Enigma

by RuNyx

She didn’t want to stand on that cliff. But she had to. There was no other choice, not for her. Not when they were watching. And they were always watching.

They were watching as she lay on the dark sand on a dark night, and died.

She didn’t think she was a criminal though. She didn’t want to kill anything. In fact, the idea made her stomach feel queasy.

“Loosen up, little asp,”

Her only friend had been another betrayal and another nail in the coffin of her philosophy about friendship.

Talking to her mother never did anything for her spirits, especially in the last year since her father’s whole incident, but she couldn’t avoid the woman, not when she was her only blood left.

Riveting outside, rotting inside. But weren’t they all rotting, at different speeds and to different degrees?

She wondered how long she’d have to live with the fact that after her sister died, her father had gone off the rails a few months later and killed a man, right before turning the gun on himself, leaving her mother and her behind with debt and stigma.

For all her faults, Olivia had been a good sister in the end. It was Salem who had failed.

And in that one instant, she had become his muse.

He was just twenty-six on paper according to the university. In reality, he was two years younger.

It wasn’t any of Caz’s business, but he wished one of them would knee him in the balls one day and make them useless.

Before he could react, she stretched up on her toes and smacked a peck on his unsuspecting lips.

For about five years, from thirteen to eighteen, she hadn’t said a word to anyone.

Only two people in the world knew about her severe claustrophobia that had been a result of that innocent incident added to her fall into the pit as a child—and one of them was dead.

Olivia had died by suicide.

Salem knew a lot of what she did about Mortimer thanks to those letters. And the last one, the one sent a week before Olivia died, had been innocent enough, except for one line she had sneaked into the middle of a long paragraph about some local legend about the library, one line that had never made any sense to Salem. They’re making me do this.

“So, have you heard anything about the body at the beach?” she asked, coming back to the topic. “Yeah.” Aditi went somber. “Well, she was pregnant.”

And that was the core of the problem, she didn’t trust anyone. Not even herself.

“The applications will open on Monday. Get ready, Miss Salazar. This will be difficult.”

Mortimer meant death.

The one on his cheek was just about two inches long, thin, not deep enough to be too visible but deep enough to scar over. She had seen those marks in case files. It was the scar left behind by a fingernail.

A glint of something in her periphery caught her eye. She looked at the mantelpiece and the catch-all-type small bowl on it, and the glinting item within. A red gemstone. Ruby. A pendant. A pendant in the shape of a heart. A red ruby heart-shaped pendant with a tiny diamond in the middle. A pendant Salem had seen all her life, around the neck of her sister. A pendant that had been Olivia’s thirteenth birthday gift from their parents, one she wore all the time, every single day. A pendant they had never found, neither with her body nor in her possessions, and assumed someone had stolen. And someone had.

leaned closer to whisper in her ear, pouring that voice straight into her veins like a shot of her favorite drug, converting her to an addict in the making.

he had joined a group, infiltrated them, and was now doing their bidding, biding his time, just to get answers about someone he had loved and lost. He needed the truth, and to get to it, he would do whatever it took. Anything else be damned.

But they stayed silent, waiting, watching, winning. Hidden from the world. Neutralizing any threats to their existence. The girl, luckily for her, wasn’t seen as one, not yet. But an eye had to be kept on her. And if they were good at anything, it was watching. Always watching.

The other girl sighed loudly. “I wish sometimes it was you instead of your sister who had died. Olivia was so good. The world would be a better place with her and without you.”

“You mean me?” she asked, just to confirm. Aditi rolled her eyes again and put her hands on Salem’s shoulders. “Yes, I mean you. You’re my friend, Salem. And friends don’t let other people call their friends names.”

Caz van der Waal was an enigma, an unknown variable in her equation, an unsolved mystery, and she had always loved and hated those in equal measure.

After the library incident or whatever that had been, she had cornered him again the next day as he left the Arts block, and the bastard had simply held the top of her head and pushed her aside like she’d been a fly he had to swat.

She had looked him up and down like he was inconsequential, raising a haughty eyebrow. “Who are you, again?” His eyes had heated at that, a wild glint coming into them. “Ask me again when your nipples aren’t begging for my mouth.”

“You’re not the only one watching. Remember that.”

a hades of his own underworld, and damn her if a part of her didn’t want to be the girl he brought into it.

She was locked in for the night with Caz van der Waal.

“It’d be so easy right now, wouldn’t it?” he rasped against her ear, his lips touching the shell and sending shivers running marathons over the length of her body. “So easy to push you against his desk and fuck you raw.”

Her panties were ruined.

Her lips parted, and before she could stop herself, she smashed her mouth to his. Bliss.

Whatever this is, infecting both of us, it’s not going anywhere. Trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve tried so fucking hard to stay away from you.”

“Try it. Try walking off a cliff, I will block you. Try making yourself bait, I will catch you. And try being with another man, I will use his blood and make you the canvas.”

Caz stepped out. A hot, wet, half-naked Caz. What the hell?

“In fact,” he said, moving to her bed, “I slept like the dead for a few hours too. So good that I don’t think I’ll be leaving your bed anytime soon.”

He wanted her to get in bed, her bed that he had gotten into without asking her, after using her bathroom that he had taken a shower in using her towels, while he was naked?

“You’re insane,” she wheezed out when she could manage, still chuckling. “Totally insane.” “Over you?” he mused, relaxed like a king in her bed. “Yes.”

“I own your mind. I’m going to own your body. And then, I’ll take your soul.

“Caz,” she pleaded, and heard him swear. “Beg me again, little asp,” he murmured over her lips. “Infect me with your poison.”

She, Salem Salazar, cold, frigid bitch, was about to cry and mewl in the hands of a man. Who would’ve ever thought?

“I want to paint you,”

She wanted to be ruined, to be ravaged, to be absolutely railed.

He hadn’t left her alone. She might not know anything else about him, but she knew that he hadn’t left her alone when he had all the reasons to, and that was enough for now.

His whole body was a work of art, one she wanted to trace with her fingers, taking her time with it.