Chapter 13 Streeter
STREETER
“Tell me what it’s like?” Remi asks, his knees pulled to his chest as he stares into the fire.
“Tell you what what’s like?” I have a feeling I know what he wants to know, but I need the words.
In a whisper almost too faint to hear, he says, “Killing someone.”
I lean more heavily against the couch, watching the shadows from the fire dance across his skin. It’s a harmless question, especially after what he saw me do. But if I tell Remi, will he still like me?
Stupid question. He saw me chop someone’s head off and blew me with their blood still on my skin.
Of course he’ll still like me. But that was a physical thing, when he saw me beheading Garth—terrible fucking name, by the way—and laying waste to the other fuckheads who were in the cabin.
He wants to know my feelings while I do it.
The truth is, I like killing. It makes me feel more alive, knowing I’m stopping someone else’s heart. My blood sings in my veins and my mind clears. When I have my Baddies blaring in my ears? The pleasure I feel is out of this world. Not as good as sex, but a close second.
Can I tell him all that? Will Remi make me feel bad about enjoying killing? Maybe he’ll think I’ll take his life too.
That won’t happen. I like my hummingbird too much to off him.
He’s shown me what I can have if someone trusts their pleasure to me.
He’s letting me give him the first real ecstasy he’s ever felt, and I want that for the foreseeable future.
He’s putting his literal life in my hands, and it’s a heady experience.
Besides that, Remi is good. Yeah, he saw me kill people and helped me move their bodies, but that can be chalked up to self-preservation.
Now, he actually likes me, so getting to know me could change his feelings.
Still, I don’t want to lie to him. He asked me a question, so I’ll answer as best I can.
“It makes me feel free.” He glances back at me, his expression unreadable.
“When I know I’m going to take someone’s life, I feel alive.
The first time I killed, I was light, fucking buoyant, as happy as can be.
I wanted to revel in it, to drench myself in my victim’s blood until I had the scent and texture memorized. ”
“Is that why you kept killing after the first time?” he asks in a curious tone.
I told Remi I’d killed seven people before I committed my first mass murder in this cabin.
All of them deserved it in some form for how they treated me, even the smallest of slights.
I moved from California, where there were too many people, too many instances where someone could piss me off and I’d snap, so I could try to be… normal.
Normal must be fucking overrated, because even in a small tourist town, assholes are universal.
Shaking my head, I say, “Yes and no. I think after the first person, I gave myself permission to let the thoughts of killing people free, and I wouldn’t feel anything when I was done. I thought killing would make me lose my humanity, but I don’t think I was born with any.”
“No?” Remi looks at me sadly. “I don’t know if that’s true. I mean… you showed me something different.”
Grinning, I lean forward and take his lips in a soft kiss. “Because you saw me, Hummingbird. Not what I did, but who I am, and you didn’t leave.”
He chuckles. “Where was I supposed to go? I was… scared. I didn’t want you to kill me too.”
“I won’t.” I thumb at his lower lip again. “I told you, I plan to keep you.” His breath is warm against my mouth as he sighs. “Are you still afraid of me?”
He does a strange combination of nodding and shaking his head. Then he stops and blows out a soft breath. “I don’t know. I mean, yeah, I think so. But also… I don’t… mind being afraid? I don’t think you’ll hurt me or leave me in the snow.”
Confused, I ask, “Leave you in the snow?”
Remi waves his hand towards the back door. “Yeah. With them.” Ah.
“No, I won’t leave you in the snow. Do you want to kill someone?”
I expect him to balk, to slide away from me and tell me that only monsters kill people for no reason.
Instead, Remi looks up at the ceiling as if he’s really thinking about it. For some reason, that sends a flutter through my belly.
No one, not even my last boyfriend, saw who I was. Camden doesn’t count since we clocked what the other person was almost immediately.
I’ve kept my desire to kill under wraps, not wanting to drag anyone into my shit for fear that they’d tell the police what I’d done if I broke up with them or if they were so inclined. But I killed for Remi. I don’t think he’d sell me out.
Remi is the perfect man—equal parts tough, sweet and malleable—but I don’t want to bend him to be my partner in crime. I don’t want to take away that innocent spark he has. I want to bend him to my pleasure.
A soft grin on his face, he says, “No. I don’t think I want to. The only person who’s been a dick to me is outside that door, over a cliff.”
“Over a cliff?”
He shakes his head. “Nevermind. He’s gone and there’s no one else I want dead.
” A heavy, pregnant pause fills the air before he says, “Trevor was never a good person. He was… I kinda liked it at first. That assholeishness. I like it when people are a little mean, I think.” I tick up an eyebrow.
“I thought it was a cute personality quirk, that it’d stop escalating once we were together. ”
“It didn’t,” I fill in.
“It got worse,” he murmurs, his head hanging.
He plucks at the threads of the blanket absentmindedly as he says, “Every time I let it happen, it got worse. Then I ended up here, on a fucking platter for his friends. If I’d been strong enough, I wouldn’t have given him the chance to bring me here, and you wouldn’t have had to kill him. ”
“Don’t feel bad,” I tell him. “I liked having five victims in one place. Cuts down on the rising gas prices.”
Remi looks at me for a few beats, then breaks into loud laughter. I join him, inching closer and pulling his legs down flat. I lay my head in his lap, looking up at his happy face.
He threads his fingers through my hair almost absently, like we’ve been doing this forever. “I bet it did. I guess I’m glad to be of service?”
Anger fills me as I think about why he’s here. “Glad I could kill them for you. You deserve better than that, Remi.”
“Hmm.” His tone says he doesn’t think so, but before I can convince him otherwise, he says, “I’m glad you killed them, though.
Trevor wouldn’t have changed. It wouldn’t have made a difference.
And if they’d… done what they wanted, I don’t think they would have stopped until I was nothing.
His friends were always so shitty to me, eyeing me like I was a piece of meat, and Trevor liked it.
I thought he was showing me off at first, but…
I should have known it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
It makes me feel better that they’re… gone.
” Remi looks down at me, conflicted feelings crossing his gaze.
“Does that make me a bad person?” he whispers, tears now brimming his eyes.
Reaching up, I swipe away the droplet that falls from his lashes. “No, Hummingbird. It makes you a survivor, and it makes them assholes.” I pause for a moment, then add, “Dead assholes now.”
He gives me a watery smile before he bends to kiss me gently.
When he pulls back, I ask, “What’s your favorite book?”
Remi starts, his face the picture of surprise. “You… want to know more about me?”
“Everything, Hummingbird.”
His smile is brilliant, warming my cold heart. Yeah, I’m definitely keeping him around.
“I… oh.” He bites his lip like I asked him to solve world hunger instead of a simple question. Finally, he answers. “I read this romance book recently called Anywhere But Down.”
“Why?”
He blushes. “It’s about two men who meet, and it’s like an instant connection. Only it turns out one of them is supposed to kill the other.” Remi’s expression goes faraway. “But they’re soulmates, so it doesn’t matter what was supposed to happen.”
I hum. “I’ll have to pick it up.”
A blush blooms across his cheeks. “You don’t have to. It’s just a silly book.”
“I know,” I say. “But I want to. I like to read too.”
“Yeah? What’s your favorite book?” The way he’s looking at me, with fucking heart eyes, sends off a strange sensation in my belly. I’m not sure what it is, so I push it down.
“It’s called Love in the Time of Death. It’s about—”
“Oh my God!” he exclaims, his face bright.
“I love that book. What’s your favorite part?
” Before I can answer, he says, “Mine is when the male love interest finds his girlfriend at the bar, and she’s kicking the shit out of the woman who got him fired.
That’s a ride or die right there. Or what about when… ”
Remi goes on to describe every part of the book, and I watch him with a smile on my face.
Not only can I talk murder with Remi, but I can talk books too? I wonder if he likes women of pop and R & B. If he does, Remi will be fucking perfect.
I’ll ask him later. Right now, I’m enjoying listening to Remi tell me all his favorite things about my favorite book.