Sociopaths and Serial Killers

BY: Montana

Disclaimer: I do not own Jean-Claude, Richard, Anita, Edward, or anything else that belongs to LKH.

Author Note: This is set after Obsidian Butterfly.

Taking the back way, we made it back to Edward’s house in one piece. Oh joy. Can you feel my sarcasm? We entered the house with extra caution. But there were no intruders. “Where’s your first aid kit?” was my first question, as soon as we were sure the house was safe

“Under the sink. Why?” I grabbed it from under the kitchen sink.

“Because we need to really bandage that arm, and not just throw a cloth over it.” I opened the first aid kit on the kitchen table, next to Edward who was leaning against the table. I took the bandage off his arm.

“The cut isn’t that bad,” he said as I finished putting the butterfly closures on the cut, and wrapping it with gauze.

“It’s bad enough,” I said. “You didn’t have to step in front of me, I would have gotten out of the way.”

“And what if you didn’t?” he demanded, his voice suddenly…I didn’t have a word for the emotion. Stressed? Strained? He turned to me, his blue eyes vibrant. “My shoulder…” he said softly, and traced a line across my neck, very lightly. “Is at the exact same height as your neck, Anita. I can take this deep of a cut in my arm. You can’t in your throat.”

I frowned. “I would have gotten out of the way.”

His hand moved up to touch the side of my face. “And what if you didn’t?”

I sighed. “I would have, Edward. I always do.”

“What if?”

I reached up to touch his face lightly with both hands. “Don’t what if me, Edward. I get enough of that with Richard at home.” He furrowed his brow at that, his eyes freezing over. He firmly grasped my wrists, pushing my hands back down to my sides.

“Don’t compare me to the furball.” Shit. Had I pissed him off that much? He must have seen my wondering in my eyes, because he shook his head, eyes suddenly softer blue. “I’m not angry, Anita. Please don’t look at me like that.”

“Why? So you won’t feel guilty?” I asked, my hands still pinned to my sides by Edward’s strong arms. I could have kicked him, but I didn’t want to get away that badly. He wasn’t hurting me, he was just holding me still.

He leaned down, his forehead resting on mine. “Because I might do something like this,” he said, pressing his lips to mine in a gentle but demanding kiss. I didn’t fight to get away, but I tried to get closer. Still, he held me fast. When I tried to raise up to meet him, he kept me grounded. I realized this was a dominance thing. He couldn’t hunt me and prove we weren’t equals, so he would try to dominate me like this. I didn’t mind that much, he could have his fun. Because it was certainly fun for me, to feel his lips on mine in a deep kiss. Kiss of Death. Sounds deadly. But damn, did it feel good. However, still, there was that part of me that just couldn’t let this dominance thing completely go.

I bent my knees, making Edward strain his neck more to keep our mouths pressed together. He could keep me from raising up, but he wasn’t strong enough to hold me immobile from falling down. Not standing like he was. Edward broke away, and with that irritating little smile of his, he quickly swept my feet out from under me. I hit the kitchen floor, but not as hard as I could have. He was still holding me a little. He straddled me, leaning over me. “I knew you couldn’t just stand there,” he whispered, the smile still in place.

I answered with a smile of my own. “You aint seen nothin’ yet,” I said, flipping us over. Judo has many uses. Now I was on top, sitting on his abs again, leaning over him. “Equals, remember?”

“Then we might have to do this sideways,” he countered, sitting up, pulling me closer with hands behind my knees. Our eyes met. I studied his face. The banked heat in his eyes was matched by a fire of my own.

Then I noticed something. A lot of things, actually. His hair was tousled, a few tufts of blond hair stuck up here and there. Hat head. He had a slight scar, not even an inch long, on the hairline of his scalp. And one of his blond eyebrows was slightly higher than the other. He was so human, and I cherished that. After spending so much time with perfect werewolf and vampire, I can not put into words how much I appreciated Edward’s humanity right then. And I couldn’t put into words how much I NEEDED that right now. He noticed me staring at specific features of his face.

“What are you staring at?” he asked softly, not sounding angry or perturbed at all.

I touched his eyebrows, smoothing them down with my thumbs gently. “You have hat head, a scar on your hairline, and one of your eyebrows is slightly higher than the other,” I said with a gentle smile. He seemed confused, and opened his mouth to say something, but I hushed him with fingers over his lips. “And I cherish that, Edward. You are so human, and I cherish that.” I knew there were tears glittering in my eyes. But they weren’t tears of grief this time.

Edward grabbed me around the waist, crushing me to him in a tight embrace that I returned. “You have been hanging around the monsters too much, Anita,” he murmured into my hair.

“But I’m back now, Edward. I’m back.”

That only made him tighten his hold on me. “You have been gone so long, Anita. Its about damn time you’re back.”

I laughed. The laugh turned into a sob. Edward pressed lips to my forehead. “Shhh, baby, don’t cry. It’s alright. Everything will be alright.”

“I’m not crying,” I said, wiping the tears away.

“So can we kill the monsters now?”

“No.”

“The vampire?”

“No, Edward. I would die too, remember?”

“I don’t think you would, Anita.” I was beginning to think not too. Bad Anita. Bad thoughts. And with that last thought, something disturbing happened. A door slammed in my head, leaving a cool leak of power in my aura. Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude had been inside my shields, inside my head. Spying on me. He had gotten up early, and would be one cranky vampire for everyone at the circus.

“What, Anita?” I realized the surprise was plain on my face.

I shook my head. “Nothing.” Edward didn’t believe it, but he let it go. Shit. How much had Jean-Claude heard? Enough to make him totally and thoroughly pissed. As if I didn’t have enough damned problems in my life.

“Anita.” The sound of Edward’s voice turned my attention back to him. “As much as I would love to stay here like this,” he kissed me lightly. “We have to pack.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Pack?” He nodded. “What now?”

“We’re going into hiding again. I have a feeling those guys in black know where Ted Forrester’s house is.”

“It’s YOUR house, Edward.”

“You’re right. It is my house. And I bet they know where it is. But they probably don’t know where my secluded mountain cabin is,” he said, mischievous glee in his voice and in his eyes.

“How many different hideouts do you have, Edward?”

He smiled secretively at that question. He wasn’t going to answer. Go figure. What else is new? I stood up, and so did Edward, so lithely I might have thought he was a shape shifter if I didn’t know any better. I put away the first kit. Touching his arm, I said, “Thank you, Edward.”

“You’re welcome, Anita.”

We both went back in our rooms to pack. Clothes. Weapons. What else could one possibly need? Don’t answer that.

***

We packed four suitcases between the two of us. Two for clothes, two for weapons. Hell yeah. The hummer was parked back behind the house, where Edward had left it from our little short cut. You had to walk through lots of brush and that dry creek bed to get to it. It was a bitch to carry the suitcases through.

Just as we finished packing up and were ready to go, it was late afternoon. And four black cars pulled up into Edward’s drive way, we watched it through the underbrush. Looking at the cars while they were standing still, I noticed the cars weren’t cheap Japanese cars as I originally thought. They were BMWs. Interesting.

Edward gestured for me to get into the hummer. I did. We watched them from the windshield. Then Edward started up the hummer, and pulled away. “What what? No guns, no shooting, no defending of the territory?”

Edward smiled and shrugged, as we drove across the desert towards the highway. “Can’t leave too many bodies behind, now can we? We’ve got places to be. Besides, they wont hurt the house too much. I think they’re looking for you, not me.”

Oh, well then. Does it sound too corny to say we drove off into the sunset?



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