Chapter 8
My brain rockets, thoughts soaring through my head at a million miles an hour. Delicately I pick up my napkin, worrying the paper through my fingers as I stare at him, wide-eyed and quiet.
I don’t exactly have another option. And…he did just feed me. Literally made me a homemade meal instead of just popping something in the microwave like I would’ve done, even if my guest were the president himself.
“Okay,” I say finally, my voice quieter than I’d like it to be.
I clear my throat lightly, like that’s the problem instead of the overwhelming fear and anxiety thrumming through my veins and making me a little nauseous.
God, it would be such a waste to not get to keep custody of the food I’d just eaten. A crime, actually. Not just a waste.
So I suck in a breath and swallow the bad feelings in the back of my throat before meeting his eyes and saying, with more conviction, “I’m listening.”
I don’t expect the flash of approval, of satisfaction, on his face.
But it’s too clear for him to hide, even when he looks away and folds his hands, leaning his chin on them before he takes a breath.
“His name is—or was—Tyson Miller, and he killed four girls over the span of a few years. He killed them horribly, Saylor. I saw pictures of the last one, from last month. It was…” He shakes his head from side to side, obviously lost in the memory.
“If you knew my family and what I saw growing up, you’d know how hard it is to unsettle me with murder or gore..
” He unlaces his fingers like he’s nervous, tapping the knuckles of one hand against the counter under us.
“So you’re Batman with a chainsaw?” I ask, disbelieving. There’s no way he’s some vigilante going around punishing those the law doesn’t. And if he tries to make me believe that, I’m going to start looking for the chainsaw again.
“No,” Jed shakes his head fervently, the look on his face incredulously amused.
“No, not at all. I’m not very nice, and my friends aren’t either.
Though…if they would’ve talked me through explaining this to…
” He looks up at me, his blue eyes wide and doe-like, as if he’s the one caught in searing headlights instead of me.
“Well. Anyway, no, I’m not. And I’ve killed people who don’t deserve it, which won’t help this conversation, I’m sure. ”
He searches my face, looking for anything, and whatever he must see there causes his gaze to flick back to his empty plate.
“But I’m trying to explain about this man and why I couldn’t wait for you to leave first before I did it.
Normally, I’m sure there are no witnesses, unless I need there to be.
But he was leaving soon. That swamp? He used it for uh, a disposal site once.
Pretty sure he was visiting it before leaving, and I couldn’t let him leave. ”
“How do you know all this about him?” My curiosity gets the better of me, and the words pour out of my mouth before I can stop them. “If you aren’t Chainsaw Batman with an infinite list of resources and informants.”
“It’s a small world.” Jed just shrugs. “A friend of a friend told me. Even for my friends and I, killing children, doing what he did to them?” He shakes his head.
“It’s not right. If I hadn’t done it, one of them would’ve.
It was just unlucky timing that you were there and saw.
Though…” He finds my eyes again, pinning me in place and not letting me look away.
“I’d be lying if I said I regret meeting you.
I just wish it was under better circumstances. ”
My mouth opens, then closes. I swear I have a million things to say, from insults to one-liners to unfunny jokes that even I won’t laugh at.
But all I can do is look at him, as the admission zips around my brain like a trapped fly, and watch those ice-blue eyes stare at me with anything but a threat in them.
“Okay,” I say stupidly. Because I have no idea what else to say to that admission from him. I, for one, regret being there. I regret not getting out of the swamp when he’d told me to, though I have gotten a fantastic dinner out of it.
I just don’t want it to be my last dinner.
He searches my eyes for another moment, head tilted, before letting his eyes flit away once again, to focus on something I can’t see.
“So I killed him. And made it hurt, the way my family taught me to. I’m good at that, though I never asked to be.
” Casually he shrugs one shoulder, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to admit your family members are also probably serial killing chainsaw aficionados.
I would be the one to go home against my will with a chainsaw lover.
“Okay.” I don’t mean to repeat the word.
But I don’t know what else to say. I feel numb at his declaration.
I feel as if the meaning only half-registers, the rest of it sliding off of my outer shell without sinking in.
All I can really decipher are the things he’d said about the man. About what he’d done.
But I don’t know whether I can believe him. Certainly he hasn’t hurt me, but he’s definitely kidnapped me, kept me here, wielded a chainsaw and—
“You could’ve killed me.” I don’t mean to say it, but I can’t help the words as they pour out.
“You could’ve killed me like, any time over the past two days.
” My stomach twists, nausea threatening to choke me.
“But you haven’t. Are you…” I search my mind for a question I can ask.
Anything I can say to somehow assure myself of my safety.
But how can I trust any of the honeyed words out of his perfect mouth after what I’ve seen?
“I know you don’t trust me.” He sighs, letting the words trail off with disdain.
“I wish I’d met you under any other circumstance, Saylor.
It would be so much easier to convince you if you hadn’t watched me kill someone.
I won’t kill you, and I don’t want to keep you here against your will.
But I don’t want to go to jail or risk that for my friends.. ”
His friends. He’s mentioned them more than once, and it sticks in my mind as something important as I sit gingerly back in my chair.
“Your friends…are they like you? Are they…?” I mime holding and swinging a chainsaw, and his eyes darken with poorly hidden amusement.
“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere near my chainsaw,” he informs me as I drop my hands.
“That’s not the kind of motion you make at all.
You’d cut off your own leg, princess—” He freezes, finding my eyes for my reaction, and I realize he thinks he’s fucked up with the nickname. That I’ll be mad or run screaming.
But all I can really do is stare at him and try to remember if anyone, even a man I’ve dated, has called me princess.
That, and I try to ignore the fact I don’t hate it whatsoever. I should hate it. It should feel awful, or at least weird. But I hope my face doesn’t betray the only confusion I feel is at the timing and the source. Not the intent or the word itself.
“They don’t have chainsaws lying around, but they’re like me,” he adds awkwardly, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Just not raised by a family like mine. They just…are.” He shrugs, and I have no idea what in the world those words mean.
But I also don’t have the guts to ask.
“You can’t be sure I won’t tell.” God, why do I say the stupidest things?
“Like, I could tell you all the things you want to hear. I could act like I won’t tell.
” The stupid words that are going to get me murdered just keep coming, no matter how much I want to stuff them back inside.
“Are you going to keep me here forever?”
“Well…” Jed sits back in his chair, eyeing me carefully.
“You’re not a very good actor. Especially when you’re afraid.
So if you try to come and tell me you won’t tell without meaning it, I’d be incredibly surprised if you can make me believe it.
Sorry, Saylor.” His smile really is apologetic, and he loosely crosses his arms over his chest.
“So I’ll just have to trust you when I think you’re telling the truth.
You’re right I’ll never know for certain.
I’m not a mind reader. And I can’t stop you once you’re gone.
But since I’m not willing to kill you, it puts me in a difficult place…
unless you get murdered by a coyote, a tree, a stray twig, or a leaf,” he amends quickly.
Am I really so pathetic that he thinks a leaf could take me out? I open my mouth to ask, then close it, realizing I don’t want to know. After the chainsaw safety lectures he seems full of, I’m pretty sure he thinks me capable of any stupidity in the world right now.
“What do I have to do to convince you I won’t tell the police? You know, since if I promise it now and go on about it, I know you won’t believe me?” My words are careful, and I don’t expect a real answer, even as his gaze slants to the side, thoughtful.
“You could stop trying to murder me with my own chainsaw, for one,” he offers, brows raised with gracious intent. “That would be pretty cool. I enjoy carrying you, but not when it’s to stop you from accidentally hurting yourself—”
“You could just say due to murderous intent,” I mutter, hating hearing, again, how I could’ve offed myself in my attempt to escape.
“Either way. You could stop trying to maim me with my own chainsaw. You could stop acting like I’m going to kill you every time you see me. Or looking for weapons over my shoulders while we talk.” He says it so casually. Like I’d been obvious in my intent.
It’s a blow to my self esteem that I’m not subtle, and I huff. “Aren’t you just bursting all of my bubbles tonight?” I mutter, the words more lighthearted than I expect them to be.
“Sorry.” His smile is wryly apologetic. “Why don’t you…
tell me your favorite color?” he asks at last, getting to his feet and snagging my plate from in front of me while picking up his own.
It feels wrong for him to cook and clean, and I know my mother is probably glaring at me from the afterlife as I let him scrape our bowls into the trash before running them under hot water.
She’d always been the one to preach good manners, under any circumstance. I’m sure even in this circumstance she’d preach good manners.
“Indigo,” I tell Jed, after a moment’s hesitation to consider the question. “My favorite color is indigo.”
“Why?” he doesn’t stop doing dishes as he asks, but does tap the toe of his shoe against the floor under him.
“I don’t know. I don’t think color preferences are a conscious choice, are they? Though I prefer cool colors, and the colors between other colors, if that makes sense.” I pluck at the napkin in front of me, eyes still fixed on his. “What’s yours?”
“Chartreuse,” he answers instantly.
“Oh, and you question my color choice? You should feel lucky I even know what chartreuse is.” Somehow, it’s easy to talk about things like this. Especially with the rewarding smile he throws my way as if it cost him nothing. Though, I guess it didn’t. He’s not the one watching his every move.
Or who should be, anyway.
“What’s your favorite food? I don’t want to make something you don’t like, so it benefits you as well.”
“Cheese makes the world go ‘round. It’s truly God’s gift to mankind.” I'm not really joking, and I watch as he turns to lean against the counter, his grin wide.
“I don't believe in God,” Jed admits, rolling his shoulders in the sleeves of his long-sleeve tee. “Sorry.”
I think back to the look of him in the swamp, with the chainsaw in his hands and blood covering him. “Yeah,” I sigh, hands dropping to my lap. “I guess if I were you, I might not either.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m staring down at his pillows, realizing for the first time that as this is the only bed in the cabin, it’s his bed.
I’d seen the blanket and pillow on the couch in the living room below and I can hear him there now, rustling around as he gets ready to sleep.
But I hadn’t realized that he’d let me monopolize his room and ensuite without even saying a word about it.
He hadn’t told me he was sleeping here too, or kicked me to the floor or sofa, like a guest deserves.
Instead, he’d given me this room, this bed, his shower, while acting like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to take the couch and be relegated to the small bathroom.
Jed had even revealed he’d grabbed a few days’ worth of clothes while I’d been knocked out, so he wouldn’t need to bother me with coming in and out.
But I’m too tired to argue with myself tonight.
Too tired to do more than sink into the mattress and let my head fall onto one of his soft pillows that smell like him and his sharply scented body wash.
I curl onto my side and stare out the dark window, thoughts reeling from our conversation and the things he’d said.
I don’t know what to do. My eyes close, thoughts hazy as I feel myself sinking into sleep while I listen to Jed move around downstairs.
What if he isn’t lying to me? I fade off with that thought in my brain, clenching blankets he’d slept on and a pillow that smells enough like Jed to assure any dreams I have will be of him.