“Nothing. I don’t care.”
“You don’t care? Not even if I leave the house?”
I knew what he was saying. And yet my voice came out monotonous, uncaring. I didn’t know if it was me who was speaking, or someone else.
“If you need to kill someone,” I said, “kill me.”
Gav
I wanted to vomit. I had defiled her, poor girl. I had poisoned her with myself, poisoned her with darkness.
And now she wanted to die.
I pulled my pants back on. Then I took the knife from my drawer. Her eyes didn’t widen, but her pupils dilated as she looked at the blade in my hand.
Did she still think that I could kill her?
“I’m sorry,” I said again. And yes, I was sorry. Guilt wracked me inside, made me sick with dread. She lay there still and naked, tear-streaked. Dirty with my sins. I went to the door.
“No,” she said. “Gavriel.”
“I’m sorry.” The door closed behind me. And the padlock went on the bedroom door.
“No!” she yelled from behind the door. The lock snapped shut with a thick iron clank. Her steps to the door. Her fist pounding.
“No! Gav! No!”
“I’m sorry.” This I said to myself as I walked down the stairs, down again to the basement, down, down.
It was dark on the floor of the basement where I lay down and closed my eyes. The shadow would always be a part of me. I wrapped myself up in shadows and I would not touch anything again. I wouldn’t mar the outside world. Hours passed, hours and hours, and I did not eat, did not drink. I did not deserve release. I’d lied to myself about what I did. The men I killed were monsters, but I was worse than any of them.
I did not deserve anything but darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kat
When he took the knife out of the drawer, I froze.
Would he give me what I had asked for? I had told him to kill me, but as I spoke, watching him, I realized that I didn’t want to die. He had made me feel alive, more alive than I had felt since I was young. And I wanted to live.
I almost smiled, weird as it was. Only after being threatened with murder, only after everything he had done to me… only now did I want to live.
But he didn’t kill me. He didn’t threaten me with the knife. Instead, he tucked it into his belt and left. I scrambled for the door as soon as I realized what he was doing.
“No! Gav!”
He was going to kill someone, I was sure of it.
I pounded on the doorframe, screaming at the top of my lungs.
“No! Don’t do it!”
He heard me, I was sure of it. His footsteps walked away from the door, down the hallway. I pressed my ear to the door and heard him start to go down the stairs.
“GAV!”
If he killed someone because of me…
“No,” I whispered. It was stupid of me to taunt him. Stupid of me to tempt him to kill. And if he wouldn’t kill me, he would kill someone.
“Gav—”
His name caught in my throat.
He was my entire world right now. And I was just a toy for him to play with. He never loved me. I didn’t even know if he was capable of love. But the emotion inside of me swelled and swelled, and I couldn’t get rid of it.
How could I love someone like that? What kind of horrible person would I have to be, to love a serial killer?
He was the angel of death, but he had brought me life again. He had shone a light onto the things that mattered. It was only after losing everything that I realized what was really important in life. And what was important to me?
Him, a small voice whispered. Only him.
He had played the game well. Trade by trade, I had given him the shattered pieces of me. And he had taken those pieces, put them back together. He had shown me a side of life that I had never seen.
Was it a game? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Forget everything the rest of the world cared about. I didn’t need to be beautiful, or wear pretty clothes. I didn’t need to lose weight or go to parties. I didn’t need to tally up friends one by one until I was popular. Here I was, naked and alone, and my mind was clearer than it had ever been before.
All I needed was myself.
“Good,” I mumbled. “Because all you have right now is yourself, you idiot.”
I left the door and curled up in the bed, hugging my knees to my chest. I couldn’t think about it. Wouldn’t think about it. Wouldn’t think about him, how he might be out there right now, bringing someone back to carve them up…
No. Stop.
I lay there for hours, willing myself to shut off that part of my brain. I didn’t have a panic attack, though. Whenever my anxiety threatened to bubble up, I tamped it back down, thinking about the way the tree branches had waved above our heads. Thinking about the newts I had seen, trying so desperately to get away.