Chapter 30 #2
Cold dread slides down my spine. With the chaos of the fight, Griffin getting so hurt, all the vomiting, and my feelings being so all over the place, I’d forgotten what Ed—Morrow—had said. Or maybe my mind had tried to push the memory out of reach.
“He does think Griffin and I are a couple,” I say.
“He wanted to talk about love, before we fought back. Called Griffin my boyfriend.” I claw the memories back against my will.
As much as I’d rather focus on every aspect of Nico with him sitting so close to me, every detail we can get on Morrow is essential.
Morrow knew to trap us when I noticed the glob of ectoplasm. He didn’t wait to see if I’d shrug it off as some consequence of him not cleaning his kitchen. Whether he’s paranoid or smart, I don’t know.
What I do know is that there was no way he would’ve kidnapped us there, even if he did want us for a trial.
Not when we were in an apartment building surrounded by other people who have already complained about noise.
If we hadn’t noticed the ectoplasm, he would’ve let us go and found a way to get us later.
“I think he’ll be careful,” I say. “Why would he risk taking Griffin or me when he knows we can see him and hurt him? What if him saying he’ll see me again was to scare us off? He doesn’t want us to come back to the building in case we catch his trail.”
“Or he meant what he said,” Nico says.
“I told him that Griffin and I are platonic coworkers,” I say. Nico’s eyebrows draw together, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Kate and Kenny. “Whatever connection he saw wasn’t romantic. Maybe he realized that when—”
“Doesn’t matter what’s real,” Nico says, looking away. “Morrow believes what he wants to believe. If he thinks you and Griffin are together, that makes you both targets.”
I don’t love that I’m a target for another serial killer, but that’s not the thing that’s bothering me most right now. Obviously the serial killer thinking we’re a couple is bad, but my need for Nico to know that nothing is happening between Griffin and me feels more important.
“Griffin and I are friends,” I insist.
Nico’s quiet for a beat. “What about Dylan?”
I actually snort. “I’d rather drive a hot poker into my eyeball.”
Nico doesn’t smile, but his shoulders drop maybe half an inch.
“We could put a protective detail on him if you want,” Nico says. “In case Morrow gets any ideas.”
“Who would that even be?” I ask. “Benji in a sedan lurking around the construction site?”
“Benji needs to get over his fear of guns before I put him on anyone’s protection detail,” Nico grumbles.
“Could Morrow actually find people we know?” It’s not like he’s going to have Zoey’s ability to find every small detail about my life. “All he knows are our first names, and that we don’t really work in mold remediation.”
“Don’t forget, he died recently,” Nico says. “He’s been in prison for decades with little to do but listen. Stories circulate in every prison, no matter how high the security. About other inmates, mostly, but national cases, too.”
The silence is heavy. The scratching noise grows to fill it.
“Morrow doesn’t know who I am,” I say. With all the terrible things that happen in the world, there’s no chance he’d remember anything about me, even if he did hear about my family. He’d just think Stanley Daniels did it wrong.
“We have to consider every possibility,” Nico says.
My mind flicks to Bonnie all alone and vulnerable, with no iron walls or salt lines to keep ghosts out. I push the thought away. She wouldn’t be useful to Morrow.
I close my eyes for a second, giving my head a firm shake.
“Dylan doesn’t need a security detail,” I say. “He’d push me into a meat grinder with no hesitation. Probably wouldn’t eat me, but if he did, he’d complain I was too gamey.”
Nico presses his lips into a line.
“Dylan wasn’t a serious thing,” I say, because I want to make sure he really knows it. “Of course I like Griffin, but as a friend. Nobody cares about me that way. Unless you count Bob, but the Game Master would have to seriously switch up his M.O. to convince Bob to pull out his own teeth.”
“I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you,” Nico says.
My stomach lurches like I crested a roller coaster. He seems to realize how that sounded, because he adds in a more controlled voice, “Or Griffin. If Morrow wants you, he’ll have to go through all of us, and that’s not going to happen.”
The air between us charges with something that makes every nerve ending in my body stand at attention. Our eyes lock.
Oh God.
I push out of my chair, needing distance, needing air, needing anything other than sitting across from him while my body screams at me to climb over this table and grind on him.
“Want a Pop-Tart?” I hold up the box so he can see it over my shoulder.
“No.”
“Let me guess,” I say, “you’re one of those ‘food is fuel’ people who eat nothing but grilled chicken and sad vegetables?” His body sure supports that idea.
His chair scrapes. In seconds, he’s opening the freezer, pulling out a pint of ice cream, and grabbing a spoon, and then he leans against the counter opposite me. He takes a bite right from the container.
“I just take my poison a little differently.” He lifts the spoon in a mock toast, eyes not leaving mine.
I gulp as his mouth closes around the spoon, his lips gliding across metal, and I have to stop myself from making a sound. He makes eating ice cream look borderline pornographic.
He holds the pint out toward me. “Want some?”
I need some, to cool me down and stop me from melting into a puddle on the floor. I grab a spoon and step close enough to reach the pint, then scoop out the biggest chunk of cookie dough I can find.
“So.” I settle against the counter across from him. “Do you ever sleep? You were awake when you saved me from Billy a couple days ago. You’re up now. I see you running at ungodly hours of the morning.”
“You had to be awake to see me,” he says. “Do you ever sleep?”
It’s like looking at myself in a mirror. Albeit a funhouse one, and one that makes me look very tall. All that pain he’s trying to stuff down behind sarcasm and avoidance? I know that playbook by heart. It’s mine.
“I’m just saying you look tired,” I say.
“You sure know how to give a guy a compliment,” he replies.
I take another bite of ice cream, watching him watch me. He tracks the movement of my spoon.
My entire body heats under his gaze. It’s too much to look at him, so I focus on spooning a stubborn piece of cookie dough out of the pint like I’m some kind of ice cream archaeologist.
I want to know why he never sleeps. I want to know him so badly my chest aches with it, but I also know if I push too far, he’s going to shut down.
Once I trust I can look at him again without the skin melting off my body, I nod at his hands wrapped around the ice cream container. “I really like your tattoos.”
He holds his hand up to examine it, like he’d forgotten he even has tattoos. I catch a whiff of his smell, of mint and maybe pine sap clinging to his clothes. “Thanks.”
“That must have taken a long time to do,” I say.
Placing the pint on the counter, he pushes his arm closer to me so I can see. He flexes his fingers, the movement making the bones stretch and shift over his skin. “I did it myself.”
“Seriously?” I look up at him. “You tattooed your own hands? That must have hurt like hell.”
“I don’t mind the pain,” he says, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “It helps clear my head.”
My hand goes to my wrist absentmindedly, but I drop it before Nico can realize what I’m touching.
“I actually did all of them myself.” He tugs up his sleeve, revealing more ink climbing his forearm. “Started when I was seventeen.”
“How the fuck did you do all of these yourself?” I ask.
“Lots of mirrors. Had to draw some of them upside down or backward to get the angle right. The ones on my left arm were easier since I’m right-handed, but the right side took forever.
I’d sit for hours trying to get the lines steady.
Some days my hand would cramp so bad I couldn’t hold the gun anymore.
” He pauses. I don’t dare say anything, since this is the most I’ve ever heard him say in one go, and I don’t want him to stop.
“I practiced on oranges until I didn’t completely suck at it.
Art’s always been the one thing that made sense to me.
When everything else felt out of control, I could lose myself in it.
I don’t have any on my back. Just places I can reach.
Some of them look like shit, honestly, but it’s not like I can get them fixed. ”
I frown. “Why not?”
His jaw muscle jumps as he swallows. “I don’t like crowds.”
I nod, my brain whirring with the new information.
I know that’s not the whole truth. But I can also tell I’ve stumbled into a minefield and need to take a step backward before I blow us both up.
I lean my hip against the counter, running an icy hand down my burning face to try to cool it. “What’s your dumbest tattoo?”
He holds up his left hand, palm facing toward me. On the inside of his pinky knuckle is a tiny stick figure.
I squint at it. “Is that supposed to be a self-portrait?”
“Yes.”
“The resemblance is uncanny.”
A real laugh rumbles out of him. I absolutely beam.
I made him laugh.
He uncurls and flexes his hand, making the stick figure jump.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” I say, my voice throaty with laughter. “I want one.”
“I saw it on the internet and got inspired.” His eyes are on the stick figure, which is frozen mid-jump. “I used to want to make comic books.”
I picture a younger Nico, hunched over a sketch pad instead of pictures of severed arms, and it’s like a hand reaches into my chest and grabs hold of my heart.
“Did you do all the drawings in the field guide?” I ask, remembering the detailed anatomical sketches.
He nods.
“You’re really talented,” I say.
“Thank you.” He’s quiet for a second. “You have any tattoos?”