“You shouldn’t fear me, Cereus.”
Her body relaxes slightly, a sigh leaving her lips in a wisp lifting a strand of hair.
“I should fear you, but the crazy thing is, I don’t” Her feet pad the bare tiles beneath them, a trail of rainwater dripping in her wake. Her small shaky hand reaches out for mine wrapping around my wrist. Her arm raises my hand to her throat, the carving knife resting against the fragile skin where her pulse thumps in her neck. Her eyes delving into mine, searching.
“If you’re going to kill me, Ryan, then you’d best do it now.” Her hand slides up my wrist until it wraps around the handle of the blade.
My eyes are transfixed on the small red dent in her flesh from the pressure of the knife. A little more and the skin will separate, slicing open and leaking its red river, warm and bright, decorating her pale flesh. It would be such a waste to kill her.
“Because if the only reason you wanted to get to know me is so you can hurt me later,” she continues, “or to try and hurt Mom or Dad again . . .” Her movements are so quick, like a cat, her hand snatches the blade from mine and with a flip of her wrist reverses our positions. The knife digs into the side of my neck and the only thing I want to do is smile proudly at her. She’s magnificent, just like me. “ . . . I’ll be the one doing the killing.”
A pinch followed by a slight burn penetrates my flesh as she pulls her hand back. She cut me and did so with ease and no hesitation. I want to keep her. I want to go on a killing spree, with her holding the blade. She would so easily come over to the dark side and excel in my world.
“I don’t want to hurt you, which is a new thing for me.” I tell her.
“So, it’s true what Mom said?”
I smirk at the story Melody must have told her. I would be lying if I said the thought of Melody and her fear of me didn’t make me hard.
“All I can tell you is I am who I am, Cereus. I was born this way. You always felt a slight disconnect and a pull to the darker side. Well, I am the dark side. I don’t feel like others do. I was born soulless.”
“Was I?” she asks.
Reaching for the knife shaking in her palm and placing it on the counter, I tell her, “If you were, you wouldn’t be here threatening to kill me if I hurt the people you love.”
Her hands swipe at the trickles of the proof of her soul on her face. “Do you not love your family? Dad? He’s your brother.”
“I don’t work that way. I see him as more important than other people but even then it didn’t stop me nearly killing him.”
“Are you going to try to kill him again?”
“I don’t plan to, no.”
“Are you going to try and kill me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Do you love me?”
“No, I can’t love, Cereus, but I do favor your life over any other.”
“I love you, just so you know.”
“Even after what your mother has told you? Even after I’ve confirmed what I am?”
“Whatever else you are, Ryan, you’re my blood, my uncle and I love you no matter what.”
“Love is a weakness.”
“Love is a strength. It bonds us”
“How can it if I don’t feel it?”
“Because I will feel it for us both.”
“Can I listen to your heartbeat?” I ask.
“Why?” She sniffs
“I like to listen to your heartbeat because it plays the only music I can understand and also because it is the only way I will ever know how to feel the love you speak of, the thump against my ear from your heart is all I will feel. I cannot feel the warmth or comfort others claim to feel from someone loving them, and for once in my life I actually envy them,” I tell her and mean it. I want to feel this thing called love that must be something powerful because everyone longs for it, searches for it and would die for it. I think I can, in some small form, understand it for once in my life, even if I can’t feel it.
CEREUS IS IN THE SHOWER getting warm. Her lips had turned blue from the cold rain and her clothes are hanging over a radiator in the bathroom. I’m fixing her a sandwich to eat in the car when I drop her home. My cell lights up with a call and I answer it¸ hoping it’s not Isabella.
“Ryan.”
It’s Blake. I peek over to make sure the bathroom door is closed and answer, “What do you want to accuse me of now? Did a bird urinate for the first time in history and you think it must be my fault for being evil?”
“Shut the fuck up. It’s Jenna.”
“Clarify.”
“The murders, Ry. She’s Cordell’s little sister, she or someone she has working with her killed Sean.”