4 Smooches

Synopsis

I watch.
I study.
I prowl.
I hunt.

I always go in with a plan. A set of rules for myself. I don’t take unnecessary risks. That’s how I’ve been able to evade capture all these years.

But there’s something about this girl that is different than the others. When I finally meet her, the rules become a blur. And I break the most important one of all—I take her with me.

——-

It’s just my imagination—that feeling of being watched. That those icy eyes— a vivid turquoise with a distinct golden fleck—aren’t watching me.

It’s just stress. I am the person everyone relies on. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been feeling so content with my life lately. Why I dream those eyes belong to someone who can tear me away from all of my responsibilities.

But these are just shameful fantasies, never meant to breach reality.

Then one night, the dream comes true, only it’s a horrific nightmare.

Now, I only have one task: survival.

Review

There is a predator who stalks the night. A predator you see in the day, a neighbour, a worker, someone who waves at you in the street. But even predators have weaknesses, have someone they prey upon not just to prey upon, but because they want the prey, need the prey, thirst for the prey. But what happens when the prey has dark desires too, and maybe, or some level, wants to be caught?

“And I have her. The perfect girl. The girl who is a little like the rest of them, but maybe she’s a little different too.”

We really dive into a sick, twisted, dark world with this story. I love dark stories but this was even close to my limits! There is no anti hero- because hero is the wrong word even if this sense. We just have a predator. So I’d like your stories dark, really dark but one that also has a good, gripping story line- dive right into this one! 

“These people don’t know pain. They don’t know loneliness. They might know fleeting discomfort, but they don’t know the persistent agony of being an outsider. People like them made me who I am.”

Sam is our predator who comes out at night. The person you least expect. But at night he lets himself roam free and has never let anything stop him before, has never placed a foot wrong…until Vesper. 

“I have become something so inhuman, that I can’t ever have the thing I have been chasing. The very act of chasing it, of forcing it, has made it something I could never, ever grasp.”

Vesper seems like an ordinary, straight laced woman- looks after her brother with disabilities and has a caring, sweet boyfriend. But when Vesper becomes Sam’s focus, Sam starts to see what no one else sees. Starts to see that Vesper has some dark fantasises – fantasies that are about to become a reality for Vesper. She is about to be taken by a monster. 

“I want him to fill me with his poison again. He likes the taste of my sadness and I like when he injects me with his venom.”

This really is a dark dark story. Sam is not someone who starts off bad but has some redeeming qualities- he is all dark, all messed up. He does sick things and he takes Vesper because he wants her, sees something in her and Sam gets what he wants by any means necessary. But Vesper isn’t all she seems either- will she spark something inside Sam other than the dark thoughts and actions or will Sam spark something dark in Vesper? She will continue to be viewed as a woman who was taken or will that change into something else? 

“I am the storm. Strong and violent. Dangerous. I will tear down anything in my path to have her. When I roll through, you see evidence of me all around. You will see branches broken, windows shattered. I will move obstacles that seem insurmountable.”

I don’t want to give anything away, don’t want to give you any idea of where the story goes, what happens to Vesper or Sam but I’ll just say if you love a dark story, you will love this- just take the warnings seriously! 

~Bethany