Chapter 33 #2
Bob rumbles against my ribs. I run my hand down his back, but his hackles are up and his teeth are bared. He looks ready to launch himself at Nico’s throat if I give him even half a chance.
Nico doesn’t move from the doorway. We stare at each other across the space. He stands there with his hands at his sides. I used to find his controlled stillness calming, but now it makes my skin crawl.
“Is it true?” My fingers tighten in Bob’s fur. “Have you imagined killing me?”
Nico stares at me, his mouth opening.
I need to hear him say it. “Is it true?”
“Yes.”
I recoil at the word.
“Are you happy now?” he snaps. “Got the confession you wanted?”
“Why the fuck would I be happy about that?” I cup a hand over the back of Bob’s head. “You killed seven people.”
“You think I don’t know that?” His shoulders hunch, and he still doesn’t move, but Bob’s growling gets louder. “Do you think there’s a single fucking day I don’t think about that?”
“Billy said you wanted to,” I say. “Is it true you went to talk to him because you couldn’t stop thinking about killing me, because I remind you of them?”
The blood drains from Nico’s face. “You talked to Billy?”
“I was worried about you,” I say. “I thought maybe he was manipulating you, and I was scared for you.”
I sound so naive. How stupid did I have to be to think that?
“What the fuck, Eden?” Nico steps forward. “Why the fuck would you do that? Did Billy hurt you? Are you okay?”
The genuine fear in his voice throws me.
“I’m fine.” I look at Nico, really look at him, and worrying he could hurt me suddenly feels dumb because this is Nico.
The same guy who’s been grumpily standing outside the bathroom when I pee for the past couple of days, not someone who wants to murder me.
I draw in a deep breath, holding it for a couple of seconds before blowing it out. “Is there any chance you’d do it?”
He scrunches up his face, and all that fear comes pouring back in.
“I can’t answer that,” he says.
“Seriously?”
“The possession changed me,” he says. “In ways I don’t understand.”
“You want to kill me?”
“I don’t want to.” He scrubs both hands through his hair, gripping it hard enough that it has to hurt. “Did you not get to that part in your required reading yet? About possession changing the brain?”
I do remember reading about how some people can’t remember who they were before the possession began, how some turn violent even after the entity has been removed because the entity’s rage is permanently encoded into their neural architecture.
But no part of me wants to accept that this is what happened to Nico.
“Just because you’re not who you used to be, doesn’t mean you’re dangerous,” I say. “Donny wouldn’t leave you alone with me if you were.”
“Donny doesn’t think I’ll hurt you,” Nico says. “He believes I’m stable.”
“Do you think you’re stable?” I ask.
The pause that follows is too long. Way too long.
“I thought I was,” he admits. “Until you showed up.”
Bob snaps his teeth. Nico’s eyes drop to him.
“See? Even your dog knows something’s wrong with me. Animals always know.”
My thoughts are ping-ponging around so fast I can barely tell which one to focus on. Nico’s keeping his distance even though he could close it in two steps. There’s tension in his shoulders, like he’s holding himself back.
The ectoplasm amplified my feelings to the point where I could hardly think past how badly I wanted him. He was contaminated, too. If he was going to snap and hurt me, wouldn’t he have done it then?
I kissed him. Billy made him rape those women. Kissing him could have triggered him, but it didn’t. Even when I touched him, he didn’t snap.
He stopped.
Something clicks in my brain.
Could Billy have been the reason he stopped things and regretted them?
The panic on Nico’s face had only faded when he’d seen something I hadn’t, something I never figured out. I hadn’t taken that angry look in his eyes seriously until he’d left the kitchen and I was pulling my shirt back on.
But maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all.
He must have looked panicked because he was trying to fight off anything Billy left inside him. Billy must still be in his head, not possessing him anymore but still haunting him. I wasn’t his Griffin. He did want me.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” I say.
“Are you sure about that?” he asks.
I nod. “If you wanted to, you already would’ve.”
He drags a hand down his face, giving his head a disappointed shake.
“I keep telling Donny,” he says. “I can’t control myself around you. I can’t be alone with you, but he’s not fucking listening to me. He’s acting as if he knows me better than I do.”
My pulse is jumping. I’m suddenly back in my kitchen, trying to process the gun Stanley Daniels aimed at my chest.
“You were a kid,” I insist, inching closer to him. “Billy used you.”
Nico steps backward, one hand shooting out to stop me.
“I’m sick of everyone acting like I’m above it.
I’m not the same person I was. I’m not stable.
Donny keeps forcing me to be near you when I’ve told him, I’ve told him over and over, that I still get the urges.
Any time I’m around you. I can’t get them to fucking stop. ”
It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard him speak. Even louder than when he yelled in the containment room. My certainty wobbles for just a second. One tiny stumble in my conviction.
All the emotion drains out of Nico’s face like someone pulled a plug.
“You know what I can’t seem to get Donny to believe?” Nico says. “Billy was right. A part of me did enjoy it.”
He lowers his chin and glowers at me, and suddenly, he doesn’t look like Nico at all. He looks like a predator wearing Nico’s skin. Goosebumps break out across my arms. My heart jackhammers, each beat echoing up into my ears.
“You’re trying to scare me,” I say.
“I’m being honest with you,” Nico says. “Allison—she was in my art class. I offered her a ride home from school. Drove her out to this service road in the middle of nowhere and strangled her with my bare hands. Lila was stronger than I expected. Grabbed a pen from my car and stabbed me with it before I could get her hands tied.”
He pulls back his hair to reveal a scar stretching across his forehead that his hair usually covers, from his temple to his hairline.
“Stop,” I beg, and the word comes out as a whimper.
“No.” He drops his hand, and his hair covers the scar back up.
“You wanted to know who you’re living with, so I’m fucking telling you.
Emily screamed so loud I had to punch her in the face to shut her up.
Broke her nose. There was blood everywhere.
You know what the worst part was? She kept begging me not to hurt her because her sister was waiting for her to come home, and I did it anyway.
I raped her anyway. I killed her anyway. ”
Tears are streaming down my face, and I can’t make them stop. “It wasn’t you.”
“Rebecca and Katherine Harmon were mother and daughter. I broke into their house at two in the morning. The mom heard something, came downstairs to check, and I hit her with a tire iron until her skull cracked open. The daughter heard her mom screaming. She tried to run, but I dragged her back upstairs to her bedroom and shoved her face into her pillow. I could feel everything when I raped her. Every second. And it felt good.”
“Billy did this,” I plead. “It wasn’t you.”
“How would you know? You think you know me?” He’s yelling now.
“You want to know how I know I’m not stable?
I feel nothing, Eden. I used to feel everything.
Too much, even. But now it’s just empty.
All the time. So I pretend. I’m really fucking good at pretending I have feelings because I know what people want me to feel.
I know what a normal person would feel, so I pretend, but inside?
” He jabs a finger into his chest. “There’s nothing there. ”
I try to back away from him, but he closes the space so fast that I don’t stand a chance. I stumble into the bookshelf, and he leans down toward me, his voice dropping so low that only I can hear. Bob snaps at Nico to keep his distance.
“I can’t be in the same room as you,” he seethes. “I can’t even look at you without feeling those urges. Something is wrong with me, Eden. So do me a favor and believe me when I tell you who I am, or else you’ll find out when I’m killing you.”
He strides out of the library and slams the door so hard the hinges rattle.
The backs of my eyeballs burn so much it’s like acid is pressing against them.
My knees wobble and I sink to the floor, setting Bob down next to me.
He spins around to stare at me. I press my fist against my mouth to muffle the sound, but it does nothing to stop the ragged sobs that rise in me until my shoulders shake with them.
I don’t know how much time passes before the door creaks open.
“Eden?”
I lift my head. Donny steadies himself on the door frame, a frown cutting deep wrinkles on either side of his mouth.
“You and I need to have a conversation.”