Death Row

Chapter 21

Tramp. Harlot. Whore. Cheap piece of pussy. That’s what she was.

But those eyes. Those dark beautiful eyes.

Gabriel Aravena clenched his fists. Everything was so different now, since he went off the Depo. Everything was changed. This surge of emotions. The confusion. The thoughts flashing through his brain, thoughts he couldn’t seem to banish. He had hated being on the medication, watching it change his body, change him. And yet it had brought a certain… peace.

That peace was gone now. Gone like a thundercloud that had shot its load and had blown away with the wind. He’d been off the medication for almost a week now. At first, he felt only elation. His body was his own again. All the feelings they had tried to submerge had returned. But only for a little while. When he’d been on the Depo he could entertain all those horrible fantasies. Why not? He couldn’t do anything about it. But now it was different. Now he could do something about it. Was that what he wanted? He was consumed by desire, obsessed by the irresistible need to take Sheila and throw her down and never stop taking her-

She was a little old for him, true. He had usually preferred his girls… younger. But when he looked at the woman he now saw through the restaurant window, he saw the girl of fifteen she had been. And he wanted that girl. Wanted her bad.

He had watched her in that bar, shamelessly flirting with that redneck piece of trash who was putting the moves on her. She had all but thrown herself at him, the cheap little twat. She had all but spread her legs and done him on the bar rail. And no sooner had she finished with him than she took up with the next man who walked up. She wrapped herself around the black man and let him take her away to this place.

He wasn’t fooled by the fancy decorating and the high-priced menu. He knew what this was all about. This was about getting her liquored up, maybe slipping her something. Not that it was necessary. Not with her.

And not with him, either.

It was too late tonight, he could see that. This jerk with the hair gel had his finger in it, and there was no getting rid of him. But there would be another time, Gabriel told himself. Another time when it would just be him and her, and then-

Stop! he heard a voice screaming somewhere inside him. Stop before it’s too late!

But he ignored the voice. He would watch this woman. Yes, that was it. He would follow her wherever she went, no matter how far or how long. And when the opportunity came, he would take her. Over and over again. Even if it killed her.

Over and over again. Until it killed her.