Page 66 of Unhinged Cain

“Sometimes, brother, you really are still just a child.” I walked up the stairs while my brother cursed me out, but I wasn’t going to let him bait me.

At one point, he’d been able to throw his fits. I’d stay to make sure he didn’t make too much of a mess or that he still disposed of the bodies the way he was supposed to, but we were no longer teens, and I had other things on my mind.

Emotions had always been beyond me, so I had no reference for what I was feeling. It would’ve bothered me at one point but instead, the scientific part of my mind wanted more of what made me feel good.

I wanted to understand this emotion that had me not wanting to fuck Abel’s randoms. And why was it that all I could see was the look in my Sunshine’s eyes before I left the room? More importantly, why did the hurt look in her eyes interest me at all? The jealousy was there, and a part of me was feeding off that look. It meant, on some level, she wanted me. The words may not have left her mouth, but her eyes had betrayed her inner thoughts.

Abel was right about one thing. Since I’d met Kirby, I had changed, just not how my brother believed.

Making my way into my workshop’s outer area, I locked the door so Abel couldn’t pay another surprise visit tonight. I wouldn’t put it past him to try again. He was annoyingly persistent like that. Opening the heavy metal door to where I was keeping Sunshine, I expected to see her sitting on the mat, but instead, I found her naked in the bathroom with the shower running.

My eyes raked over her body, and I had the urge to paint her all over again. I wanted artwork all over the walls of my Sunshine in different poses, just like the ancient Grecian statues. She still hadn’t seen me and bent over to undo the Velcro and step out of the orchid and pink pajamas I found with little paintbrushes all over them.

The bindings around her wrists and ankles were the only thing that interrupted the view as she stood up straight and stretched, which pushed her breasts into the air. I was speechless for the first time since my first kill, and my mind was quiet. The noise that normally plagued me was gone.

As I took a step forward, the light clicked on, and Sunshine jumped, grabbing the top she’d just taken off and holding it to her chest like a flimsy shield. It did no good, though. The image of her perfect skin, as smooth and creamy looking as porcelain, was engrained in my brain.

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be longer doing whatever it is you do to them,” she said. My mouth curved up as jealousy dripped like sweet honey off her every word.

Stepping inside the bathroom, I loved how she stood a little straighter. I knew fear lay beneath the surface of her bravado, but it was time to twist the fear into something else. Holding my hand out, she looked at it and chewed her bottom lip. The wheels were turning in her mind as she stared at my outstretched palm. She would never make a good poker player. With a sigh, Sunshine gave in and held the fuzzy shirt out for me to take, and I tossed it in the small hamper to be cleaned.

“Why do you do that,” I asked as I grabbed her wrists and moved them away from covering herself.

“Do what?”

“Cover yourself.”

“Sorry, I’m not used to being naked with a killer,” she said, but the sharp edge she used to have on her every word was now like a dull plastic knife.

“Clothes or no clothes, I’ve already memorized every curve of your body and could paint you with my eyes closed. Clothes don’t keep you safe. That’s simply your mind’s fabrication, so does it really matter?”

Those amazing amethyst-like gems flared with a challenge, and I stepped in close to her, crowding her personal space. “Get in the shower.”

Her fist flexed, and I knew she was thinking of taking a shot at hitting me. I rubbed my chin where she got me last time and smiled at her.

“You going to hit me again? Where are you going to go, Sunshine? There’s the door, but what about after that? Are you going to run back to the home you hate? Maybe the boyfriend that treats you like shit? How about the school that doesn’t interest you?”

“I may not run anywhere, but it would feel good to break your nose,” she said, and I couldn’t stop the laughter that rolled out of me. I’d laughed more in the short time I’d known Kirby than I had my entire life.

“Go on, get in the shower. I promised I’d clean you at some point.”

“You really don’t….” I put my finger on her lips to stop her from once more trying to deny what she wanted.

The heat in her eyes told me she wanted me, but she needed to say it with words. The power and her submission were hidden behind her words. She needed to hand herself over to me fully, let go of her past and the life she lived, and embrace this new one I was offering her. We hadn’t spoken specifics, but she was a smart one and knew what it was that I was offering her.

Sunshine may have been denying everything that her body and heart were telling her, but her resolve was weakening. Like an onion shedding the thin layers that protected the middle, I slowly peeled away the flaky petals to reveal a much stronger and more powerful version that lay beneath. She just didn’t realize that yet.

“Get in, Sunshine.”

Those big purple eyes blinked a couple of times, and then she turned and stepped into the shower. There was no door, no barriers to hide behind. The chains rattled as she moved them, so they were near the taps under the spray, and I wished that she was ready to take them off and break free of all that held back her potential, but she wasn’t ready…soon, but not yet.

I pulled off the T-shirt I was wearing over my head, kicked off my shoes and socks, but left my jeans on and stepped in behind her as she lifted her face to the spray. She turned around in the warm water but didn’t open her eyes as she laid her head back and let it run in streams down her body. I recorded this image of her to memory, and it would be the next of my collection I intended to paint.

Picking up the bar of soap, I rubbed it between my hands. Sunshine jumped back with a gasp as my hands gripped her waist. “What are you doing?”

“Come now, Sunshine, don’t ask me questions about things you already know the answer to,” I said as the bubbles frothed and swirled under my touch. Her nipples stood out in perfect little peaks, and my eyes feasted on her flesh that was unmarred except for a single bruise Peter had made.

It struck me as funny that the one labeled murderer wasn’t the one to leave the handprint on her skin. The bruise was a pale yellow now and almost completely gone, but I could still clearly see where he’d grabbed her roughly. Peter would already be dead on my table, but my plans for him were far larger than me simply killing him.