Red

She felt sick. "Let's just get this over with," Red tried to keep calm. Don't give him the satisfaction, she thought but the hair on her forearms stood at attention. Red had learned a long time ago to trust her gut and everything inside said not to turn her back on Mueller.

He just smiled and showed her his stained teeth. He dropped the panties with a sigh and checked the pockets of her other work pants and the breast pocket of a shirt. "Open your drawers," he said with a ruckus laugh, as if he hadn't told the same joke every time he had been in her room.

He meant the dresser drawers, which carried the rest of her possessions on Earth. Red did as she was told and slid the top drawer out slowly. That was the rest of her underwear, bras, panties and socks. He enjoyed this part too much and his face was sweaty and excited as he sifted through the satiny fabrics. "You should get something sexier, Rasmussen," he murmured, as if she'd bought any of it for him. "Gorgeous girl like you, I picture you in some black, crotchless panties," he grunted and grabbed his dick through the front of his pants. That was something close to the noise that the sick asshole made while stroking himself to her, Red knew it. She bit her bottom lip hard so she would keep it all inside.

One hundred and eighteen days.

He was quick about checking the rest of her clothes. They were for function only and weren't as interesting as her underwear. There was the stack of neatly folded tee shirts that she wore to her job at the box factory and the one last pair of clean, navy blue work pants. There was her white blouse and skirt that she wore to waitress. Finally, the bottom drawer was filled with the stretchy that she liked. There were comfortable, old sweat pants and a sweatshirt with a hole in it. These were the things that she wore around the house to babysit Doris. The things that she'd always preferred even when she had a life that required many more outfits.

Mueller ran his hands along the bottom of her mattress and pulled up a corner. Nothing, nothing there to get me with, you piece of shit, Red thought to herself. He yanked the cushions off both chairs and tore open the drawer on the little table between them. He clicked his tongue, it sounded like he was disappointed.

"Gotta check your bathroom too, Rasmussen," he told her as he looked her up and down slowly. He raised his eyebrows and added, "gotta piss for me today too."

"I just did that at check in," she told him quickly. She had done it in the privacy of a stall with a female officer present and that experience had been humiliating enough.

"Surprise, surprise, you have to do it again today." He appeared gleeful as he pulled out the clear plastic cup and the marker. Mueller carefully wrote her last name and the date and waved it at her. "What's a little pee between friends?" he asked and licked his lips lasciviously.

Red took the cup and followed him into the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet and found toothpaste, a tooth brush, floss, a half used can of shaving cream and two disposable razors. She also kept one bar of soap there, the other was in the shower along with the cheapest shampoo she could find at the Dollar Store. Her hair was as coarse as a Brillo pad from the last few years of neglect. It was good that she could keep it slicked back in a tight ponytail.

"Looks good," he told her and crossed his arms over his chest. Mueller leaned up against the white and black tiled wall and smiled lazily. "Let's go, I don't have all day. Even for you," he added just above a whisper.

"Can I get some privacy, please?" Red felt the bile rise up in her throat. Her nerves and her temper seemed like they were both about to explode in vomit.

"Sorry, I have to watch," Mueller said in a voice that said he was definitely not sorry.

He loved it.

Red trembled as she approached the toilet. She unbuttoned and unzipped slowly, her brain was a bundle of electrical impulses that all told her to kill him. She didn't care that he was armed. His service weapon was buckled into the holster that hung from his skinny hips. Red bet that this motherfucker had never been any good with a gun. He probably hadn't been to the firing range since they promoted him to head dickweed or whatever it said on his card. She'd snatch it and smash his face up against the cool tile. She'd watch him bleed all over the wall before she carefully wrapped the gun in a towel, all the while her knee would be in his back, eating the goddamn floor. If he walked out of here, he'd be missing a few teeth and he'd have a nasty bruise. Of course, Red had absolutely no intention of letting him live.

Doris wouldn't even wake up. Then there was the corpse though and a whole other world of problems that Red had no easy answers for. She stood no chance on her own, branded a cop killer. Chicago PD would hunt her down if it was the last thing they did and once her time was up, Red wanted to be a ghost. She deserved a chance after all of this.

She dropped her pants to the floor and took a seat. She wiggled the panties over, the sweaty panties that reeked after her shift and the fear and the hatred that was radiating from her core.

She looked him in the eye as she pissed in the cup.

"Makes a lot of sense now," he was hoarse and his fingers twitched. Red imagined that he needed a cigarette after all that. "Why they kept you in solitary most of the time at Decatur," his eyes glittered with desire. Mueller adjusted his dick from left to right as he listened to her fill up the cup. "Fuck, you're just beautiful everywhere, aren't you, Rasmussen?"

She handed him the cup, full to the brim. It sloshed a little on her hand and she knew that he'd wear her pee on his fingers. Fucker would probably lick it off once he was in the car all alone. Probably jerk himself off with that hand later. Pervert.

"Are we done?" she asked. She sat and didn't rush to cover up. She let him take it all in, every bit of her body, all of her pink and pale flesh, everything that he wanted to look at. With her eyes, she dared him to approach her. She still had the work boots on, she'd stomp him right in the dick and good luck stroking it later when it was all purple.

He nodded as he put the lid on the cup. "That's all," he smelled his piss damp hand and added, "for now."

Mueller left quickly, perhaps he finally sensed that he was the one in danger if he pushed her any further. Red yanked her panties back into place and pulled her pants up. God, she was tired. It wasn't just physically tired. She was soul weary. She felt depleted to the bone. Ever since that night, the last night with Yuri, the night that she'd burned it all down, Red could never sleep enough. She just needed to rest.

She kept herself busy with Doris' breakfast and laundry until it was almost noon. The doorbell rang and she called out to the old lady, "I'll get it," even though there was no question that Doris wasn't getting it. No one waited long enough for her to drag her legs with the walker from the back of the house all the way to the front.

Red opened the door to see a delivery man on the top step. His van had flowers on it and he held a crystal base in a cardboard box in one hand. "Delivery for Miss Rasmussen," he smiled and passed it to her, like every woman would love to be the recipient of his gift.

"That's me," Red took the flowers and set them on the floor.

"Sign here," he indicated an X on his electronic clipboard.

"Who are they from?" she barked. If it was Mueller, then he'd just upped the ante. Her insides were on fire as the fight or flight impulses ran down her spine. She really was going to have to kill him. There was no other choice.

"There's a card," the delivery guy said with a shrug as he hurried back to his van.

It was handwritten in beautiful script, it was almost calligraphy, which made Red realize immediately that it wasn't Mueller. That douchebag probably couldn't write anything legibly, just reports that he checked off.

"Red,

Looking forward to our next meeting. The game is on.

Wolf"

"Who's there, Mirabelle?" Doris called from the drawing room.

"Nobody," she whispered as she buried her nose in the center of the roses. Blood red and if you got this close, the thorns were noticeable. The perfume was deep and rich, heady, almost overpowering. Red felt the unmistakable wave of want rush down her body. Damp and sweet and almost more difficult to control than the urge to kill, this was another unmistakable animal instinct. She needed to feed, she needed to feel, she needed to take him.

That was the problem though, Red told herself as she cleared her throat and came to her senses. Game on or game off, she wasn't going to stay. All she could care about was doing her time. She just wanted to get the fuck out of here and take her life back. Mr. Wolfgang was a delicious distraction and maybe in another world, he'd be something.

They'd be something.

She quickly marched to the trash cans in the back of the house and stuffed the flowers, box and vase inside. The last time she'd thought something stupid like that, someone wound up dead.

***

Wolf

He had picked the full moon because there was something about it that seemed appropriate. If she were his goddess, then there were protocols to follow. He had always loved the pagan rituals, the animal sacrifices. The blood and the earth and the stars and the fire all had meaning and tonight, they would once more. He wanted to see her skin glow in the moonlight, bare and perfect as she struggled to get free.

It was a sacrifice after all.

The fact that the camera that had been placed in the bouquet had been rendered useless had just made him smile. Had she known or had it just been impulse? Was it a chess move or just a flare of that almost infamous temper of hers? Jared would never really know and either way, he just found it enchanting. Better to up his game and go in blind, there was something more intimate about that.

Almost virginal for both of them.

The first time in a strange girl's bedroom, the first embrace, the first moment of knowledge, when she felt the cold, steel tip of the blade slice her shirt. It would be perfect.

The hacker that he had hired had been well worth every cent and he now had a whole encrypted file of Red. It contained all the little details that he had craved. There were other pictures of her. None of them were as perfect as her mugshot, but fuck, those eyes of hers. Her cold, calculating, iceberg eyes were mesmerizing. They were always defiant, whether she was shackled to the hospital bed or headed to see the parole board.

Two chilly, blue pools of fuck you to the world.

No one had missed Yuri Federov. Ever since his entry into the United States, the Russian gangster had been a wild card. He had been on every government agency's watch list. Even his own people hadn't known what to do with him. He'd made new alliances with blacks and Mexicans, something that the old timers had forbidden, and he never waited for permission to make moves.

If Red hadn't killed him when she did, he was going to die soon anyway. There had been a contract on his head and according to a snitch, it had been his own father who initiated it. The old timers had forbidden that too, but for Yuri, they made an exception.

Actually, Red had just executed the contract. The way that Jared saw it, the Russian mob owed her the money for eliminating him so perfectly. It was a dream hit, really. The police and the arson investigation squad had to sift through the ashes to find his teeth. If Red had just gotten out, she would have gotten away with it.

Jared concluded that she hadn't expected the fire to turn on her like it had. It hadn't been a suicide mission, and the Red that he knew, at least the Red that he had become obsessed with, would never hurt herself intentionally. She had just wanted to make double sure the cocksucker was dead and then, was caught in her own trap.

The charge had only been manslaughter and she would have walked with community service if she weren't Red. Yuri Federov's body was so charred beyond recognition that they couldn't ascertain any physical evidence from his corpse. Jared liked to think that she'd burned him at the end, after a lengthy session that involved cuffs and maybe a taser. Maybe a knife. Maybe she'd just hit him with her fists and kicked him with her boots. He imagined that she had enough fury inside her petite body to do some real damage to a full grown man.

A decent lawyer could have argued that she was just defending herself, although one look in her eyes and they would have known that was nonsense.

The picture of her scar made him hard every time. And tonight he was going to see it up close. He was going to run his leather gloved fingers along the winding branches and leaves that had been left behind. Fuck, he wanted to taste it too. Jared wanted to let his tongue linger on the thicker, meatier scar tissue. He wanted to bite her as well.

He wondered if she were more sensitive there or less. Had the nerves been damaged to deaden the pain or had they heeled and became heightened in their response? God, he hoped she felt every last bit of it.

The Audi was stolen and so were the plates. It was his chosen vehicle for tonight because it was black and sleek and reminded him of a predatory cat, running through the jungle. The gears screamed for release as he waited to shift from first to second. It was a noise from a hungry thing that had just begun to pick up a scent. The scenery had changed as Jared raced through the night. He had begun in the sheltered, tree lined cul de sacs of the suburban North Shore. Now he was in the middle of asphalt and graffiti. The car sped through streets lined with abandoned buildings and dumpsters overflowed with garbage. He was in the heart of the city and it definitely had a different heartbeat.

The Draper residence had become familiar since he'd begun this dance. What had once been a proud manor in the heart of the bustling near South Side, now echoed the neighborhood around it. War torn and bedraggled, the house had seen better days. It was obvious that the family didn't want to spend any money on upkeep. Or their grandmother.

Jared parked the car in his chosen spot, three and a half blocks away. He would slip into the darkness and take the last steps of his journey by foot.

Living in the attic was a far cry from the glamorous life that Red had lived before. Back in the earlier days of her relationship with Federov, they had been gangsters together. They had lived in a penthouse apartment in the Gold Coast. Red had gotten a slew of speeding tickets and finally a misdemeanor charge for reckless driving; all in a Porsche 911 GT2 RS. The car had been custom painted, cherry red with black and gold flames on both sides.

He wondered if Mirabelle had always liked fire.

He adjusted the pack so that it clung to his body like a second skin. Everything that he needed for the evening was inside. It was a veritable kidnap and rape kit but for tonight, for her, he thought of it as love tokens. The only question that remained was whether or not she would feel the same.

He had thought of it as fate when the homecare company had discontinued the round the clock workers. Now it was just Red and the old lady. He supposed the Draper family must not know much about the redhead. Surely, they wouldn't leave their sweet, old grandmother alone with her.

It also worked out perfectly that this was her night off from the box factory. He knew from watching her routine that she was early to bed on those evenings. So far, as he approached the house, everything was exactly as he had planned. The back door had an old Schlage lock that was easy to pick. The deadbolt hadn't been used. He was inside in less than three minutes and soundlessly entered the Draper residence.

He slipped past Doris' bedroom door and paused on the other side, just to make sure that the old lady was also in bed. Doris sometimes wandered in the night. He had seen it occur twice in his hiding spot from the street and he'd made a note of it. The last thing that he wanted to do was scare Red's charge to death.

He could tell that Red cared for her and that made him smile. She had a heart, actually, he suspected that she cared deeply when she did care. Another similarity.

Jared crept up the stairs slowly, with his back to the wall. He avoided the center of the stairs, where the runner was worn and the squeak was the loudest. Red had spent enough time in prison and other similar facilities, there was no telling if she was a light sleeper. He paused outside of her bedroom door and waited. His heart pounded and he could feel his pulse quiver in his throat. If he didn't have a thin, black face mask on, pulled down to his collar bones, she'd be able to see how wildly that vein throbbed in his neck.

His cock had followed suit ever since he left the house. Completely hard, it was impossible to disguise his intentions and he was sure that she'd see the clear outline of his erection when he made her take his pants down. Fuck, he could hardly wait to feel her. He'd been so intent and so intense on the study of her. His passion had taken over. Jared felt as if he had waited for months but it had only been days since he met her.

He curled his hands into fists in his fitted, black leather gloves. He flexed his fingers, ready to grab her, to pounce. He entered her bedroom and he immediately knew that the full moon had been fated. The light washed over her bed and made a shadow of her spill onto the sheet below. Like this, with her hair loose and free and wild, it looked like blood in the moonlight. It was as if she'd already been savaged and a crimson tide poured out onto the pillow. There was something both ghastly and lovely about that idea. Her gentle breath came and went, her small breasts rose and fell in the tee shirt. In the moonlight, he could even make out the outline of her puckered nipples.

It was the one thing about the gloves that made it almost unbearable to keep them on. He wanted to touch her, really touch her with bare fingers. He wanted to taste her too. He wanted to run his tongue everywhere, all over her but it was easy to take bite impressions and although he wanted her to know everything. He had to be sure that this was just between the two of them. So gloves it was, he told himself as he clamped a strong hand around her wrist.

With one hand on her wrist and one around her waist, he had the advantage of waking her from the middle of her dreams. Jared had counted on the element of surprise because otherwise, he knew from his study of Red, it would be much more difficult. She was a fighter and he wanted desperately to have her trussed up like he'd been imagining. "What the fuck?" she mumbled sleepily before she crashed to her knees beside the bed.

He knelt beside her and slipped the black, nylon cord around one wrist. He secured the other end to the solid, oak leg of her bed. "What the fuck is right," he whispered as he pinned her other hand quickly. He had to immobilize her before she could put it all together. Otherwise, Jared was afraid he'd have to sedate her and that would lose all of its beauty.

"Fuck you," she growled and pulled at her hand. She struggled against him to escape his grasp but Jared was prepared. He slipped the rope into place easily. Her hands were firmly cuffed to the sides of her body, too far away for her to reach anything to hit him with or touch him. The pity of it was that Jared would do almost anything to feel her hands on him but that was for another time.

Once she loved him.

"Don't you know another word?" he asked with almost a chuckle as he secured her left knee. He slipped another rope cuff into place and tightened it quickly, right above her knee. The feel of her legs through the pajama pants made his cock pulse. Inside his underwear, he dripped a steady stream of want for his red haired goddess.