Chapter 13 #2
“Making sure you’re warm,” he says as if “duh.” He kneels behind me, carefully ensuring that his coat is covering every inch of my exposed skin. His fingertips graze past my ankle and a light, feathery feeling fills my chest. For a second, I feel like I can’t breathe.
Nostrils flaring, I force the words out of my mouth, “I don’t need your stupid coat. I already have one.”
“Mm-hm. And as much as I love that flimsy excuse of a jacket you’re wearing, it’s not enough. I don’t want you waking up with a cold tomorrow. That and my mother raised a gentleman.”
I scoff. “Yeah, a gentleman who stalks people. And why do you even have a shovel lying randomly in your car?” I spin around, said shovel in hand, expecting to come face to chest with Theo.
Instead, he's still kneeling, a smirk playing on his lips as he tilts his head.
The sight sets something loose in my chest. Heat flushes my cheeks and something even hotter ignites at the pit of my stomach.
He slowly pushes himself up. Inch by agonizing inch. His eyes stay locked onto mine the entire time, as if daring me to break eye contact.
I don’t, obviously. My gaze remains fixed on him too. Unaffected. Unbothered.
The corners of his mouth pull up more, just the tiniest bit, revealing that fucking dimple again. “Firstly, I don’t stalk people, love. Just you. And secondly, given who I do stalk, I thought a shovel would be a good thing to have in case you needed it or forgot your own.”
He dusts a few snowflakes off the top of my head like everything that just came out of his mouth wasn’t completely and utterly psychotic.
I swat his hand away, and as he shifts, a sliver of moonlight cuts across the inside of his coat, just near the seam.
It catches on something. Two tiny, precise letters embroidered on the inside pocket: H.M.
“What does this stand for? Halfwit moron?”
Theo barely glances down. “Those are actually your initials,” he says all breezy. “H.M. Holly Moore.” It’s like he’s pointing out the weather.
My eyes widen. “You have my initials stitched into your coat?”
“It’s on all my coats. And shirts. And a few sweaters.”
I blink at him, stunned. “Why?”
He shrugs one-shouldered, effortless in his insanity. “So that a part of you is always with me. Right here.” He taps his chest, right over his heart. “Where you belong.”
For a second, my brain short-circuits. My anger stutters. The heat drains from my face. I swallow. Then I remember who I am. And where I am. And with who.
I rip the fuckass coat off my shoulders and shove it into his chest hard enough to make him stumble back a step. “You’re fucking deranged.”
His smile is like a shark’s. All charm and hidden teeth.
He rewraps it around me and uses it to tug me closer.
The tips of his fingers brush past my waist, sending a current through my bones.
A blade of moonlight slices through the trees, falling across his face, highlighting his sharp edges and making his blue eyes look darker than they actually are.
Like deep pools of glacial ice. Cold, unwavering and steely.
Unrelenting. No one ever says “piercing blue eyes” in real life, but Theo’s eyes are definitely the piercing kind.
The kind you can get lost in. And I guess I sort of do.
“I’m just trying to be helpful, Holly,” he says.
“I don’t need your help.”
He blinks at me. Once. Twice. Then lets out a laugh, sounding somewhat amused. Pushing my hand aside, he steps forward and kisses my nose. “You’re so weird.”
Shock glues my feet to the ground. My mouth gapes. Butterflies swarm my stomach. If I was angry before, I’m seething now. I’m going to kill him. This time I’m really going to kill him.
“If you want, I could teach you how to say thank you, Hollister. With a smile and everything.”
“Stop calling me that. I hate that nickname.”
“I know, but every other nickname I have in mind is too crude to say out loud at the moment.”
I throw his coat inside one of the empty graves.
Theo gives it a sidelong glance before meeting my eyes again. “That was new.”
“Does it look like I care?”
His eyes narrow. “Are you trying to provoke me?”
“I don’t need to provoke someone whose neck I can just as easily snap into two.”
Theo laughs and my heart riots at the sound. “That threat is getting a bit too old when it took you three years to stab me in the stomach.”
“Are you honestly trying to taunt me right now?”
“Not at all, love. It seems to me like you’re the one trying to get a rise out of me. Maybe you’re scared of what I might do if you push me too far. Or perhaps, excited?” He throws me a wink.
I’m almost impressed by his audacity. My gaze shifts to his stitched-up wound.
A bit of blood is still oozing out and seeping through the thin sweaty fabric of the white shirt.
I imagine touching it. I imagine cutting him up a bit more.
I imagine making him bleed over and over again until he can’t breathe.
The feeling is almost overwhelming. I imagine his blood running down my hand.
Warm and sticky. I imagine licking it. Tasting it.
Heat pools between my legs and a cold sensation moves down my spine.
When I look back up, I realize that Theo’s eyes haven’t left my face even for a second.
I grab a stone and throw it at his face. “Stop staring at me!”
He ducks as it flies over his head and falls into one of the graves. “Stop having a face worth staring at.”
I cringe. “Am I supposed to find that endearing? Is that what this is all about? You stalked me for three years —”
“Two and half,” he corrects again.
“— because you’re obsessed with me?”
His eyes hold a glint of something genuine, a flicker of an adoration I wouldn't expect from a cockroach, let alone Theo. “I’m not obsessed with you.”
I don’t believe him. He has to be obsessed with me. I don’t get it, but what other explanation could there be? I don’t know much about stalkers. Most of my knowledge comes from books and movies, but they all seem to have a single motive: a delusional belief in romantic destiny.
Jesus fucking Christ, what have I gotten myself into?
I want to laugh, or scream, or crawl into some hole, anything to escape this absurd reality where Theo Carter is obsessed with me.
A tremor of something — self-loathing, maybe, or the flicker of a possibility I don’t want to name — twists in my gut.
Theo Carter is obsessed with me? The thought is terrifying.
It’s terrifying, dizzying and…exhilarating.
I shake my head. This is not a good thing. He’s a fucking creep who knows I’ve killed people, and I need to make sure that none of this is going to be a problem after tonight.
I take a step back and ask him to retrieve the two bodies from the trunk of his car.
A shy smile curves his lips.
“What?” I ask, losing patience.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t make me force it out of you.”
His smile widens and he shakes his head, biting his lip to suppress it. “You’ll get mad.”
“I’m already mad.”
His smile widens and I swear I see a hint of a blush on his cheeks. “I’ve had this exact dream once.”
“What dream?”
“This. You and me. Out in the woods burying some bodies together. I can’t believe it’s finally happening.”
I stand mute for a few seconds. Great. No, this is great. Not only is my stalker a giant pain in the ass and the actual bane of my existence, but also fully psychopathic. Just what I needed.
“Although,” he continues, “in my dream, you were definitely wearing less clothing. So was I.”
My ears heat. A warm blush travels up my neck and another wicked smile lifts the edge of his lips. “You all right, love? You look a little flustered. Was it something I said?”
“Make another snarky comment and I will rip out your spleen from your fucking ass.”
His eyebrow arches. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
He tilts his head, grinning in satisfaction, the kind that only aggravates me more and gives my shoulder a soft nudge. “Such a little liar.”
“Get fucked.” I give his shoulder a harder nudge and he stumbles to the side.
Looking at me from the corner of his eye, he rubs his arm — to mock me, I’m sure. I didn’t even hit him that hard. The man is a manipulative narcissist who just tends to be a bit over dramatic at times, that’s all.
“Stop wasting my time and fetch the bodies. Now.”
He doesn’t quip back. No. This time he obeys like a good obedient boy.
Good. Maybe there is a functioning part of his brain after all.
He lifts both bodies out of the truck — one at a time — unravelling the cheap woolly Bed Bath not always, but sometimes.
“Now hang on just a minute. Let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Holly, you don’t have to do this.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll make sure not to draw any blood. This flimsy jacket isn’t cheap, and I look good in it.”
His eyes grow wide. “Wait —” Theo raises a hand and just as I’m about to lash out with the shovel to crack him in the forehead, a soft buzzing sound cuts through the cold air. My phone. I glance at Theo, the terror in his eyes slowly turning into barefaced confusion.
Panic claws at my throat.
Very slowly, I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone. One new message.
UNKNOWN: I told you to come alone, didn’t I?
No.
No, no, no, NO!
“What is it?” Theo whispers. When I don’t respond, he asks again. “Holly, what is it?”
I shake my head. “I-I don’t understand. I thought it was you.
It had to be you.” The accusation, born out of desperation and paranoia, now tastes like ash in my mouth.
Theo is standing right in front of me. His hands are right where I can see them, his phone is in my pocket, which means he… isn’t the one behind these messages.
Dread rises within me anew.
If not him, then who? The thought of someone else, someone unknown, someone utterly new, watching me, knowing my movements, sends a fresh wave of nausea rolling through my gut.
I look up to meet his gaze. The playful glint in his eyes is long gone, replaced by a deep well of genuine fear. My grip around the shovel tightens. “I don’t get it…I...the messages, the timing —”
Before I have a chance to finish my sentence, my phone buzzes again. Another text.
UNKNOWN: Roses are red, violets are blue, I have two sharp things and one of them is going inside you.
Attached below is a picture of a knife and a meat cleaver laid out on my bed.