14. Cassie
CASSIE
When we leave the lawyer’s office, we head straight to the police station. Terry comes with us. He wouldn’t agree to let the police speak to us without him present.
The police ask their questions. Some stuff they’ve already asked—and Terry stops them with a reminder that they already have our answers—but mostly, it’s new stuff about Russell. I’m in a fog as I answer their questions. It still doesn’t feel real.
Afterward, Tor drives me home.
It’s a quiet drive.
So much needs to be said, but I don’t have the energy for it right now. He seems to get it.
Familiar dread creeps up on me at the thought of walking into the house and having to explain things to my mom, but when Tor pulls in, I don’t see her car in the driveway, so she must not be home.
Oh, good.
That buys me a little more time.
The sight of my front porch makes my heart ache, though. Memories of last night come back to me—when Russell was alive.
I decide not to go in that way.
My entire body feels heavy as I climb out of the car and make my way up the driveway. Tor follows me and stops when I open the touchpad to key in the garage code. The door starts lifting, and I duck under as soon as it’s high enough.
Tor follows me into the garage, and I climb the couple of stairs to the small landing where the garage door leads into the house. There’s not really room for two people at the top, but Tor follows me up anyway.
“Is your family home?”
I shake my head, turning the knob to make sure I don’t need my keys. My mom usually locks this door when we’re home, but sometimes she leaves it unlocked when she leaves since no one can get into the garage without a clicker or the code.
It’s unlocked, but I don’t open it yet because I don’t want Tor to follow me inside.
“I imagine you’ll have to tell them something when they get here,” he says. “If you don’t want to talk, tell them the lawyer directed you not to say anything right now.”
I turn around to face him. “Advice from the master liar. Guess I should take it.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining when my lies kept your pretty little ass out of prison.”
I shake my head. “What you did for me made me think I could trust you.”
A storm brews in his eyes as they narrow, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. “You can trust me. Why would you ever think that you couldn’t?”
“You weren’t honest with me last night.”
“Come on, Cassie.” He shakes his head, looking away from me. Then he looks back. “You know I couldn’t tell you what I was going to do.”
“Or what you did,” I state, my heart thumping as I hold his icy gaze. “After you did it, you came back to that motel room, and you fucked me. Don’t tell me that wasn’t calculated.”
His jaw tightens. Of course it was.
“How did you think I would feel about that today?” I ask. “Or was that not a consideration?”
“I considered it.”
“Of course you did. And did you think I would be happy knowing that the first time we really had sex, you had my ex-boyfriend’s blood all over your hands?”
He shrugs indolently. “I showered first.”
I glare at him. “This isn’t a joke, Tor. You took the life of someone I loved.”
Rather than look a damn bit sorry, he wraps his hand around my throat and pushes me back against the door. “Then we’re even.”
My breath catches, my heart rate kicking up as his grip tightens—not to hurt, just to threaten.
“Don’t get me wrong. Killing my brother is the most interesting thing you’ve ever done, and I understand why you did it, but I loved him.
He was my twin brother, which is inarguably a closer bond than you had with your first boyfriend.
I still chose you. As soon as I saw the gun in your hand and registered what happened, I knew I had to make a choice and stick with it.
I didn’t even try to help him—I helped you instead.
Because there was no doing both. If he lived, you went to prison.
I chose you over my blood, and you have had my undivided loyalty ever since, but I expect your loyalty in return.
You did good today, but I don’t love this wavering.
You loved Russell once, and that’s okay.
It was a long time ago. But if you’re honest with yourself, you know why he had to die.
Russell was not loyal to you. He was a danger to us both, and you know it.
I know this isn’t what you wanted, but it was the obvious solution to our problem.
And I can accept that you have complicated feelings about it, but make no mistake, Cassie. ” His grip tightens, and he leans in.
I swallow, looking up at him.
“I own your loyalty. I paid for it in blood.”
I swallow again, feeling the tightness of his grip on my throat as I do. “I didn’t ask you to do that,” I whisper roughly.
“I know. You didn’t ask me to do any of this. But you needed me to.”
“No. I could have just… taken the consequences. Told the truth.”
His thumb caresses the side of my throat.
“There were consequences either way. If you want a jailor, you can have one.” He leans closer, kissing the curve of my jaw, but the kiss feels like a brand, a taunt.
His voice is low and threatening as he murmurs, “Do you want to go to war with me, Cassie? You’ve seen how I fight.
Don’t you think it’s better to be on the same side? ”
“Would you hurt me?”
“Yes. But I wouldn’t kill you.”
He says that like it’s any kind of reassurance, and I would laugh if I could breathe.
He’s a fucking psycho.
My heart hammers in my chest, and the realization that I may be in deeper than I want to be settles around me.
“Let me go.” I grab his hand and try to pull it away from my throat.
His hand doesn’t budge. “I don’t want to fight,” he tells me. “I just need to know that I can trust you. There’s a lot on the line right now.”
“I won’t tell on you,” I say, panic rising as I pull harder at his wrist, and his grip only tightens. “Please, let go.”
His grip eases, but it’s not because of my pulling. It’s because he’s granting my request.
He brings his other hand up to caress the side of my face, but that on top of his grip on my throat—I feel completely caged in. “I’m sorry if you’re hurting,” he says. “I knew you wouldn’t be happy, but if I’m being honest, I thought deep down you knew I’d do anything for you.”
He’s crazy if he can think that while he’s threatening and choking me. “Then let me go.”
“Not that,” he says, a bit apologetically. “Anything else, though. I’ve got you.”
“I didn’t mean…” Since this isn’t working at all, I decide to try a different tactic.
Instead of resisting him and trying to pull his hand away, my touch gentles.
Tentatively, I reach for his waist. I keep my eyes locked with his as I pull him closer until our bodies are touching.
Instinctively, he leans closer, and his forehead meets mine.
“I didn’t mean that,” I say quietly. “I just meant my throat. That’s all I meant. ”
He lets go of my throat, his hand finding the other side of my face so he’s cradling it. “Show me.”
I don’t understand what he means at first, but there’s heat in his eyes. He may be on the psycho spectrum, but he does want me. That part is definitely true.
So I give him what he wants.
I close the distance between our mouths, and at the first brush of our lips, he takes control.
It’s not the first time he’s kissed me, but it’s the first time I’ve known there’s probably a reason he shouldn’t.
It’s the first time he’s tasted my resistance and rejected it.
It’s the first time he’s really kissed me as himself.
This kiss makes the others feel a little like performances, and my mind races, but my heart does, too. There’s an intensity to his kiss this time, a demand. It’s not something he’s giving me, but something he’s making me give him. The dynamic is completely different.
He breaks the kiss to look down at me, his gaze appraising, maybe a little skeptical. It feels like I’m taking a test, but I studied the wrong book.
I can’t tell if he finds what he needs, but his mouth drifts closer. He steals a kiss just to see how I react, then he takes another, longer one.
He pulls back to look at me again. He keeps doing it—pushing me, kissing me, seeing how much I’ll give him. When his palm squeezes my breast through my shirt, I’m not sure if my heart is racing from excitement or fear.
I get the feeling he’s deciding how far he wants to take this, and I’m terrified because he’s in the driver’s seat.
Whatever he demands right now, I’ll give him—not because I want to, but because I’m afraid not to.
Because I’m realizing he might be dangerous in a way I didn’t expect, and I don’t know how to navigate it without getting hurt.
He tweaks my nipple through the fabric, and I gasp, drawing his observant gaze back to my face.
I think he knows he could fuck me right now and I wouldn’t stop him, but maybe he also knows I wouldn’t want it.
Maybe that matters to him. After everything with his brother, surely it does, but none of that feels relevant to the decision he’s making now.
His voice is low, husky with desire when he murmurs, “Do you forgive me?”
My heart sinks, but I don’t even have to think about my response before I nod.
“Yeah?”
I nod again.
“You promise?” he murmurs.
“I promise,” I whisper, my heart pounding in my throat.
This feels extremely unfair because I know there’s only one answer he’ll accept, and I don’t know what will happen if I don’t give it to him. It doesn’t feel like it should count, but he accepts my forgiveness—even if he forced it out of me.
“Good.” He seals the deal with another kiss, and though his lips feel so tender, I feel the danger vibrating just beneath the surface.
He kisses me with so much care that my body gets swept up and pulled under his spell, but my mind pulls back, reminding me that this could have gone a very different way if I hadn’t given in to him.
I have to catch my breath when he finally pulls away.
His gaze is soft now, but earlier it betrayed a ruthlessness I must have known was there since the moment he saw his brother bleeding on the ground and didn’t move to help him.
I’m only really feeling it for the first time tonight, though.
I didn’t care about his brother. I was emotionally removed from his death in a way that made it easy to overlook the obvious, but my vision isn’t blurry when I look at this picture.
He killed someone in cold blood last night. Someone who hadn’t harmed him, who hadn’t deserved it. He did it for me.
And now, he’s holding me captive against my garage door and kissing me until I forgive him.
I’m kissing a killer.
I guess that’s true for him, too, but I can’t help thinking it’s different.
Not that it matters.
They’re both dead, and we’re both responsible.
What an absolute fucking mess.
I guess he’s satisfied now because he finally releases me.
He tells me to get some rest and that I’ll feel better tomorrow.
I intend to—rest, at least. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow.
Right now, I am depleted.
He lets me go inside the house, and I’m relieved when the door closes without interruption. I turn the deadbolt, knowing he’s still likely out there and heard it, but too drained to care. Emotionally, my body feels hollowed out, and energy? What’s that?
When I get to my room, I collapse onto my bed, my whole world spinning out of control. Lacking the will to reach for it, to even try to steady it, I close my eyes and lose my second battle of the night—this time, to exhaustion.