Page 3 of Compulsion
“So good that you tried to kill me?Isn’t that what the stories say?”Sometimes, Lily swore she could still feel the tube being shoved into her mouth and down her throat.It had scraped and burned because there had been no time for numbing.
Her mother’s expression almost cracked.Almost.What could have been actual emotion flashed in her eyes.“That was a mistake.”
Lily released a soft sigh.“Right.”A nod.“Until next time.”Her head angled for the door.She took a step forward.
“Lily!”Real alarm.Realemotion.
Once more, Lily glanced back.She was surprised to see that her mother was on her feet.Magnolia’s hands had slapped down against the tabletop.
“They are not going to be like you,” her mother warned.“You will not find someone who can put the pieces of you together and who will make you understand what you feel inside.”
She shook her head.“That’s not what I am looking for.”I want to stop evil before innocent people are hurt.
“They will hurt you.They will use you.They will destroy any goodness that you have in you.”
It was Lily’s turn to laugh.“Mother, I thought you were the one who always told me…I have no goodness inside.”With that, she left her mother.She walked out of the visiting room.Down the long, narrow corridor.Past the guards.Past the bars.Past the other inmates who yelled and heckled and she just kept going.
One foot in front of the other.
The way she’d always done.
Lily kept going.She had a job to do, after all.Research that waited.
She would meet the adult children of serial killers.She would talk to them.She would understand them.And, if she found those who were slipping too far into the darkness…
Well, she would have to stop them.
One way or another.
After all, I am my mother’s daughter.
ChapterOne
Present day
“We are in a life-or-death situation,and it would be incredibly helpful if you would open your eyes.”
The feminine voice—low, husky—floated through the darkness that engulfed him.He kinda liked that voice.It was nice.Warm.Sexy.
Something pulled at his wrist.An insistent tug.
“I don’t want to watch you get disemboweled in front of me.”
Yeah, a really nice voice.Except…a ragged edge had entered her tone.And had she just saiddisemboweled?
“I’m worried you’ll get stabbed over and over again.And that I will, too.So, seriously, do me a favorand open those eyes of yours.Now!” A sharp command.“Because we do not have time to wait for the cavalry to arrive!”
A groan escaped him first because his head pounded over and over and nausea rolled in his stomach, but, very slowly, he managed to open his eyes.
His gaze locked on her.
Dark hair tumbled over her shoulders.Somewhere between brown and black.Thick hair.A little wavy.High cheekbones.A slightly pointed chin.Dark eyes.Brown.No, brownish gold.He could see them quite clearly even though the lighting was dim.No lipstick on her full lips.Lips that were currently pressed tightly together as she stared at him with those intense eyes of hers.Eyes that were full of?—
“So happy you’re back in the land of the living.Truly, I am deliriously happy.Now, how about webothstay in this living land, and we get out of here?You were too big and far too heavy for me to drag you out while you were unconscious, but now that you’re awake, we really need to make a run for it.Especially, you know, if we want to keep on living.Side note, I do want to keep on living.I very much want that.It is my main goal at the moment.”
He blinked.
“Shit,” she muttered.Her gaze swept over his face.“Do you have any clue what’s happening right now?”
