Page 41 of Monstrous Urges
“Ms. Crown, you can deny who that is on the tape. But I think this will go easier?—”
“No, it’s me,” I sigh, my face crimson. I exhale slowly. “Look, I had a few too many drinks last night.” I shake my head. “And sometimes, I take a pill to help me sleep. Obviously, I had more to drink than I should have, which I’m not proud of, and it didn’t react well with the Ambien. I…” I wet my lips. “I sleepwalk sometimes.”
“Or sleep run,” Officer Horton quips without smiling.
I glare at her. “Yes. Or sleep run.”
Officer Ramone walks back over. “Your car is currently in the parking garage under this building, Ms. Crown. Did you drive last night?”
“Don’t answer that,” Alistair grunts.
Officer Horton sighs. “We can check the logs in the parking garage to see for ourselves.”
“You can if you have a fucking warrant on you,” Alistair fires back. “If not, if you go anywhere near that parking garage office, I’ll slap you both with the biggest abuse of power lawsuit you’ve ever seen.”
The two of them look amused, but they don’t take the bait.
“So, Ms. Crown,” Officer Horton ventures. “We’re clear that that’s you, running naked through a parking garage last night, yes?”
I level a cool glare at her.
“If you’re trying to push indecent exposure, the video only shows”…my face burns…“a brief flash of my breasts, not full nudity. Going topless is legal in New York. So, whatever this is, I think it’s time that you both were leaving?—”
“Ms. Crown,” Officer Horton says quietly, her tone shifting as she gives me an odd look. “We’re actually not here about you baring your breasts in a parking garage.”
Officer Ramone pulls out a pair of handcuffs.
“Exactly what the actual fuck do you think you’re doing,” Alistair snarls, stepping closer to the officer.
“We’re here, Ms. Crown,” Officer Horton says, “about the car you stole last night. We need you to come with us, please.”
9
DRAZEN
Revenge is a complex thing.
At times, it’s been all that’s sustained me. My single motivation. My sole purpose in this world. Those were—still are—my darker days. The days where the demons of my past scream at me from the shadows. When the ghosts of those I lost beg for their lives over and over, as I’m held down and forced to watch, powerless to stop it.
Luckily, there’s an antidote when it gets that bad. A balm to soothe the stabbing, burning sensation that curdles and snarls inside of me.
Violence.
Unbridled, unchecked, unhinged violence.
Those are the days I live for: when a hunt has paid off. When it finally all comes together.
What was done to me and mine was monstrous. And so, when I latch onto another of the vermin who betrayed us, or schemed against us, and at last get to destroy them the way they had a part in destroying me, there’s nothing surgical or precise about it.
It takes a beast to fight beasts. And I thrive when I let mine out to play.
I know I should be in New York right now. I should be walking into Annika’s—sorry, Taylor’s—office and slitting her throat right there on her fancy carpet, or taking her somewhere else by force so that I can spend more time on her.
The others have all paid in blood and tears for what they did to my family. They’ve watched as I’ve meticulously destroyed their entire lives and existences before they beg me in the end to take their last breaths.
She’ll be my magnum opus. My greatest symphonic work of vicious retribution.
Right now, though, I’m busy finishing another, less important, masterpiece.