Monster in His Eyes(60)

"I know what you're thinking," he says.

I scoff. "You know nothing."

"Maybe I don't know the person you are, but I know the one you were born  to be," he says. "I know your blood, girl. It's in my veins, too. And I  know you're thinking maybe he's a good man, that maybe you can help  him."

I'm not a good man, Karissa, and I never will be. So don't think you can  fix me, or that I'll ever change, because I won't. I can't

"You're wrong," I say quietly. "He can't be fixed."

"Then why were you with him?"

"Because I thought maybe he didn't need to be."

"He's fucked up, Karissa. His head doesn't work right."

"Yeah, well, why do you think that is? Huh? Could it have been the bullet he took to the chest?"

He grips the steering wheel tightly. He doesn't like that I talk back to him. "There are two sides to every story."

"Then please, by all means, tell me yours. I'm dying to hear what  compelled you to murder a pregnant woman and almost kill your best  friend, because I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for  that."

He slams the brakes harder than necessary, the car jolting to a stop at a  red light. His eyes zero in on me. He's got a temper, one I can feel  building in the car. It makes my skin crawl, sending up red flags that  beg me to zip my lips. It's not smart to piss off the driver of the car  you're in.                       
       
           



       

"Nobody's innocent," he says. "Nobody. Not me, not him, not her, not  your mother …  not even you. I did what I had to do to survive the game,  and then afterward, I did what I had to for you and your mother to  live."

"You left us."

"I had a target on my back, girl. What the hell did you expect me to do?"

"Not put a target on your back in the first place."

He laughs bitterly but doesn't respond to that. I say nothing else,  watching out the window. It's the longest drive of my life, even longer  than the trip to Waterford with Naz, over an hour trapped in this car  with this man as he takes us somewhere in New Jersey.

Somewhere I've never been before.

The house is modest, but a far cry from the slums they were in last  time. It's a home-somebody's home, complete with trimmed hedges and a  white picket fence. I follow John inside nervously, finding my mother  sitting on a plush burgundy couch in the living room, Killer asleep on  the floor near her. The television is on, some movie playing in the  background, but all I hear is my mother's frantic voice as she rushes  toward me. Her hands paw at me, her eyes wild. "Are you okay, Kissimmee?  Please tell me you are. Please tell me he didn't hurt you."

She's on the verge of tears.

I shake my head, in a daze, trying to adjust to my surroundings. "No, of course not. He didn't hurt me. He wouldn't."

John laughs bitterly again.

"You're sure?" she asks. "You can tell me if he did."

"I'm fine, Mom. I just … " I look past her, around the room. It's well  lived-in, the scent of flowers clinging to the air from a lit candle.  "Who lives here?"

"I do," John says.

I turn to him, brow furrowing. "How long have you lived here?"

He seems to consider that for a moment, startling me when he reaches  into his coat and pulls out a gun. Every muscle in my body seizes up at  the sight of it, but he turns around and slips it on top of the mantle  over his unlit fireplace before turning to me. "How old are you these  days?"

"Nineteen."

"About nineteen years, then."

I blink rapidly. "You've lived here the whole time? The whole time we've been moving around, running, you've been here?"

"Yes."

"Do you not see how fucked up that is?"

He shrugs.

Before I can completely lose it, my mother grabs my arm and pulls me  down onto the couch with her. "I know it's hard to understand … "

"No, it's quite easy, actually," I tell her, raising my voice so loud  that Killer perks up, lifting his head to look at me. "You've spent  years on the run because of something he did, and it hasn't affected him  at all. He has a house, a home, something I've wanted my entire life,  but I couldn't have …  he had it. He has it."

She casts her eyes toward John as he lingers in the room, relaying some  silent message to him that I don't understand. None of the hate I want  to see from her is present when she regards him. No, I see something  else instead. Compassion.

It fuels my hate more.

He excuses himself then, giving us some privacy. As soon as he's gone,  she turns back to me again. "Just because he's been in one place doesn't  mean he hasn't been affected. He lost his family."

"Him?" I ask incredulously. "He lost his family? He killed Naz's!"

"I know," she says, her words striking me hard. I never doubted it, but the confirmation is a hard pill to swallow. "He did."

"Did you know?" My voice is tentative. I'm afraid of her answer. "Did you know he was going to do it, that he was planning to … ?"

"Of course not," she says, those tears in her eyes breaking forth and  running down her cheeks. "Maria was my best friend. Had I known …  had he  told me …  I would've stopped him. I would've done whatever I had to in  order to stop him. But I didn't know until it was too late, until it was  over, until he came home … "

She closes her eyes as she flinches at the memory.

"So why are you here now?" I ask, my voice low and accusing. I'm trying  to stay calm, but I don't understand how she can sit in this room, in  this house with him. How she can run to him after what he did. "Why are  you even near him?"

"He had no choice," she says. "He had to …  he had to do something."

"So he killed a woman," I say with disbelief. "That was his solution? He  shot his best friend. Naz told me all about it, how he smiled in his  face, acted like nothing was wrong, and then tried to kill him that  night."

"Vitale told you that?" She raises her eyebrows in question. "Did he  tell you he was planning to kill John the whole time that was  happening?"                       
       
           



       

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, you don't," she says pointedly. "Vitale can play victim in the  whole thing, and he was a victim …  he was …  but he wasn't the only one."

"That excuses nothing," I say.

"You're right-it doesn't. It happened, and there's nothing anybody can  do to change it. But there's been enough death. Too much death. Instead  of gunning for John after that, they came for his family. So he left us,  so we could go into hiding, because maybe if they thought he didn't  care about us they wouldn't bother killing us. But it didn't work.  Clearly, it didn't work. Because he found us." She pauses, looking at  me. "He found you."

I just stare at her. I always thought my mother was unbalanced, that she  was needlessly paranoid, but she'd merely been trying to stay two steps  ahead of the monster …  a monster I unknowingly ran straight to the  moment I was away from her.

Despite her warnings, I walked straight into the lion's den, serving myself up on a platter, the meal he was always looking for.

There's something about you... something I've sought for a very long  time. Something I've always wanted. And now that I've found it, I don't  know if I can let it go.

Closing my eyes, I drop my head, covering my face with my hands. The  truth was right there from the beginning. It's all too much to come to  terms with. My head is ferociously pounding. My chest feels like it  might burst.

Killer appears at my legs then, nudging me with his nose as he whines. I  wrap my arms around him, laying my head against the top of his.

He never lied to me.

He never thought to kill me.

At the moment, he's the only one I don't seem to hate.

"I need some time to think," I say. "Some time to process."

She rubs my back gently. "There's a spare bedroom upstairs. We're going to ride out this weekend here and then we'll go."

"Go where?"

"As far away from here as we can go."

Those words do nothing to make me feel better. Going, I think, might kill me more than staying.





I'm not a man who just gives up in the middle of something. If I go any further, if I don't walk away now, I won't be able to.

The bedroom is decently sized, the furniture light oak and appears  unused. No dents, no nicks, no scuffs on the wood, and if I had enough  energy to look, I'd bet all the drawers in the dresser are empty, the  stiff sheets most definitely never slept on before.