang-ylang, a unique scent well-suited for her.

Poisonous. Toxic, but only if ingested. With a hint of aphrodisiac.

She could market the scent with her own brand: Lure and kill.

“Rubbing me raw, little Halen, has all the promise with no follow through.” I spin the silver ring around my thumb.

She visibly shifts in her seat, refusing to be baited.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

“What a waste of your doctorate,” I press on, expelling a lengthy breath. “You should be working in academia yourself, fielding your own research. Instead, you’re still traipsing around crime scenes, playing chase.”

“Keeping tabs on me?”

I smile. “I have loads of time to kill.”

Her mouth parts, as if I’ve said something to confirm a suspicion.

Daringly, I let my hand settle past the midway point on the table. There are no plastic dividers. No metal grates. I could reach out and touch her if I wanted—but I’m not yet ready to tear in and claw that itch.

Her gaze drops to my hand, to the faded inked celestial rose on the back of my hand and sigils that mark my fingers below my knuckles.

“I’m surprised you didn’t request I be shackled.” I drum my fingers on the surface of the hard plastic tabletop.

When she raises her gaze to meet mine, her resolve is firmly in place. “Should I have? Do you plan to hurt me?”

The vision attacks so suddenly and with startling fierceness—my hands collared around her slender neck; her breathy gasps for oxygen—I have to blink hard and push farther away from the table to escape her scent.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel,” I say.

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“Mark Twain answered it, if you can surmise his meaning. Brilliant writer, horrible businessman.”

With a clipped, sardonic laugh, she stands. “I don’t know why I’m here. This was a bad idea. Apparently, you really are insane.”

On impulse, I reach out and grab her wrist.

A charged pulse ignites a fire beneath my palm. The air, volatile and tense, suspends time for a mere blink, allowing my body to ravenously absorb the feel of her where I’ve only permitted my eyes to touch.

Our gazes collide on impact of that touch, and I see the conflict in her fearful eyes. I’m not the only one affected.

Her chest rises with uneven breaths as she twists her arm to break my hold, and despite the intense desire to keep her in my grasp, I let her.

My fingertips memorize the erratic beat of her pulse as she slips away. Bah-dah-bump. Bah-dah-bah-dah-bump. I want to carve it in my skin.

She crosses her arms, anxiously waiting for my rebound. I flex my hand as my gaze lingers on the visible imprint I left on her wrist. “It must have been difficult for you to come here,” I say, sifting her from my thoughts to collect myself. “You should at least tell me why you came before you run away.”

“I’m not running.” Her strained swallow drags enticingly along the column of her throat to challenge her assertion. Then: “I need a philosophy expert.”

“And how convenient you know right where to find one.”

She recoils from my insult. I study her soft yet distressed features. I’ve never witnessed a more emotional creature. Even in her attempt to shield her grief, as she walked the grounds of the university, I could sense her pain. It tasted like the sweetest melancholy, like honeysuckle and cloves, leaving a lingering ache in the back of my throat.

And touching her is like touching the hottest part of the flame, and being unable to escape.

At her prolonged silence, I wave my hand to urge her on.

“What does the proverb, The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears mean to you?” she asks.

“It’s Chaucer,” I say automatically and cross my arms. “From The Knight’s Tale, the first story in The Canterbury Tales. Sit down. You’re upsetting the crazies.”

She glances around to observe the other patients and their families giving her guarded looks. Then she reseats herself behind the table. “I don’t think ‘crazies’ is acceptable terminology coming from—”

“I’m a professor of philosophy. Not a doctor, as you so clearly pointed out. Challenging political correctness is what I do.”

“Among other, more nefarious things.”

I crane an eyebrow. “And here you are, still without verifiable proof.”

“And here you sit, in a nuthouse.”

“My, what dirty terminology from that mouth.” I run my tongue along the inside of my bottom lip, sensing the ire brimming beneath her tightly-laced veneer. It’s delectable.

After a beat of tense silence, she states, “I know it’s Chaucer. I can google. Is that all you have to offer in way of insight?”

I release a low chuckle, thoroughly amused. “You’ve given me nothing to go on. What it pertains to…is in connection to? Oh, I can spew for hours on end about the boring, mind-numbing tediousness of Chaucer and his overly praised drivel, but I highly doubt that will serve to enlighten anyone.”

She tilts her head. “And yet, you once quoted him to me.”

Her confession is a small flame teasing my skin, the fiery stroke of pleasure so close yet just out of reach. She catches the slip on her part, her eyes darting away. My remark in the courtroom did more than spark her curiosity; it unnerved her.

She thought about it.

She thought about me.

“I quote a lot of people,” I say, my gaze cataloging her every micro-expression. “Once in a while, someone gets it right. Even a cad like Chaucer.”

Inhaling a deep breath, her small, shapely breasts rising to attract my notice, Halen relents a degree. She reaches into the satchel she has nestled near her feet and produces a manila folder.

“I was called to a crime scene yesterday afternoon.” She opens the folder and angles printed images my way. “I’m exploring an esoteric angle, possibly a perpetrator with a delusional connection to a philosophy or philosopher.” Her eyes catch mine briefly before she returns her gaze to the top image. “Or even a delusional prophetic connection.”

Like the Harbinger killer.

But she’s trying hard to dance around that angle, though her inability to look me in the eyes gives her away.

“You like that word, delusional.” I smirk and lean forward to inspect the images. Her shots are decent, capturing the dark, haunting imagery of the eyes and trees. I fan through them, noting the pictures are more artistic than candid crime-scene shots.

I’m well aware of the scene. I have access to the Internet at Briar, and there’s a media buzz surrounding the morbid display of eerie trees with dead eyes. Rumors already circulate around the disappeared people from Hollow’s Row, along with whispers of satanic practices.

When fear presents, people can be so boring and predictable. Since the dawn of time, humans have been creating devils to blame for their misfortune. Every generation or so, he’s resurrected in a new form and given the power to destroy humanity.

Good and evil do not inherently exist within matter. It’s the person, the consciousness, who decides whether or not a deed will serve as either.

“Esotericism is an extremely wide net,” I say, disdain evident in my tone. Everything—from ancient Greek philosophy to new age theology—that isn’t under the umbrella of the Judeo-Christian religion, scholars have placed within that vague category.

She nods. “I know,” she says, her agreement surprising me. “It’s a catch-all. But it’s a starting point, at least.”

I use the tips of my fingers to nudge the images back in her direction. “That’s one hell of a leap from dissected eyes to Chaucer. But that’s your specialty, isn’t it? Leaping to a suspect based on no real evidence at all.”

“A crime-scene tech made the connection,” she says, decidedly ignoring my scathing sarcasm.

“And I came to mind. Should I be flattered, or insulted?” I sit forward, palms braced on the edge of the table. “I’ll go with insulted, seeing as the reason you’re really here is that you assume I’m somehow involved.”

She shrugs, unapologetic. “I didn’t discount the notion when it came to me.”

I smile wickedly, giving her the full, panty-dropping wattage. “Then maybe I should be flattered you think of me at all. But the last time we spoke, I wound up in a straitjacket. So I’ll take a hard pass this time around.”

“You approached me, Locke. I didn’t force those damning words from your mouth.” As I start to rise, she says, “Wait—” She points to a particular section of an image where it appears there was a fire. “I need to know if any of Chaucer’s works parallel with the scene.”

I smile and push to my feet. “Dr. St. James, you can google, as you’ve said. Get the cliff notes.” I wave my hand to summon the beefy bouncer of the visitation room.

“Right,” she says, slipping the images into the folder. “Chaucer’s not the only overly praised drivel in academia.”

Despite the obvious dig at my ego, I rise to the challenge. “Chaucer is way off course. You have to go back further than him to find any tenable esoteric correlation.”

Her gaze snaps to mine. “How much further?”

“Start with antiquity, and go from there.”

She shakes her head. “That’s…vast. You’re fucking with me.”

Her crass words are nails raking my back. Oh, how I can’t wait to fuck with her.

I spin my thumb ring as I meet her suspicious gaze. “He who sees with his eyes is blind,” I say, the quote slipping coolly off my tongue like water over ice. “Just a guess. It’s a starting point, at least.” I give her a wink.

I start to turn away, and an ember of panic flares behind her hazel eyes. “What do you want?” she asks.

As the psych tech approaches, I ask for a moment longer, then meet the eyes of the woman who had me committed to an insane asylum. “First, I’d like you to use my first name. Second, I want what anyone in confinement wants. My freedom.”

She stands opposite me, her stature that of a sprite, her temperament just as volatile. “No window views or stocked commissary for the great Kallum Locke, I see.”

“Naturally.”

“What you’re asking for is not within my power.”

I lean across the table, inhaling a punishing lungful of her arousing scent. “You have no idea what’s within your power, sweetness.”

This time, the pretty pink hue dusting her cheeks isn’t a ploy.

A satisfied current of pride ripples beneath my skin as I push away from the table. “Short of my freedom,” I say, “I want you to fuck off, Halen. Good luck on your case.”

I exit the visitation room with the tech, leaving Halen staring after me for dramatic effect.

Once I return to my room, I close the door and stalk to the wall of art I was given permission to hang…with adhesive putty, since there’s a fear of using tiny thumbtacks as weapons. I could do more damage with the cheaply printed poster by inflicting paper cuts.

I remove the tacky, mass-produced print of a Nietzsche watercolor portrait and flip it over, retrieving the photo I placed there earlier this morning before Halen’s arrival.

Granted, had I known she’d come to me, I wouldn’t have wasted one of my favors from a nurse. Trust—or more aptly faith—is a process. Once the sigil was charged, I tried to purge all traces of it from my mind—but relinquishing control is an even harder practice.

I touch the image of Halen standing in the killing fields, her intense focus on the crime scene. I had the nurse pay a gross amount of my money to one sleazy reporter to capture the picture.

I mean, I do have a vivid imagination. I could have simply imagined her there, let my mind run wild as I envisioned her gazing at the trees, doing her little deduction dance as she pieced together the clues. Her pain a sonnet to the crime gods.

But there’s no comparison to having the feel of something tangible in your hands, to touch it, to know you’re so close.

I bring my hand to my nostrils and inhale deeply, breathing in her delectable scent, before I reach down and adjust myself.

Such sweetness, like the tastiest peach—one I can’t wait to sink my teeth into and feel the juice dribble down my chin.

My obsession didn’t start small. It rushed me like a tsunami. Watching this docile little thing walk the university. Seeing her nibble her lip, tuck the white strand of hair behind her ear every time it fell loose.

A flurry of chaos swirled around her like a vortex, yet her pain was so profound it stilled her amid the storm, a heavy anchor not even a tidal wave could uproot.

I was so fucking awestruck, I gave in to the irritating itch to scratch her surface, to unravel the enthralling spell she had over me.

She was an unhealthy craving I had to have.

I curl my hand into a fist, feeling the echo of her staccato heartbeat against my fingers.

She was like gravity. The moon goddess herself controlling my tide.

Then she became the spider.

And she spun me right into her web of pain.