I didn’t think life could get any better than this, it was the most fucked up of scenarios getting to this point, but I’d never been happier. Cain and I had found a rhythm to our day that felt so right that my body sang with joy. He was a demanding and aggressive lover, but for someone that didn’t have the range of emotions others did, he was also the most thoughtful and considerate person I’d ever met. I was all in on him and trusted him with my life. There was a strange high in knowing that he was as wild as a tiger and could rip me apart at any moment.

It took a great deal of arguing, but I finally convinced him that I could only be with him if he stopped killing random people and only went after specific targets we chose together. I’d settled on targets that the FBI was hunting already. I’d decided it was best to return to school and be our eyes and ears inside the organization. This way, I could assess if the targets were a real threat based on their crimes and have an entire file to hand over to Cain.

That had been the hardest sell-job of my life, but I couldn’t handle another Barbara asking me to help her. I still had limits, even if he didn’t.

In a few days, I would return to school and resume my schoolwork as if all was normal and I’d completed my trip as planned. This was all his idea, almost like he’d been planning on having me turn into his partner. Had I been manipulated? Were my decisions my own? I’d asked myself these two questions a million times and kept coming back to the same answer. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how we got here. The point was I didn’t want to leave.

The days he was out on the road towing vehicles was when the boredom would set in, like today. He was up and gone by six-thirty, and I was left with very little to do. The vacuum roared as I moved into the living room to continue cleaning. We both hated a mess and disorganization, and now we had a schedule to take turns cleaning the entire house. The vacuum was the best part, or it was until it stopped working. I turned around to see if I’d pulled it out of the wall and sucked in a deep breath as my eyes locked onto Abel.