Y/N's POV:
EJ handed me a glass of water and I sipped on it silently as he explained himself.
To be fair... I was totally justified in assuming he was going to kill me.
I mean what person in their right mind meets a serial killer and instantly jumps to thinking "omg he's so in love with me, he won't kill me because I'm not like the other girls I'm special," like come on guys we can do better than that.
But alright maybe this was my cliche movie-moment.
He's not going to kill me because I'm special. Hehe.
"Do you understand now?" he asked, his empty eyes staring into my soul.
"Yes, I think so," I replied, taking another sip of water and rubbing my throat.
I wonder if he left marks from holding it so tightly...
"Did I hurt you?" he questioned, leaning towards me and moving my hand away from my throat.
His face was mere inches away from mine and suddenly I had forgotten how to breathe.
He grabbed my chin and delicately lifted my head up so he could see my throat better, and then without a word, he stood up from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with an ice pack and a towel.
He carefully wrapped the ice pack in the towel and pressed it against my throat.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, staring at what I assumed must have been bruises on my neck.
"It's okay, EJ, or um.. you never said if that's really your name? But really, it's okay. It doesn't hurt, I wasn't really uh.. paying much attention to that you know.. I was mostly trying not to die.. and now I know you weren't trying to kill me so really it's my fault for assuming you were going to murder me.. well actually I take that back.. it's not my fault but I don't blame you either so um let's just forget about it before I start thinking about it too much and get turned on-.... I mean um.. turned on...to a tangent of mumbling yep mhm okay I'm going to shut up now," I rambled, doing everything in my power to avoid eye contact with him.
He laughed.
Wow.
What a sound.
"Jack," he smirked.
"Huh?" I replied.
"My name is Jack. EJ stands for Eyeless Jack. That's kind of my killer name I guess you could say, but you can call me Jack, okay?" he explained, lifting the icepack and moving it to the other side of my neck.
"Okay.. Jack," I smiled.
It was then I realized just how close we were.
He was practically on top of me, the way he was leaning over me to hold the icepack against my neck.
And his face was just centimeters away from mine.
His lips were right there too...
Nope. Nope. Nope. Not right now. Not now.
I awkwardly cleared my throat and asked, "so.. now what?"
"Hm.. we need to take down the chief and his cult. First, we need to figure out what exactly it is they're doing. Then, we can seek our revenge. After that, my mission is over and I can report back to my boss," he explained, removing the ice pack from my skin and grazing his fingers over my neck.
I shuddered.
He should not be having this much of an impact on me.
I really hope I wasn't blushing.
"The whole thing with the chief is so weird. I mean what kind of cult thing does he have going on? What do they even do? Why do they have to do it in some random building like they're movie villains? They could easily meet at someone's house, right?" I questioned.
"Hm...unless they all have families or other people they live with," Jack replied.
He carefully moved away from me and leaned back against the couch, tilting his head back as if to think about the situation.
"That's true. If none of them live alone they would need another place to meet. Anywhere public would be too risky, so I suppose an abandoned building makes sense. But then, why so many floors up? Why not the first or even the second floor?" I pondered, mirroring Jack and leaning back against the couch as well.
He turned to face me as I repositioned myself, and a silence loomed in the air for a few seconds as he stared at me.
Did I say something weird?
Before I could think on the matter further, Jack grabbed my arm and pulled me so that I was laying on top of him, and then he spoke as if he didn't just make my heart skip several beats.
"Maybe they needed to be higher up so they could see their surroundings. I don't think they'd choose just any random building. My guess is the chief chose a spot easy for all his followers to access in case he called a meeting. Then they meet on the sixth floor because it's high enough up that they can see if anyone is coming to bust them," he commented, wrapping an arm around me as he spoke.
I tried to ignore the rapid beating of my heart but the things this man did to me were getting increasingly harder to ignore.
"How many floors are in the building? Six stories seems so high," I replied.
"There were more than that, maybe ten or eleven I would guess," he responded, rubbing my arm softly.
Focus. Focus. Focus.
"Wait.. so then why choose the sixth floor specifically? If they wanted a good vantage point, why not go to the highest level? Are there any other buildings around? Where is this place even at?" I asked, the details not making any sense to me.
"Yeah I was able to watch them from another building right next to the one they were in, which now that I think about it, the one I was in was probably taller. It was downtown... near Sixth Street and Serpent Avenue," he answered.
"Downtown? That's not really a central location. Most people live in the suburbs, and I doubt a guy like the chief would live in a crummy downtown apartment and the same probably goes for the other people who were with him. Plus, there's plenty of abandoned houses in this city so I'm sure they could have chosen a better location."
"You're right. The chief lived in one of those picket fence communities. Going downtown was a bit out of the way for him. So then why go there at all?"
"There wouldn't be any reason to go there at all. Unless.. what if that location was important to them somehow? I mean they're in a cult right? What if their founder died there or it was sacred ground or some important event happened exactly where that building was built?"
"(Y/n).. I think you're on to something. There were only six of them there though so it can't be that big of a cult, right? How would we figure out the significance of it all?"
"Oh my god. Jack. I might be crazy, but hear me out: you just said there's six of them right? And they were on the sixth floor? Near sixth street? 666? The devil's number. And you know what one of the biggest symbols of the devil is? Snakes. The Bible says that the devil, in the form of a snake, tricked Eve into biting the apple. Jack. What was the name of the other street? Serpent. Street. Jack! Serpent Street! This might be the wildest conspiracy theory ever, but I think they might be some kind of Satanic cult, Jack."
"Holy fuck, (y/n), I think you're right."
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