Chapter 48
Sunny
God, I didn’t know how much I could love my own goddamn shower after being away from home for so long.
I turn around under the water and watch the droplets roll down, but a soft click has me turning off the shower immediately.
Narrowing my eyes, I grab a towel and wrap it across my body, then step out and walk into my room. I don’t even have to turn around to know he’s here.
“Xavier … what are you doing here?”
He appears from the shadows, hiding behind my door. “How did you know I was here?”
“I knew I recognized that scent in the air somewhere … but your footsteps gave you away.”
He places his hands on my side and leans his chin on my shoulder. “I just wanted to come and see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“You wouldn’t tell a soul if you weren’t. That’s why you kill.”
I sigh.
Why does he always see through me so easily?
“Foley told you what they did to me,” I say.
My eyes lower to the floor, my own body suddenly feeling like it doesn’t belong to me, but his hands on my waist ground me.
I swallow. “I have more rage in me than I can contain.”
“I can handle it,” he says.
“I am not lovable material.”
“I will adore every part of your body,” he whispers.
My hands clench into balls. “I cannot ever have children.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. I have enough if I have you.”
Tears well up in my eyes. I don’t ever cry, but dammit … this just might make me. “How can you so easily look past that?”
“Because I’ve always loved you, nothing will ever change that.”
I bite my lip in agony.
“Your struggle, your pain … I do not ever want you to feel alone. I am right there with you, every step you take. No matter how far off the deep end you go, I will not abandon you. Ever.”
I turn around in his arms as the tear rolls down my cheek, and his thumb reaches up to wipe it away. “And if you feel hollow, take whatever parts you need from me to make yourself whole again so I can love the emptiness away.”
Fuck.
After everything I’ve done, everyone I’ve hurt, he still refuses to let me go. How could I not be head over heels for a boy like him?
I wrap my arms around him and hug him so tightly it feels like my heart might combust out of my chest.
“What did I do to deserve you?” I whisper.
I lean back and grab his face and kiss him harder than I ever have before, and it brings a smile to his face.
“This is all I’ll ever need,” he says. “And maybe your heel on my chest.”
I snort. “That’s my good boy.”
I kiss him again and tug at his bottom lip with my teeth, but then he groans out loud.
“I actually came here to ask something.”
I pull away and narrow my eyes. “What is it?”
“Please go talk to Orion.” He sighs. “He’s been moping around the Tartarus House for so long it’s starting to piss me off.”
I chuckle. “Why? Because of me?”
“He had a very hard time with losing you all of a sudden.”
I didn’t know it would bring him down that much.
“He’s always been gloomy, but when you got arrested, it’s almost like he went back to square one. Depression.”
I frown. “Did he try anything?”
“No, but he was close. I could see it in his eyes. Please, just go talk to him. I don’t know how to get through to him, but you know exactly what to say to bring him to life.”
I smirk. “All right. Looking out for everyone, I see.” I peck him on the cheeks and go to my closet to put on some clothes. “I’ll go see what he’s up to then. Have you talked to Atreus yet?”
“He’s on Sam’s tracks,” Xavier replies. “Probably won’t be long until he calls.”
I throw him a bag, and he catches it just in time. “What are you waiting for then? My closet’s that way. Gather all the ropes, guns, and knives I need.”
A devilish grin slowly forms on his face. “Yes, ma’am.”
I crawl into Orion’s room through the window just as I did before. He’s listening to his music through his earbuds, completely oblivious to my presence as he keeps penning stuff down in that book of his.
I sneak up to him and block his vision with my hand, and he shrieks, so I cover his mouth too. He swiftly pulls out his earbud, and I whisper, “Don’t scream, pretty prince. Unless you want me to hurt you.”
Goose bumps scatter on his skin, and I remove my hand from his mouth.
“Please do,” he moans.
I chuckle in his ear. “Maybe later. After you’ve been a good boy for me.”
I snatch his notebook from underneath his pen and take a stroll to read through it, and he immediately jumps up from his seat to follow me. “Wait, don’t read that.”
“Why not?” I ask, flipping through the pages.
His entire face turns red like a cherry.
“Because …”
Every sentence I read feels familiar for some reason, and I can’t put my finger on it until I spot that one sentence at the bottom of the last page.
The sun scorches all in her path…
I want to burn it its flames.
Sun.
“This poem … is it about me?” I ask, and I hold up the page.
He licks his lips, stuttering, “Y-yes.”
He’s never stuttered before.
“All of them are.”
Holy shit.
I flip through the notebook again, page after page, an unending stream of consciousness about violence, bloodshed, pain, and … adoration. And I pause when there’s that same poem I heard last year, when he read it aloud to Ivy and her friends.
Oh, gentle verdant storm
Whisked away by madness
All that dares
Wilts and wanes
Shredded and torn
Leaves dance in tune
Spinning the world on its axis
Leaving a heart in ruin
My finger traces the words he wrote by hand. I left his heart in ruin because I ignored him.
I look up into his luscious green eyes, feeling so exposed that I forget how to breathe.
I was so full of anger whenever he spoke to me, I didn’t understand why, until now.
Death.
I hate the idea that it will one day happen to me, and it’s why I hate every birthday that I pass.
But he douses himself in the idea willingly, and it pissed me off … because how could anyone want to die?
It made no sense in my mind, until I actually got to know him, and the depth of the darkness that his soul succumbed to. Somehow, someway, I was able to pull him back from the nether with my wicked ways. I can’t let him slip back in.
“I understand now,” I mutter. “You’re in love with me.”
“You’ve been my muse for a very long time,” he says, running his fingers through his blond curls.
“What I feel for you is far more than love. I cannot write without you, breathe without you … exist without you.” He swallows.
“You are there in my mind with every waking thought and it consumes me to the point where I don’t want to live a life if it cannot be spent near you. ”
I clutch the notebook close to my chest.
A languished sigh follows. “But I knew deep down you would never see me the way I see you, and that made me want to destroy myself.”
So that’s why he drank so much and asked me to make him my next victim.
“Nothing felt worth living for. Until you,” he says.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you.” I grab his face and make him look at me. “I want you here. Alive.”
He leans into my palm. “I could … for you.” He swallows. “I can’t bear to lose you.”
“I know,” I say, pinching his cheeks so he’s forced to lean in as I pull him close. “But I don’t plan on going anywhere. No one will pin this bitch down.”
He chuckles, and I smother his insecurities with a demanding kiss that makes him groan impatiently.
“Fuck, I could get used to this,” he murmurs, kissing me back.
I lick the roof of his mouth. “Do not ever think of dying. No one is allowed to kill you except me.”
He moans against my mouth as he desperately wraps his tongue around mine, hands clasping my face. “That’d be the greatest honor, my goddess.”
Atreus
As I take off all the pins I’d put on my map and grab all the papers I’d gathered on the serial killer, a gust of wind filters through my office, sending some of them flying.
I turn to grab some, only to find myself staring right into the eyes of the woman who has been haunting me since I first saw her in the woods.
She’s wearing the same bunny mask she wore when she first stalked me as she grabs some of the papers off the floor and looks through them.
“Interesting pictures you have here,” she mumbles, filing them all into a neat little stack after she’s done looking at each one of them like she’s proud of her achievements. “Obsessive, wouldn’t you say?”
I pick up some of the papers strewn about. “I think we’ve both seen how deep it can run.” My eyes land on the set of knives she’s got sticking out of her boot. “Still intend to kill me?”
She narrows her eyes as she steps closer and closer, her heels click-clacking on the floor of my office. “Depends. Do you enjoy the thought of a woman being your end?”
I shut the door and lock it, smirking as my hand dives into my pocket. “Murder was only the beginning.”
She stops only when she’s right in front of me. “I should kill you for putting me in jail.”
THWACK!
The knife lands right next to my face, splintering the wood.
“But that would be a waste of such a pretty goddamn face,” she adds, smiling like the crazy woman she is.
Her eyes lower toward the gun I have pressed into her side. “It would be a waste to put such a killer woman behind bars.”
She tilts her head.
I tilt mine.
She grabs my collar and slaps me so hard I feel dizzy, then slams her lips onto mine even harder, and we wrestle for control, kissing each other like our lives depend on it.
My hand wraps around her neck as my tongue drives into her mouth, her lips curling around mine as I smash her against the wood.
Her knee shoves into my balls, and I groan out loud, only for her kiss to swallow me whole again. She grabs my shirt and thrusts her tongue down my throat, shoving my back against the wall so she can fondle me, and all it does is make me harder.
I should hate this woman.
I should.
She’s ripped away the only thing I ever cared about and replaced it with herself, and I don’t know how the fuck she did it.
But I’m smitten.
Absolutely fucking obsessed to the bone.
And I am done denying myself the pleasure of kissing her.