Chapter 43
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
LINCOLN
I ’m an expert on emotions. I’ve been fascinated by them my entire existence. Studying them became my way of experiencing something I couldn’t otherwise have. Not the same way normal people do.
I became obsessed with understanding every single one of them to the point I could write an entire textbook on the subject. Expertly crafting them, mirroring others’ expressions when they are experiencing grief or joy. Desperately trying to understand them. Girls crying in my office, batting their eyes at me, falling for me because they thought I was such a good listener.
Now that they are unlocked, I have zero control over them. Every emotion in the human brain overwhelms me.
Summer’s platinum hair is tied up in a messy bun as she sleeps in the crook of my arm. The overwhelming love I have for her threatens to eat me from the inside out, and the hatred for her still simmers in my blood, haunting me like an evil spirit.
Split, as Summer calls him, is a deep, guttural hatred that vibrates in my chest. He is a palpable pain that radiates outward; even as I hold him close, a simmering rage flickers beneath the surface of his skin when I watch her.
Then, when she grimaces in her sleep, her tiny brow furrowing, I can’t help but think she’s so fucking cute and my love for her overtakes it. I hope one day that hatred can go away, but that’s something I need to work on.
She’s still sleeping as I open my laptop and write the experiences of my transformation from the night before.
I take a minute to identify and describe each emotion as they come rushing in, form, and settle within my psyche.
Guilt is what I’m focusing on right now. Guilt for stealing Summer’s innocence when she was young, for killing the innocent women Dr. Garcia left for me as bait, and Grant…
Well, he deserved it and, obviously, so did her father.
Summer’s innocence is something I can never give back to her, and I had no right to take it the way I did. She was so young, breakable and perfect, and I needed to soil her. I needed her to be as dark as I was.
Which I may have succeeded at.
Otherwise, I’m very much the same person I was before. I still maintain an objective world view, the same outlook, same dreams, same drive and motivation. With each passing day, I continue to identify myself as Lincoln Kennedy. Mikael Peters is gone, his identity being blended into mine, making me complete. Making me human in a way I wasn’t before.
Summer starts to stir beside me, so I shut my computer and slide under the blankets to join her. Once we got home last night, I changed her into one of my shirts, put her to bed, and kept her underwear off so I could have easy access to what’s mine. I also tended to Misty, cleaned her up and made her as comfortable as possible and, more importantly, did my best to keep her alive.
Summer smells like me, and I can’t help but run my tongue down her stomach. She runs her fingers through my hair as I pleasure her while she slowly wakes up. “Mmm. Lincoln, what are you doing?”
She slides the blankets down so she can see me, and I peer up at her. “Tasting you, baby. You taste so fucking good.” I press a kiss over her mark. “Everyone thinks you’re dead, Summer. So now I can do whatever I want with you. I own you now.”
She trembles when my hands move to her waist, and I pause as she peers down at me, intrigued.
Her bright blue eyes, full of love, curiosity, and fear, but no remorse.
No, my little liar is incapable of it. Now I need to see if she really does have deadly tendencies.
She is the true descendent of the scribe—I can see it inside her, flashing in the flicker in her eyes. The once-in-a-generation psychopath. If she ever makes a kill, I’m unsure if I can bring her back from what that will do to her. Yet she trembles at my words…
Fascinating.
So the question remains, is psychopathy hereditary? In Summer’s case, she had a traumatic event. Watching her father murder someone certainly did shape her, and watching my mother die at his hand certainly shaped me. But my hypothesis is a fourteen-year-old would understand that watching her father kill someone in her basement is not normal.
It was a sloppy kill, much like how I kill, with very little fucks given. I watched him toss her body into the forest. He didn’t realize I was in the house, but I was already there hiding in Summer’s bedroom.
I’ve never seen her react genuinely to it, even after watching Dani’s father go away for it a couple of years later. And that was over ten years after the killings of 2002.
He never fucking stopped.
I can’t let it fool me. Summer Landry is an extremely dangerous person and just lost her identity. She chose to suppress a memory instead of facing what her father was, and that makes her just as evil as he was.
I hold on to her calf muscles, and she slowly brings her legs down and wraps them around me. I suck on her sweet pussy until she can’t take it anymore. I grip her legs so she can’t move, and she moans loudly.
Everyone upstairs believes she’s dead, but luckily, they can’t hear anything down here.
Once I’m satisfied she’s had enough, I position myself over her body.
“You’re still scared of me,” I murmur. The build up of wet arousal tells me it’s not a bad thing, and who am I to pass judgment on her particular tastes?
“I think I’ll always be a little scared of you, Lincoln,” she says. “How do you feel right now? What are you experiencing?”
I draw in a breath and lay beside her. “Everything, baby. I feel everything . It’s so overwhelming, part of me wants to rip my skin off.” Since waking up a few hours ago, I’ve cried, laughed, and giggled. Every memory invokes an emotional response I lacked before. I’m like a child in many ways, experiencing things for the first time, like candy or potato chips, and I don’t just enjoy their taste, but adore them.
She runs her fingers over the bridge of my nose, examining me. “You don’t need your glasses anymore?”
I nuzzle my nose into her. “I can see clear as day. And don’t ask me to explain that, because I can’t. Sometimes science is unpredictable.”
“Is he completely gone?” A flash of sadness.
“He’s still inside me, but not the way it was before. He’s like a ghost.”
She crinkles her nose. “Do you still hate me?”
The usual dark shrill shoots up my spine and my stomach fills with acid.
I still hate her…in so many ways. “Yeah, I do. But I love you more.”
She purses her lips, not loving my honest response.
I kiss her neck, then her cheek, and work my way to her lips. “I need to emphasize the I love you more , though.”
“What do we do now?” she asks, staring down the dark hallway where Misty is hiding and recovering. A dark flash hits her eyes and her body stiffens. “Misty better still be alive.”
I can’t help but smile. “Yes, Summer, she’s still alive. You’re the only person I have any desire to kill. She’ll be rough for a while; she lost lots of blood, but she’ll be okay.”
She pushes herself up so she’s leaning back on my headboard. “Where is she?”
I study her curiously. “Would you care if I killed her, Summer?”
She narrows her eyes. “What do you mean? Of course I’d care.”
I squeeze her. “No, baby. You wouldn’t, not really. And that’s okay.” I gently brush my lips against her earlobe. “If I admit to sleeping with her, then would you consider killing her?”
Her pupils widen and she slaps my hand away. “No, Lincoln, I wouldn’t. Misty shouldn’t have her life ruined because she had a crush on you.”
Of course, I’m joking, to some extent. But Summer has psychopathy deeply rooted in her family history, and the scientist in me is eager to find out if she’s capable of it.
However, Misty is not the right subject for this. It’s time to let her go.
“Do you think she will talk?” Summer asks.
I shake my head. “No. She understands what she was a part of. If she’s smart, she’ll move away from this cursed place and never look back.”
“And what about the other members?” she asks. “Can you really keep me hidden?”
“We have to keep you hidden, Summer. Because they will kill us both if they see you, and I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for. You and I have the power to end this, but we have to be patient. We have to do it the right way.”