Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Celeste
The state police finally leave at two in the morning.
I watch their taillights disappear from my bedroom window—not the room where Jake died, that's still wrapped in crime scene tape—but my childhood room down the hall.
The one with the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that Dad put up when I was seven, back when he could fix everything with a band-aid and a bedtime story.
He's standing in my doorway now, looking like he's aged ten years in one night.
"We need to talk."
"We really don't."
"Celeste—" He enters without invitation, sits on the edge of my bed like he used to when checking for monsters. The irony isn't lost on me. "I'm sending you to Aunt Rebecca's. Tonight. I already called her."
"I'm not going to California, Dad."
"This isn't a request. You were nearly—" His voice breaks. "Jake nearly killed you. And Lockwood... what he did to Jake... no one should see that. No one should be around that."
I pull my knees to my chest, studying him.
My father, the good sheriff, the protector of the innocent.
Except he protected Jake for years, and we both know it.
"How many, Dad?"
"What?"
"How many women complained about Jake that you ignored?"
His face crumples. "That's not—"
"How many?"
"Seven." The word comes out like pulled teeth. "Seven formal complaints over six years. But I thought... he was young, made mistakes. I thought I could guide him, help him be better."
"You thought wrong."
"I know that now." He reaches for my hand but I pull away. "But that doesn't mean you should be with someone like Lockwood. He's dangerous, Celeste. What he did tonight—"
"What he did tonight was save me."
"He butchered Jake. Mutilated him. That's not protection, that's psychopathy."
"That's justice." I stand, start packing a bag. Not for California. "The justice you failed to provide for seven women."
"Where are you going?"
"Out."
"Celeste, please." He stands too, blocking my path to the door. "I know I failed. I know I didn't protect you or those women. But I'm trying to protect you now. Lockwood isn't what you think he is."
"You're right. He's exactly what I know he is." I meet his eyes steadily. "He's a killer. He's dangerous. He's probably killed more people than just Jake. And he's mine."
Dad's face pales. "You can't mean that."
"I've never meant anything more in my life."
"He's manipulating you. Stockholm syndrome or—"
"I held the knife, Dad."
The words hang between us like a confession in church.
His mouth opens, closes, opens again. "What?"
"When Cain was cutting Jake, I held the knife too. I made the final cut across his throat. I watched him bleed out and felt... satisfied." I shoulder my bag. "Still want to send me to Aunt Rebecca's? Still think I'm your innocent little girl who needs protecting?"
He stumbles back like I've shot him. "Celeste—"
"I'm going to Cain's. Don't try to stop me.
Don't send deputies. Don't interfere. Because if you do, I'll tell everyone about the seven women you failed.
I'll tell them about Sarah, about how a seventeen-year-old girl begged you for help and you convinced her to stay quiet to protect Jake's future. "
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
I push past him, but he grabs my arm. Not hard, just desperate.
"He'll destroy you."
"No, Dad. He'll complete me."
I pull free and walk out, leaving my father standing in my childhood room surrounded by glow-in-the-dark stars and the shattered illusion of who his daughter used to be.
The drive to Cain's cabin takes fifteen minutes but feels like a lifetime.
The roads are empty, dark, frosted with pre-dawn ice that makes my tires whisper threats against the asphalt.
I pass Jake's house, noting the forensic van still parked outside.
They'll find everything Cain planted.
By tomorrow, Jake will be confirmed as the serial killer.
Case closed. Town safe.
Except the real killer is waiting for me in a cabin three miles up the mountain, and I'm driving toward him like a moth to a beautiful, deadly flame.
I use my key to enter.
The cabin is dark except for the fire crackling in the hearth.
Cain sits in front of it, wearing clean clothes, but I can still see rusty crescents under his nails. Jake's blood, stubborn and accusing.
"You came."
"Where else would I go?"
He doesn't turn around. "Your father tried to convince you to leave."
"He failed. He's good at that—failing."
"He's trying to protect you."
"From you?"
"From yourself. From what you're becoming."
I drop my bag, move to stand in front of him.
The firelight turns his grey eyes gold, makes the scar through his eyebrow seem to pulse.
"I became this the moment I wrote my first dark romance. I just didn't know it was a prophecy instead of fiction."
He reaches up, traces my bruised cheekbone where Jake hit me. "Does it hurt?"
"Everything hurts. And everything feels perfect." I straddle his lap in the chair, frame his face with my hands. "We killed someone together tonight."
"Yes."
"I should feel guilty. Horrified. Traumatized."
"But you don't."
"I feel alive. Electric. Like I've been sleepwalking for thirty-one years and finally woke up." I lean closer, my lips brushing his ear. "Is this how you felt? The first time?"
"The first time was my parents." His hands settle on my waist, holding me in place. "And yes. I felt like the world finally made sense. Like I'd found my purpose."
"Tell me about it. Tell me everything."
He's quiet for a moment, then starts speaking.
"They'd just finished with Juliette. She was thirteen, bleeding, trying not to cry because crying made it worse.
Patricia was playing Chopin on the piano, that Nocturne in E-flat major, like she always did during.
Richard was drinking scotch, satisfied with himself. "
I don't move, barely breathe, not wanting to interrupt this confession.
"I'd been planning it for months. Reading about carbon monoxide, testing the heating system, creating small leaks that could be explained as wear and tear. That night, after they went to bed, I sealed their bedroom windows from the outside. Tampered with the detector. Increased the gas flow."
"Did they suffer?"
"Yes." His hands tighten on my waist. "They woke up when it was too late. Tried to open the windows, the door. I'd blocked everything. I sat outside their bedroom window and watched them die. Listened to them scream into their pillows as their lungs failed."
"Good."
He looks at me then, really looks at me. "Juliette knows. She's never said it, but she knows."
"And she's grateful."
"She's terrified. Of me. Of what I'm capable of."
"I'm not."
"No," he agrees. "You're not."
I kiss him then, tasting violence and honesty on his tongue.
When I pull back, we're both breathing hard.
"Show me your journal. The one where you document them all."
He hesitates, then stands, lifting me with him. Sets me on my feet and goes to a hidden panel in the wall I hadn't noticed before.
Inside is a leather journal, thick with entries.
I open it randomly, read his neat handwriting:
Mark Webb, 38. Drug dealer. Specialized in high school girls, getting them hooked on pills in exchange for sex. Three overdoses linked to his product. Found at bottom of Black Mountain ravine. Cause of death: gravity. Justice served: November 15th.
Another page:
Timothy Morrison, 44. High school coach. Seven complaints of inappropriate touching from female students over ten years. All dismissed for 'lack of evidence.' Hunting accident—arrow through the throat. His own arrow, impossible trajectory unless self-inflicted or placed. Justice served: March 8th.
And another:
Patricia Morse, 52. Social worker. Took bribes to ignore abuse cases. Four children died due to her negligence. Fell down her basement stairs. Neck broken. Blood alcohol level made the accident plausible. Justice served: September 22nd.
"How many?"
"Including Jake? Sixteen over five years. Not counting my parents."
"All predators?"
"Every single one."
I trace the entries with my finger, feeling the indentations his pen made. "This is your real art. Not the taxidermy or the violin. This."
"You're not disgusted?"
"I'm aroused."
He takes the journal from me, sets it aside. "You're extraordinary."
"I'm yours."
"Yes," he agrees, backing me against the wall. "You are."
His mouth finds my throat, teeth grazing where Jake grabbed me.
I can feel the bruises bloom under his attention, new marks over old.
Claiming me, erasing Jake's touch with his own.
"I can still taste his blood," I whisper.
"Good. Remember that taste. That's the taste of justice."
His hands are under my shirt now, tracing each bruise, each cut.
I have a map of violence on my skin, and he's reading it like braille.
"I wanted to make him suffer longer for these."
"We made him suffer enough. Together."
The word 'together' shifts something between us.
We're no longer killer and writer, protector and protected.
We're equals now, bonded by blood and choice.
"Bedroom," I gasp as his teeth find my collarbone.
"No." He lifts me, carries me to the bear skin rug in front of the fire. "Here. Where I first imagined having you."
The rug is soft under my back, the fire warm on my skin.
He undresses me slowly, reverently, like unwrapping a gift he's waited years to open.
Each new inch of skin is kissed, worshipped, claimed.
"You're so beautiful," he murmurs against my hip. "Even more beautiful with his blood under your nails."
I am.
I can see it in the mirror across the room—my pale skin marked with bruises like abstract art, my dark hair spread across white fur, my eyes reflecting the fire.
I look like what I am: a woman who chose darkness and found herself in it.
His eyes meet mine in that mirror, dark and hungry, reflecting the flames that dance across our bodies.
He kneels between my legs, his broad shoulders blocking the fire's heat for a moment as he spreads my thighs wide.