Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(24)

“Why do you wear the mask?” she said. She kept her voice subservient, curious, but not demanding.

“As I said in my note, one day you’ll go free. You’ll be released. It‘s all in my plan for you. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.”

“If I’m good. If I obey.”

“Yes. If you’re good. It won’t be that hard. Kate. I like you so much.”

She wanted to hit him, to go after him. Not yet, she warned herself. Not until you’re sure. You’ll only get one try at him.

He seemed to read her mind. He was very quick, very bright.

“No karate,” he said, and she sensed that he was smiling behind the mask. “Please remember that, Kate. I’ve actually seen you perform at your dojo. I’ve watched you. You’re very quick and you’re strong. So am I. I’m no stranger to martial arts.”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking about.” Kate frowned and looked up at the ceiling. She rolled back her eyes. She thought it was pretty fair acting under the pressure circumstances. No threat to Emma Thompson or Holly Hunter, but decent.

“I’m sorry then. I apologize,” he said. “I shouldn’t put words in your mouth. I won’t do it again. That’s a promise.”

He seemed almost sane at times, and that terrified her more than anything else so far. It was as if they were having a nice normal chat in a nice normal house, not in his house of horrors.

Kate looked at his hands. The fingers were long, and might even be considered elegant. An architect’s? A doctor’s hands? An artist’s? Certainly not a workingman’s hands.

“Well, what do you have in mind for me?” Kate decided on the direct approach. “Why am I here? Why this room, the clothes? All my things?”

His voice remained gentle and clam. He was actually trying to seduce her. “Oh, I guess I want to fall in love, to stay in love for a while. I want to feel real romance every day that I possible can. I want to feel something special in my life. I want to experience intimacy with another person. I’m not that different from everyone else. Except that I act instead of daydream.”

“Don’t you feel anything? ” she asked. She feigned concern for him. She knew that sociopaths couldn’t feel emotion, at least that was her understanding.

He shrugged. She sensed that he was smiling again, laughing at her. “Sometimes I feel a great deal. I think that I’m too sensitive. May I tell you how beautiful you are?”

“Under the present circumstances, I wish you wouldn’t.”

He laughed a nice laugh and shrugged his shoulders again. “Okay. That’s settled then, isn’t it? No sweet talk for the two of us. Not for now, anyway. Bear in mind, I can be romantic. I actually prefer it that way.”

She wasn’t prepared for his sudden movement, his quickness. The stun gun appeared and hit her with a vicious jolt. She recognized the gun’s crackling sound, smelled the ozone. Kate fell back hard against the bedroom wall and cracked her head. The impact shook the whole house wherever she was being kept.

“Oh, Jee-sus no,” Kate moaned softly.

He was all over her. Flailing arms and legs, all of his weight pressing down on her. He was going to kill her now. Oh God, she didn’t want to die like this, to have her life end in this way. It was so pointless, absurd, sad.

She felt a fierce and explosive rage swelling up in her. With a desperate effort she managed to kick out one leg, but she couldn’t move her arms. Her chest was on fire. She could feel him ripping off her blouse, touching her all over. He was aroused. She could feel him rubbing against her.

“No, please no,” she moaned. Her own voice sounded very far away.

He was kneading her breasts with both hands. She could taste blood, and feel its warmth trickle from the corner of her mouth. Kate finally began to cry. She was choking, and she could hardly breathe.

“I tried to be nice,” he said through tightly gritted teeth.

He stopped suddenly. He got up and unzipped his blue jeans and yanked them down around his ankles. He didn’t bother to take them off.

Kate stared up at him. His penis was large. Fully erect, and bright with pulsing blood and thick veins. He threw himself down on her and rubbed it against her body, moving it slowly against her breasts, her throat, and then her mouth and eyes.

Kate began to drift in and out of consciousness, in and out of reality. She tried to hold on to each thought that came to her. She needed to feel some control, even if it was only over her thoughts.

“Keep your eyes open,” he warned her in a deep growl. “Look at me, Kate. Your eyes are so beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Do you know that? Do you know how desirable you are?”

He was in a trance now. It seemed like it to Kate. His powerful body danced, snaked, writhed, as he thrust himself in and out of her. He sat up and he played with her breasts again. He caressed her hair, different parts of her face. His touch became gentle after a while. That made it even worse for her. She felt such humiliation and horrible shame. She hated him.

“I love you so much, Kate. I love you more than I’m capable of saying. I’ve never felt this way before. I promise you I haven’t. Never like this.”

He wasn’t going to kill her, Kate realized. He was going to let her live. He was going to come back again and again, whenever he wanted her. The horror was overwhelming, and Kate finally passed out. She let her spirit fall far away.