Chapter Thirty-seven
Baxter
“When did you discover my existence?”
Owen frowned. “Something of a provincial start, but okay. I guess I can’t dictate what you ask. I found out a few months before our first… meeting.”
“How?”
He started a slow pace back and forth, apparently preferring it to staying still. “That’s question number two. My turn.” He made quite a show of pondering his question, completing six more circuits of his imaginary track before he spoke. “How did you come back from the dead?”
If he was going to play hardball with questions, then I would too. “Courtesy of a necromancer with special skills.”
“Huh!” It obviously hadn’t been the answer he expected. “How does that work? I thought necromancers could only bring someone back for a short time.”
“You used up your question,” I pointed out.
A flash of something that looked like anger crossed his face before he turned his head away.
When I saw his face again, it was gone. It reminded me that I didn’t know how volatile he was and that I should watch my step.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” I conceded to keep things relatively friendly, if you could ever class conversing with your murderer as friendly.
“The necromancer and I”―I wouldn’t use Calisto’s name―”we had a link.
One that gave me a foot in both worlds. He did something to bring me back, but even he wouldn’t be able to tell you what it was. ”
Owen threw me a malevolent look. “I should have words with this necromancer.”
“Words about what?” My gaze kept straying back to the knife, checking that it was still there.
“About him undoing my good work. Rather rude of him, don’t you think?”
“The ’good work’ being you killing me?”
“You took a long time to die.” The words were chilling in their simplicity. I dug my fingers into my thigh, the slight bite of pain helping keep my expression neutral. “I thought I was going to have to visit the hospital to finish the job.”
“Would you have done that?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. Owen hadn’t even needed to think about it. “Why?” I said. “Why did you want me dead so badly?”
“I didn’t know I did,” he said. “I followed you that day. Did you know that?”
I shook my head.
“I lived your life with you. Sure, I had a knife. But I hadn’t decided if I was going to use it. I wanted to see you. I wanted to understand what you were about, this twin who wore my face but who differed from me in almost every way.”
“Did I?”
Something dark passed across his face. “Like chalk and cheese, and I’m not just talking about who you choose to fuck.
You were popular. You were always smiling.
Always on the phone. Always talking to someone.
” Each thing he added came out with more bitterness.
“You had parents. A boyfriend. Friends. Everything I didn’t have. ”
“You resented me.”
He swung around, eyes glittering. “You were a reminder of what my life could have been.”
“So you followed me here.” I swallowed my nausea.
Owen smiled. “It was so easy. It should have been harder, right? You should have heard me coming. You should have swung around and seen my face. I would have liked to have seen the look of shock if you had.” He laughed.
“Imagine being confronted by the identical twin you didn’t know you had.
If I could go back and do it again, I’d call your name first and let you turn around.
Stick the knife in your gut rather than in your back. But hey, we all make mistakes.”
The nausea became a pressing need. He wasn’t sorry he’d killed me.
His only regret was that he hadn’t taken more time over it.
I didn’t know what I’d expected to get from this conversation, but it wasn’t that.
My gaze strayed to the knife again. Having it in my sights should have made it easy to get to first, but Owen scooped it off the concrete and into his hand before I registered him even moving.
He stood less than a meter away, knife raised, breathing hard. I wanted to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Coming here alone with him had been a mistake.
One that would likely result in my death.
Again.
Lake would blame himself for being tricked so easily.
Asher would shake his head and say he’d warned me.
Calisto would get that sad expression he wore so well whenever my name came up.
Leo, Silas, and Kendrick would forget me.
Hell, they’d probably already forgotten me.
I’d been nothing but a temporary blip in their working lives.
Cade would probably be secretly relieved that he no longer had to deal with the problem of my employment.
And my parents… nothing would change for them.
I’d been dead for nineteen years. I’d returned for one short, acrimonious visit, and then gone back to being dead.
Owen laughed, the sound long and low. “You look like you’re going to shit yourself, brother.” He flung the knife backwards with enough force that it sailed straight off the roof. “Happy now?”
I forced myself to breathe. In. Out. Deeper. Slower. It took five breaths before I had enough composure to muster words. “Yes.”
He swung around, heading for the parapet and peering over it. “Do you think I hit someone?”
“I don’t know.” I was still working on my breathing, the whole interlude with him lunging for the knife having sent my system into overdrive.
My heart pounded, I was drenched in sweat, and when I’d vomit had become the question rather than whether it’d happen.
I realized then that I’d gotten what I came for.
I’d discovered his reasons for killing me.
There was nothing stopping me from walking away.
The bar across the door was on my side; I could slide it free and be back with Lake, safe in his arms. Ben would arrive soon with backup.
Owen no longer carried a weapon, and it had been the threat of the knife that froze me in place—more than it should have, really—but that was the damn PTSD talking.
It was a mistake on his part. He’d given away his advantage.
I took a few steps backward. Before I could turn, Owen hopped up on the parapet. Arms out for balance, he took a few experimental steps, wobbling slightly. Then he looked over the side. “Jesus! It’s high.”
“We’re six floors up,” I pointed out unnecessarily. “You should come down.”
“Should I?” He turned my way and deliberately lifted one leg in the air. “Have you ever done yoga?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” The leg was still in the air. He lost balance, almost tipping backwards, his arms windmilling before righting himself. “That was close.”
I battled with how I was supposed to feel.
What was it to me if he plunged to his doom?
I should be happy about it. Well, maybe not happy.
I wasn’t a monster. But I shouldn’t have any strong feelings.
It was human nature, though, not to want to watch someone play Russian roulette with their life, no matter what they’d done.
“I’m going,” I said.
Owen flicked his fingers at me. “Yeah, you go.”
I took a few more steps backward, my gaze still locked on him. “I wish things had been different. I wish you hadn’t done what you did. And I wish you hadn’t gotten Jamie involved in it.”
Owen took a few more teetering steps on the wall. “If wishes were fishes.”
“What?”
“It’s a proverb. ‘If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets’. It’s about the impossibility of making wishes come true.” The wind picked up, forcing him to still his movement to brace himself against it so it didn’t push him off the roof.
“Come down. We’ll…” We’ll what? Have a cup of tea? Share some stories? That wasn’t happening.
“You haven’t asked me about my childhood.”
“Whatever happened to you, I’m guessing it wasn’t good, and I’m sorry—but that wasn’t my fault. I was a baby. It could just as easily have been the other way around.”
“I thought when you were dead that things would be perfect, that your parents would be glad of a replacement. It didn’t work out how I thought it would. They were a disappointment in each and every way.”
I laughed. “I could have told you that. That must have stung, believing that I had a perfect life and discovering that wasn’t the case. Maybe you were the lucky one.”
Owen swung around with fire in his eyes.
“No. No, I wasn’t. Don’t ever say that. Your parents might have been disinterested and not liked your choice of sexual partners, but did they ever lock you in a room for days with no food?
Did they burn you with cigarettes? Did they treat the dog better than they treated you? ”
With every word he spat out, the barriers came down, his innermost thoughts laying themselves bare.
“No,” I said softly. “They never did that. They were just disinterested, exactly like you said. And homophobic.” I stepped forward again.
I could do many things, but I couldn’t walk away from someone unveiling abuse.
Lake and I might have guessed something dark in Owen’s past, but the words were uglier said out loud.
“They stole you. How could they not have wanted you?”
“They didn’t steal me. Someone stole me to order. There’s a market for babies. I don’t know how much they sold me for, but I expect, given my age, I earned them a hefty amount.
“Do you know who it was?”
Owen shook his head. “I tried to find out. But it was too long ago. Even reading people’s minds, I met with nothing but dead ends.
It’s possible they don’t do it anymore, that they’ve re-routed to something more profitable like drugs or weapons.
Or that they do still peddle in children, but in another country. ”
“So you came for me instead. Why me? Why not our parents?” Owen shook his head. The barriers were still down, his thoughts coming to me loud and clear. “You wanted them to love you.”
His expression turned ugly. “Shut up!”
“You wanted them to feel so much guilt that they spent the rest of their lives pandering to you in every way possible.”