Chapter Ten
?
I should know better than to play with fire…but it does have sanitizing properties.
Azalea
There’s a high chance if Malcolm keeps this up, it’ll go to my head.
Sitting on a park bench beside the nasty ride that everyone who enters this park shuffles through, I watch my phone screen as the bubble indicating Malcolm’s location bobs over the map. He’s actually doing what I told him to. He’s actually running around the entire park. Because I told him to.
After years of listening to stand, sit, come, go, I’m almost positive this is therapy.
Nevertheless, it would be lying if I say I don’t hope for him to drop dead any second now.
At this distance, it might be tricky to retrieve and destroy his phone with its potentially incriminating texts, but now that I’ve got its location, I’m a bit more confident in the possibility of covering those tracks.
Far sooner than I’d like, the bubble begins making its way back to me, and I look up in time to find Malcolm scrubbing sweat from his chin and scanning the queue between us. His eyes locate mine at last, and his mouth hooks up.
My back straightens as he strides forward, parting the line of people to reach me.
Prim, I cross my ankles when he stops, sopping and gross, before me. “I can’t believe you really did it. Not a single cut corner, all the way around,” I provide, conversationally.
Hardly so much as sounding out of breath, he says, “I’m not even a little surprised you left the line. How long did it take before you realized you could?”
“Until the moment your back was turned.”
He exhales a laugh, then he mutters a curse. “You’re cute.”
“You’re disgusting.”
He cuts bare fingers through damp hair. “Verbal abuse on top of physical demands? You’re really spoiling me today.”
For the first time ever, I wonder if Malcolm Swallow is in need of genuine professional assistance.
Like in a maybe it could help, maybe it could fix him sort of way.
Clearly, his damage isn’t just affecting others; it’s also self-corrosive.
Maybe the way he’s messed up is something clinically diagnosable and—most importantly—clinically medicable.
Via therapy. And also drugs. Lots of drugs.
Falling onto the bench, as far from me as possible, Malcolm sighs cheerfully. “So.” He plants his hands on his thighs and tilts his face toward me. “Do you understand the situation now? Or do you want me to do another lap?”
I don’t know if I understand anything at the moment, but there is an odd buzzing sensation beneath my skin, and I do want to know what it is. “You’ll do anything I say?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I resign. “Within reason, I’m sure.”
“No. Anything means anything.”
The buzz becomes an all-out hum, and I want desperately to test his claim further…but not in public. I hate that there’s still several hours left of being here, waiting and hoping that Junction will end this.
Except…if he does…if Malcolm dies today…
What will I do about the hum?
If Junction kills Malcolm now, I’ll never figure out what this infernal hum is, and if I never satiate my curiosity, will it ever go away? Or will I be stuck, struggling against it, for the rest of my life?
Locking my jaw, I scan Malcolm’s dark, damp clothes and weigh my options, determining that I’ve given Junction plenty of time to finish this.
He hasn’t taken the opportunity, and now I have a different sort of opportunity I’m invested in, so he’ll just have to wait for his turn to come around again.
“You need a shower,” I say, standing.
When Malcolm follows my rise, he blocks out the sun. “Sweet dove…are you trying to get me alone with you, so you can make more demands of me?”
I head toward the park entrance. “Don’t be stupid.”
His trailing laughter is the only thing that lets me know he’s following.
?
“Here,” Malcolm says, offering me the pack of leftover food he brought with us on our trip. Here is the first word he’s said to me in about an hour, and I admit I’m grateful he’s let both our long drives over the past two days be silent apart from the music he’s let me pick.
All things considered, the silence with him is not utterly uncomfortable. It’s whenever he opens his stupid mouth that I start having issues.
Oh, if only pretty men could stay silent more often…
Standing outside my car in the Swallow Medical Group HQ parking lot, I stare at the bag he’s holding.
His head tilts. “You don’t want it?”
“You ran with it. Around an entire theme park.” If I touch it, I’ll contract something terrible and painful. Except—obviously—I won’t. That’s not how life works. And I’ve already been around all his germs for two years. It’s just gross to think about, not deadly.
“Everything inside is individually packaged and secure.” He carefully unzips the bag to show me. The canister of Lysol wipes rests triple-bagged in a section apart from the flawlessly organized selection of protein bars, drinks, and snacks. “You can take what you want without touching the bag.”
How…considerate.
Carefully, I reach through the niggling remembrance of this bag hanging off his sweat-dripping body. I know the material is washable, and I know he washed it when we got back to the hotel room. I watched him leave the bathroom, fresh from his shower, and begin wiping every part down, but…still.
No. It’s fine. If I don’t take something now, my brain will fixate on getting sick, and then I will. Just one thing, and I’m safe.
I retrieve a brownie from the dead center of the bag, tuck the plastic-wrapped dessert against my chest, and lift my attention to his eyes.
Warm, they strike something in me that is impossible to discern.
Voice soft, he murmurs, “Would you like me to save the rest for you at my place? I can wipe them down before I put them away. Or I can eat them myself if you’d prefer not to think about them again.”
He’s messing with my head. I know he has to be messing with my head. There’s no way he actually cares. There’s no way he has any intention of being genuinely kind to me. This tenderness is a front coaxing me into a sense of security.
Who knows what else he’ll have planned for me once I’m deluded into trusting him.
And, yet, the rampant rage of my thoughts simmer down.
Turning, I unlock my car. “I’ll eat them with my lunches here if you put them in the breakroom.
” Because they’re packaged and safe, and I can wipe them down again, and it’s fine.
It’s, so genuinely, more than fine. “Thank you for…this date.” Is that how a couple ends an excursion?
Possibly… I can’t seem to remember a single scene from any of my dating sims right now, though.
I’ll have to check when I get back home.
“It was delightful to spend this time with you,” he says.
Mm. Sure. I just bet it was. Nothing more fun than cleaning seats on rides and stewing in the silence of my poorly concealed animosity.
Even when I don’t dislike someone, it’s not like I’m particularly cordial.
I don’t know how to be. People are confusing and dirty and…
if they’re not cruel, they’re still condemning.
I gave up a long time ago on trying to figure them out.
I just accepted that we lived a universe apart. Aliens to one another. Estranged and unwanted.
Glancing at Malcolm, I linger with my car door open long enough to parse through my feelings. I’m both disappointed that he’s not dead and annoyed that it very well could be my own fault because something as stupid as a desire to play a useless game pricked my curiosity.
I know I’m a dating sim addict. I know my favorites are the ones with strong female leads and devoted men. I’m fully aware of the high I get when I make the right choices and everything falls into place.
I like to win.
I want to win.
I want to know how far Malcolm will go, what his limits are, what could possibly constitute this level of madness.
I know I shouldn’t be this invested in whatever cruel game he’s cooked up, but I can’t ignore the feeling that—for the first time since I met Malcolm Swallow—I have a chance to win.
Steeling myself, I release my car door handle and face him fully, then I point at the asphalt.
He needs no clarification as he drops to his knees, looking up at me as though I’m his whole world. It’s a captivating sensation—having the person I hate most seemingly at my mercy.
Gripping his jaw, I watch his breath catch.
His eyes glaze; red illuminated by the evening sun glows in his cheeks.
Not a centimeter of him speaks of anything but submission. Adoration. Pleading.
I can’t figure him out.
I never have been able to.
But I’ve never exactly wanted to, either.
Do I…want to now?
Shuddering, I release him and climb into my driver’s seat. “Well.” I pull my seat belt on. “Goodbye.”
Still kneeling beside my car, he chuckles. “Goodnight, my darling dove.”
I swallow, meet his eyes beyond my window before I’ve closed the door hard enough for it to latch, and stare until my gaze falls to stick on the bruises around his throat.
Level with my face, he smiles. “Until tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Right. Yeah. I still have to come in to work tomorrow. Which means I need to get home and get ready for it tonight. But that’s not all. I also need to check my burner phone and see if I didn’t royally mess everything up.
Unnerved, I close my door fully, pull out of the parking spot, and try not to focus on Malcolm—still kneeling—in my rearview mirror as I drive away.