Chapter 7 #2
But then—oh God, I knew it—his thick fingers reach toward mine beside my unused napkin, and for a treacherous moment my fingers open toward his.
I glance up. I can’t remember anyone ever looking at me with such sweet directness.
Oh no, oh no, I think.
“Maybe I overreacted,” he says. “Before.” And his voice goes lower, a little rough.
Oh God.
“I really like you, Tempest.” Everything shifts instantly into gold and fire, and my moronic heart is pumping scalding hot joy. “I know what I said the other night, and I know you said you aren’t looking for something right now. But I think I left that part out.”
I hear my own strangled breath.
He is about to touch me; I can feel the space closing between our fingertips.
Maybe I didn’t kill Adam.
Maybe I didn’t kill Adam.
I snatch my hand back. Joel follows it with his eyes, his brow creasing. He withdraws his own hand, blinks. He’s so transparent, the hope folding up behind his eyes. “Sorry,” he says. “Did I misread— ”
I stand up with such force I knock my chair backward and it rocks. I catch it before it can fall. He rises, too, mechanically. “I think I’ve really embarrassed myself here.” He pushes an agitated hand into his hair. “Please just forget— ”
“No,” I interrupt, barely above a whisper.
His eyes go to mine, searching. Why does he have to look at me like this?
Why does he have to look like this? The gentle kindness in his face that makes me want, with depraved compulsiveness, to see him orgasm, to see him grit his teeth against it, to push him to some frantic limit of pleasure and watch him lose his mind.
“No,” I say again. “You didn’t. I just. I can’t.” Don’t say it, I tell myself. I say it: “I want to.”
More than I’ve ever wanted anything, I think. I am in love with you. Goddammit. I need to stop thinking that.
“Then maybe— ” he starts.
I shake my head fiercely, cutting him off.
He gives a quick respectful nod. But he steps toward me. I step toward him. We are a foot apart, the smooth side of the table sliding itself against my jeans.
His eyes slip, weighted, from my eyes to my mouth, where I feel his attention pressing like it is a mouth itself.
Stop it stop it, shrieks my brain, a banshee’s warning.
Oh God, I can’t help it, I move reflexively toward him, tipping my face up.
I want to be drunk, to be oblivious. I want to fall into him, to forfeit my awareness, to be someone else.
I want it so badly it possesses me, claims my limbs, commandeers my frontal lobe.
I am ravenous, drowning. I am not responsible for what I’m about to do.
He bends down. As though he is being pulled by the force of my need.
There is nothing stopping him. Nothing between us except for a useless inch of air. I feel all my good intentions, the work of these past years, funnel through a terrible, narrowing chute.
You love him? something in me asks. Too quietly. But I still hear it.
You really love him? Then how can you risk his life?
Monster.
Murderer.
They would still be alive now.
But you killed them.
And you haven’t learned.
I wrench myself away.
I am responsible. I will always be responsible. Otherwise I’m unforgivable. Otherwise all of them—even if Adam somehow escaped, the rest of them—will have died for nothing.
I’m already unforgivable. But I have to be able to live with myself.
I turn and flee, leaving Joel at the table, strangers glancing up as I rush past.
I think I can feel his surprised gaze on my back. I must look ridiculous. Overwrought and childish. Cowardly. What kind of grown woman runs away from a kiss like it’s poison?
The kind of woman whose kisses are poison.
The kind of woman who will die without knowing what it feels like to kiss the man she loves, to feel his hands on her skin.
The kind of woman who is trying with all her fucking strength to do the right thing.
* * *
I’m still half awake, agonizing in the dark, at 1:14 AM, when Grub video calls me.
“I think I found him,” he says.
“The demon hunter?” I ask blurrily, wondering if I’m going to have to talk him out of doxxing some innocent Brooklynite who posts obscure fantasy novel references and once went to a party with one of Grub’s “victims.” I can’t deal with this right now.
“Dick Face.”
“What?” I am awake like in a cartoon where a bucket of water is splashed in someone’s face.
“I mean, I’m not positive. And I actually can’t even take credit, which sucks. My new stuff didn’t work. It was just one of the alerts. The timing is kind of hilarious. Like, is it fate?”
“What?” I say again, waiting for him to get to the point.
“So this one dude on a chat was out of his mind drunk, saying stuff about how he’s the king of the Dow or something. He was really pissed about Fabian Gila, that MMA fighter. Said he was murdered and he has to be avenged.”
“Whoa, whoa.” I’m sitting up on the side of the bed, kicking my feet into slippers as though I’m about to go somewhere. I take my feet back out, switch on my lamp. “But what makes you think it’s my father?”
“Someone started a fight with him, said he was full of shit, he flipped out and said he was actually a rock star, was the lead guy of— ”
“Deep Face,” we finish together.
The name of his band. The band that people (most likely not the highest-quality people) were obsessed with back in the day.
“No one believed him,” Grub adds.
“Except you.”
“I try to keep an open mind.” He’s picking a pimple, clearly looking at himself on his phone. He’s in the basement, as always, flopped on a black beanbag chair that has mostly deflated.
“Do you have any ideas about where he is?”
“I think I can figure it out. He’s been posting a lot recently. I’m gonna stalk him hard.”
“This is so nice of you, Grub, but let me help. Tell me where to look.”
“Okay, I’ll send you the stuff. But you know I’d do anything for you, Lorelei.” He says it in a cool voice, but I know how much he means it. “Oh, and also I started chatting with someone Dpow in my actual area. Literally tonight. Progress on all fronts.”
“Whoa, that’s— ”
But he’s too excited to pause. “What if it’s him, Lorelei? What are you gonna do?”
I shake my head, the hand holding up the phone wavering. “Wow. I don’t . . . I don’t actually know.” I think about it. “I have to go meet him. And, you know, pray he knows something.”
“We need to plan it out.” He swings himself upright, gangly elbows popping briefly into view. “You might only have one chance to get the truth. This could be the key. Maybe to everything.”
He always thinks everything is the key to everything.
“It’s just a guess,” I say. Rock stars definitely have power over other people. And he’s always seemed vaguely evil. But so do a lot of selfish people. “There’s no evidence that it’s related to him. That he’ll know anything helpful.”
“Yeah. If he’s just a regular, maybe he’ll at least sign your shirt and you can, like, sell it.”
I smile. “That’s comforting.”
“Maybe you should bring a bunch of shirts.”