Chapter 22 #2
A thick, weighty silence follows those words, as my mind struggles to make sense of what he’s just revealed to me. Killing anyone who gets close to you.
“Have you…” I swallow. “Have you done that before?”
He pauses for another moment as my skin starts to feel clammy. I don’t need him to answer. I already know. He’s the reason no one ever called back. Did he really kill them all?
I feel sick to my stomach as I think back to the maybe ten dates I’ve had over the past three years. With all of them apparently ghosting me after just one date, I had come to assume I really was as annoying as Quill made me out to be. He’s done a number on my self-esteem.
Even when he was acting like he loved me, I always felt like the most annoying person on the planet with him.
Annoying. Bossy. Chirpy. Stupid. Nerdy. Ugly.
I’ve internalized every one of his words over the years. Is it any wonder I run after Quill even though he makes me feel worthless?
“Did you kill all of the… the guys I dated?” I ask, wondering why I’m kind of hoping the answer is yes. Just to prove myself wrong.
Maybe I’m not as annoying as I feel.
“Only a few of them,” he answers at last.
That’s the worst answer possible. None of them would, of course, have been the answer any sane, normal person would have wanted to hear, which probably means I’m about 75% sane, because that’s about the percentage of me that was wanting to hear that.
A not completely microscopic part of me, though, wouldn’t have minded an All of them. That would have been scary as fuck, and would have made me feel terribly guilt-ridden, but at least, I would have felt better about my own personality.
Everything’s fine! They didn’t avoid me because I was annoying, they were just dead!
Only a few of them was Quill’s answer, though. So… most of them did think I was annoying? And I’m also indirectly responsible for several guys’ deaths?
“Only the ones who wouldn’t listen,” clarifies Quill. “I beat up the rest and that was that. I don’t kill innocent people, Piper. Don’t worry.”
Right. I’m still sitting on his lap, wondering what the hell is wrong with him for talking so cavalierly about killing people. And also, wondering what’s wrong with me because I can kind of see his logic and I don’t entirely mind.
In fact, it feels almost… romantic.
What the fuck.
But one thing that definitely doesn’t feel romantic is the sudden, nauseating memory of Josh. What kind of a friend am I that I keep forgetting about him? What kind of a drug is Quill that I forget everything when he’s touching me?
“What about my… my friend?” I ask, searching for the word to describe whatever sleuthing partnership Josh and I had formed.
He scowls. “Since when do you have a friend?”
I seethe at his words. “I’ll have you know I have a lot of friends in college, and—”
I interrupt myself as he snorts, and I realize that if he knows about the ten guys I went out on dates with, and the birth control I’m currently taking, then he must know about them too.
“You have two,” he corrects me.
“Well, they’re very good friends, so that makes up for—”
Another snort, and I swear I want to punch him, but I remember how he reacted when I once gave him the tiniest half-smack on the shoulder.
“Two friends who don’t even know your last name.”
I ball my hands into fists in my lap, but for once, I can’t think of a thing to say.
“That’s alright, cricket,” he murmurs in my ear, and I shiver with longing at the old nickname. “I don’t have friends either.”
“You have Liam and Dane,” I snap, practically spitting out the words in distaste.
“Right.”
His head is in my hair, as if he’s breathing me in, and his arms around me have softened.
I know that any movement I make will have him tensing them around me again, and I don’t mind.
I don’t want him to let me go easily. I can’t tell if I want to sink into his chest or struggle again just to feel his iron hold around me.
“About your… friend,” he says, pronouncing the last word in distaste, and I blink in confusion before remembering.
Josh. Right. What the fuck is wrong with me for forgetting again?
“I’m not aware that he’s dead. If he is, I had nothing to do with it.”
I roll my eyes a third time in his shirt. What a roundabout way of telling me he didn’t kill him.
“When I saw him running away from you, I realized he doesn’t give a shit about you, so I let him live.”
“He does give a shit about me!” I blurt out defensively.
“He can’t choose his fight-or-flight response!
You know, Quill,” I add, blowing out my chest as I recite from my Psychology 101 textbook, “we all respond to danger differently. Fight, flight, or freeze. My response is to freeze. Yours is obviously to fight. And I guess Josh’s is to flee. ”
“He sure was fleeing, alright,” mocks Quill, his voice half-muffled by my hair.
“It’s not his fault,” I insist. “It’s a natural, automatic response to danger or stress, and—”
“Has anyone ever told you, cricket, how annoying you are?” he cuts in.
I gulp back on the surge of angry bitterness in my chest. “Yes. You have. Many, many times.”
A long silence follows my words, and I wonder if I’ve annoyed him yet again. I fight the urge to apologize, trying to remind myself, again and again, that he’s the one to blame.
I haven’t done anything but exist, have I?
But apparently, existing in Astley when your name is Piper Day is already plenty.
Against all expectations, though, he’s the one who apologizes.
“I’m sorry, cricket.”
“You’re what?”
He clicks his tongue, clearly unwilling to repeat a word that is not second-nature to him. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’re not that annoying. Well, not most of the time. You sometimes do really aggravate–”
It’s my turn to interrupt him with a cough, because I really want to remember only the first part of the sentence.
You’re not that annoying.
Coming from Quill, it feels like a declaration of love or something.
I cling to the words desperately, even though I definitely shouldn’t be clinging to anything coming from him.
I’m in such turmoil that when I speak out again, it’s with a lot more sarcasm than I mean.
“Do you need to go to the doctor or something? Because you’ve just apologized twice today, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize before.
First about my parents dying, which apparently you had nothing to do with—”
I’m still babbling on when he pushes me aside and stands up. At once I’m inwardly kicking myself, hating myself for my stupid big mouth that’s causing him to push me away.
And hating myself, too, because I should be doing a lot worse to him than saying a few snarky words.
But my skin is aching for his touch, and the sudden distance between us is like a punch to my stomach that makes my arms curl around my knees in quiet desperation.
Quill is facing the other way, staring at the wall as I look at him. I don’t dare to open my mouth, because if I did it would be to let out a whole jumble of apologies.
And that would be seriously pathetic.
I’m just settling on the words I can safely speak, something in the nature of Why did you bring me here and When are you letting me go when there’s a knock on the door. My heart seizes again as I realize it must be Liam or Dane.
Quill doesn’t notice my tensed-up reaction as he pokes his head out, hopefully shielding me from whoever is on the other side.
There’s a slight pause, then an intake of breath that I really hope is not a reaction to anyone seeing me. Then Dane’s quiet voice reaches me, and I shudder.
“You need to come with us. They made it very clear that if you don’t, we’ll be their next contract.”
Quill doesn’t answer, but I see his shoulders shrug.
Dane’s voice drops to a whisper. “You can’t go against them.
Not even you. They’d kill you in a minute.
Come on, Quill. If you come with us, they’ll listen.
They’ll give us a chance to make things right.
They said so. But first, they need to see that you do follow instructions, and that you respect their order to come. ”
“What if it’s a trap?” comes Liam’s high-pitched, wavering voice.
“Idiot,” scoffs Dane. “They don’t need to trap us. If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead. They wouldn’t take the trouble of calling us in.”
There’s a silence and even though I only see the back of Quill’s head, I can tell he’s in deep thought. “Fine,” he grunts at last. “Just give me a minute.”
He slams the door behind him, and I open my mouth.
This time, though, it’s not to question him about my predicament.
It’s to ask him about his. I’d gleaned he was in trouble from his conversation with Liam and Dane earlier, but I had no idea it was this bad.
It sounds like he’s in deep shit, and I have no idea why.
I also have no idea why my heart is racing, my skin is clammy, and I feel far more nervous than when I was scared a killer was after me.
He sees my open mouth and must guess at the flow of words about to leave it, because he makes a beeline for the duct tape, and before I have time to get three words out, he’s stuffing a handkerchief from his pocket in my mouth and sealing it with duct tape.
“Mmmphh!!” I cry out, bringing my hands up to rip off the tape.
But before I can, he’s securing them behind my back and trapping my wrists together with more duct tape, before doing the same to my ankles.
“Have something to take care of,” he mutters. “I’ll be back later.”
He walks toward the door as I stare at him, helplessly trussed up on the floor by the bed. Then he quickly comes back, gives me a hurried kiss on the top of the head, before heading back out, slamming the door shut behind him.
I stare at the closed door, wondering what the hell just happened.
And why the hell my panties are once more soaked.