Villainess (27 page)

Theo

Her eyes had changed, she was the Leila I’d only seen when she’d been let out to play, programmed to do something for Project Reaper, or at least that’s what I’d thought. As the slow smile stretched across her face, I realized I’d been a complete fool.
She did make everyone fools for her, me included. I didn’t see that coming.

“You played me,” I growled, stepping back from her inch by inch. Truth was, I didn’t really know what she was capable of anymore.

She shrugged. “Yeah. I did. I played everyone actually.”

“Why?”

Leila tucked her legs up under, looking every bit like the cat who ate the canary.
I should be pulling out my gun. I should be doing anything I can to get away from her.
But I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. I was her slave, and we both knew it. “Why? Hmmm…” She tapped her chin. “I guess this is the part where the villain divulges all of their dastardly deeds?”

I laughed despite the situation. I couldn’t help but do anything else. “You and your fucking obsession with comic books. This is real fuckin’ life, Leila.”

“I know that,” she snapped. “At least I used to.” She waved the notion off. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I’m fucked up in the head. You know what they did to me as a kid. Add in the rest with my parents, my best friend, Jonah, and my abilities.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I tried to be good, really I did. But I saw how it wouldn’t work out. And when I say saw…I mean
saw
. In the end, I did everything so I could save people. All that shit I said to Jonah in his office, it was true. But that was just a part of me.” She twirled some of her hair around a finger. “Plus I wanted him too. He’s the only man I’ve ever actually loved.” She tilted her head, her eyes appraising as they slid over me. “Sorry. You were good though, at everything.” She licked her lips seductively.

“You fuckin’ rolled my mind. Even with everything you just told me, I still want you. I still fuckin’ want you.” And I hated her for it. Every last inch of her that I wanted to worship…I hated. The warring emotions twisted my gut. “Just let me go.”

She scrunched up her nose. “See, that’s a problem. I know how to trap them.” She smacked her hands together. “But I don’t know how to let them go.”

“What do you want from me?”

She stood, and reached into the waist of her pants, producing a small gun, which I recognized instantly. “I found this taped under the nightstand. Did you forget that I know how you work?” She lifted the gun, aiming right between my eyes. “This time I really am going to kill you.”

I pulled my own gun from its holster, raising it up to face off with her. “You used me to kill them, didn’t you? You used Ben to play me, and then me to get rid of them… You’re covering your trail. So what, you can run off with Jonah and he’ll be none the wiser? Why not scrub your mind completely?”

“It was all very complicated. You see, the way visions sometimes work, to get to a certain outcome, certain other things need to go a very particular way, but first…” She threw her hands up in the air. “It’s too complicated to explain. So… Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, okay?” Did she seriously just quote Doctor Who to explain to me why she was going to kill me? “Maybe it’ll all become clear to you in the afterlife.”

“So I meant nothing to you? You told me you loved me—I was inside you more times than I can count. We—”

She chortled. “Please. That’s the thing about messing around with memories, that other me, the watered down version of me who you thought was the real me, she loved you. But the thing is… I’m not really her. Me, the real me, has only ever loved one man, and I think you know it ain’t you, babe.” She winked.

“How do you think Jonah will feel about this version of you? The real one. Only someone like me could really appreciate you. Not someone like h—”

“Shut up.” Her face flushed with anger. “He loves me. All of me.”

“He doesn’t know all of you, baby. Only I do.”

“You just found out. Maybe if I told Jonah the truth instead—” She shook her head. “I didn’t see that far though, not yet at least. Either way, it doesn’t matter.”

As much as my head was screaming out that I hated her, my heart was screaming out for her. I wanted her to choose me. Maybe if I could just pull the trigger and she was dead then I’d be free. I tightened my grip on my gun.

Leila laughed, low and throaty. “Please, you’re not going to shoot me. You can’t.”

“Wanna bet?”

“No need to.”

Leila

It was like remembering someone else’s memories when I looked at Theo. I—the me that I was now, the real me, or rather the complete package, didn’t love Theo. But I remembered feeling like I did. It was a weird sensation to say the least. It changed nothing though.

“Any last words?”
Why am I stalling? Pull the trigger already. Nothing good can come from dragging this out.

“If you’re really going to do it, then just do it already.” Theo’s jaw muscles jumped as he ground his teeth together. His azure eyes bore into mine, pleading, wishing for something from me that wasn’t there.

“You don’t really love me. You don’t even know me. It’s just—just my ability for total seduction of the mind, body and heart.”

“Yeah, I know. But you are wrong about one thing.”

“What?”

“You still don’t have a taste for blood, so you may want me dead but you’ll never be able to pull the trigger, not yourself anyways.”

“We’ll see.”

“Then why are you still standing there? Kill me and get it over with so you can go back to your precious Jonah.” Bitterness laced his voice. It made me feel—almost sorry for him. Which I shouldn’t, because, if not for my ability, he would have done everything he was paid to do, and left me without a single backwards glance.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I was tired of always warring with myself. I wanted to be good, but I just wasn’t. I never would be.

“How many people will you let die for you? You let Matt die. You knew it was going to happen and you just let it. You let all those innocent people die to further your personal agenda. You let Ben and all of those people who worked for Project Reaper die. Not all of them were directly involved you know. The security, the—”

“You’re wrong about one thing too,” I interrupted. “I saw a vision of your death. I
saw
it. I assumed it was my subconscious showing me what I didn’t want to fully remember—me shooting you. But that was part of the game. I already know I shoot you because I saw the bullet hole in your head.” I squeezed the trigger, the recoil of the gun causing me to take a step backwards. My aim held true despite that, and I watched as Theo’s body slumped to the floor.

There was no disputing his death this time. Not with his blood decorating the walls of our old apartment. It had been his destiny to die by my hand. That’s the thing about getting visions. For a while I fought them, fighting what one would call destiny, because by believing in destiny it would mean I was giving up on the concept of free will. I realized that wasn’t exactly true either. Some things were written, and others were changeable. Sometimes it was just hard figuring out which was which.

I stepped over Theo’s body, careful not to look at his vacant eyes. He’d been right, I still didn’t have a taste for blood.

Jonah

My cell phone rang and I jumped about a mile. “Hello?” I said before even registering the caller I.D.

“Jonah,” Kristoph’s voice crackled over the line. “I need you to come to my hotel immediately. It’s—an emergency.”

“Leila?”

“Yes, it has to do with her.” That was all he had to say.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I glanced up and down the empty hallway and back before knocking. My nerves and paranoia since Leila had been taken had sky rocketed to ‘I’m going to need medication soon’ levels.

The door cracked open a moment later to reveal Kristoph’s aging face. Satisfied it was me, he closed and unchained the door, before opening it wide to usher me in. “I’m sorry to call you here like this so late.”

“It doesn’t matter what time—if it’s about Leila.”

“Come, sit. Can I get you something to drink?”

I followed him into his large suite, sitting down in the small chair across the couch from Kristoph. “I haven’t been completely honest with you, Jonah.”

“That’s not exactly a good way to start anything,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand down my face.”

“Have you ever wondered about my connections, how I knew so much about Project Reaper…all of it?”

“Of course I have, and I would have asked if I thought you would have told me.”

“Smart boy.” He gave me a brittle smile.

“I used to work for Project Reaper, the original—”

“The one that was supposedly wiped out?”

“One in the same. I wasn’t there, obviously. There were a few that made it out alive because of the circumstances and because we weren’t on the radar of the girl who killed off those people. I had little to do with her.”

“Okaaay,” I drawled. “So you knew more about the project than you let on.” I studied his face for a moment. “But I’m sensing that’s not it.”

“I met Leila before you introduced me to her. Many years ago. I was involved in the new project as well, before I retired.”

Shock rocked my system. Of all the things he could have said, that I hadn’t expected. “And you’re just now telling me this?”

“I thought I could help—make things right. I was wrong.”

“Tell me everything.”

And he did.