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Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 1. Camille
A sudden gust of wind forced violent raindrops to bombard my living room window, making the glass rattle ominously.Nestled snugly on the couch, I jerked my knees tighter against my chest, and my toes curled protectively inside my thick, cozy socks before I glanced at my muted television across the room to see if any severe weather warnings had popped up yet.When I found no dooming forecast scrolling across the bottom of the screen, I went back to reading my Kindle, where my paranormal story had reached a particularly gruesome pinnacle.Blood and body parts were flying liberally. So many bones had been broken in the span of the last five minutes that my own were beginning to ache in sympathy. I winced and nearly ducked for the heroine when a severed arm sailed past her head.Though, really. I couldn’t fathom why she’d followed the hero out there in the middle of the night, to begin with, when she knew exactly what he turned into during the full moon. Just because he’d told her he
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 2. Camille
“No!”For a split second, I was sure I was being mugged, and some jackass was about to get away with my purse and wallet and phone and all of Gran’s apology gifts.Except the person didn’t run off, leaving me stranded and broke.A firm hand caught my arm, steadying me, and a male voice gushed, “Shit, sorry. You okay there?”Whew. Not a thief. What a relief.“Yeah.” Inhaling a surprisingly pleasant male cologne, I opened my eyes to a face full of black cloth and muttered, “I’m fine,” on a miserable groan because... “I’m the one who should apologize, though. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”Pulling free from his grip, I turned away to scan the ground for my fallen things. As soon as I spotted the purse, I knelt down to check on the contents, certain the wine bottle had broken and soaked everything inside.That would be my luck.While behind me, my collision buddy was saying, “Nah, you’re fine. I wasn’t exactly paying attention either.”Ignoring him, I pulled the wine free f
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 3. Camille
The first thing I need to say before anything else is this:I was Black Crimson’s biggest fan. Full stop. Period. End of statement.Like, no one loved him more than I did. I was sure of it.The city’s best-known graffiti artist had been gifting our streets with masterpieces of epic proportions for about two years now.I’d first become aware of him after his third mural had hit the side of an old movie theater building, and it made the headlines of the paper where I worked.The Evening Vigil was the biggest newspaper in town, which should sound pretty awesome and glamorous, I know, but alas, my job wasn’t quite the editor-in-chief position I’d always dreamed of getting. Heck, I hadn’t even made it into the writer-of-a-small-uncredited-article-on-the-second-to-last-page position yet.And honestly, I would’ve been pleased with a fact-checking spot, which was the lowest-ranking place in the editing department.Except no, I hadn’t even managed that accolade. And so I worked in sales
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 4. Brick
Well, here I was.Unfortunately.I was now the type of man who attended wedding parties.Wasn’t that just...great?Once upon a time, between the ages of, oh, eight to fourteen, I hadn’t given a fuck about much of anything. Especially wedding parties.Rules? Break them.Authority? Ignore it.School? Skip that shit.I, no doubt, had been headed toward a hard life full of crime and dark dead ends, but it was all good. Since I didn’t care. Right?Until this blond-headed girl came into my world and smashed that lifestyle all to hell.The only thing she had to do was bat her long lashes and look at me with those innocent blue eyes, then call me big brother, and I was a complete goner. Suddenly, I started caring about all kinds of worthless things I’d never cared about before, like protecting other people, wanting to keep them happy and healthy, and straightening out my own life in order to be a better person for her.And now, I was practically a domesticated, distinguished pillar
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 5. Camille
“And then she said to me, ‘that was my parking spot.’”I forced a vague smile, hoping it would pass as a laugh while the man talking to me chortled uproariously over his own story.“That’s…” Oh my God, someone please kill me now. This Dan guy was the most cluelessly arrogant scumbag I’d ever met. He was so busy being entertained by his own laugh that he didn’t even notice when my smile dropped prematurely and I mumbled, “That’s actually what I would’ve said to you too.”But gah, what a jerk.I mean, who bragged about stealing parking spots from eighty-year-old women just because you’d gotten a new car and wanted to show it off to your date?Dude, who even talked about taking out one woman when you were trying to pick up another? Wow.Besides, his story could’ve been about Gran for all I knew. And her hip wasn’t in the best condition these days. So thinking about her having to walk even farther because this prick wanted to impress a woman he was no longer even with…It was enough
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 6. Camille
“Surprise,” my live statue guy announced, holding up his glass dramatically as if he were making a toast, only to cause the dark liquid inside to slosh over the rim and dribble across his fingers. “Shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”As I laughed, he lowered his alcohol-drenched hand to his mouth and began to lick the spilled alcohol off his knuckles.Wow, but this guy was hammered.Except I started to feel a little lightheaded and inebriated myself as I watched his tongue lap at his own skin because he somehow made the sloppy drunken move look beyond sinfully sensual.A shimmer of awareness raced through my veins.Kaitlynn had been right; I probably would like her stepbrother. A lot. There was just something so fascinatingly delicious about him. And I was a sucker for both fascinating and delicious.Except being attracted to him made me feel a little guilty, as if I were betraying my crush on my favorite spray-painting graffiti artist.That was silly, though, so I focused on
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 7. Brick
Well, fuck.My stomach churned as the Uber I rode in swayed gently and rounded a corner.It smelled like a vanilla air freshener had exploded all over the interior, and the alcohol in my stomach didn’t mix any better with the pungent aroma than it did the constant backseat rocking. Or the memory of her words that jostled their way unpleasantly through my head.I’m going to find the evidence I need to prove without a doubt that you’re him.“Dammit.” With a groan, I flopped my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes, holding my belly and hoping nothing I’d drunk tonight came back up. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”“Hey, you okay back there, buddy?” I was asked.I lifted my head woozily and opened my lashes, trying to focus on the back of my driver’s head.“Just great,” I slurred. “But hey. Do you happen to have a basement?”“A bathroom?”“A basement,” I tried to clarify, but even I could hear the slur in my speech.“A basement? What?” The bald-headed man whose neck was about as
Black Crimson: A Little Red Riding Hood Story 8. Camille
A week later, I was an obsessed mess. My apartment was covered with papers that had scribbled notes all over them, the three-ring binder I’d been keeping all my Black Crimson research in had been dismantled and was spread across my floor, and an entire wall in my living room was filled with holes where I’d tacked up the important articles and pictures with push pins and even connected them with strings of yarn.It looked like a freaking detective’s crime board, but I was finding so much information, and everything was linking together faster than I thought it would; I’d needed to do something to keep the order.Rubbing my chin and squinting at the photograph of a mural Black Crimson had made on the side of a historical museum, I sighed because I couldn’t link this one back to Broderick Carmichael at all.I knew there had to be something, though, because I’d been able to somehow find a connection between him and all the other murals.I just had to keep digging.Meanwhile—I glance
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