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“Why am I here?”
Jefferies sighed. “I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now, Eve. You’re a very bright girl.”
“Because of your affair with Colette.”
“Bingo…but honestly, it’s only part of the reason.”
I waited for him to go on. He stood and paced in front of me, just like he did when he was teaching. The bastard was enjoying his captive audience.
“Well, when Colette told me what had happened with Soren, and how you’d given him the photos, I knew we’d come to this. My half sister is a little vindictive.”
My mind stalled. “Your half sister? Colette is your half sister?”
Jefferies nodded. “Yes, my father knocked up my mother when Colette was five. He didn’t leave her mom straight away, though. No, he dragged it out for years. When we finally started to live together, she was twenty and I was fifteen.”
“And now you’re having an affair with her…” I pointed out stupidly.
“No. She’s the one stepping out on me, sleeping with her husband. Our relationship predates everyone else in her life, not that anyone knows that. Soren doesn’t even know she has a brother.”
Nausea rose up my throat, and the effort to keep it down burned. “So, you were her first.”
Jefferies narrowed his eyes at that statement. “I’ve been the only one she’s cared about.”
I had no answer to that. Jefferies had lived a nightmare and had turned into one, too. There was nothing to say.
“She has her fun, as do I. Soren, she married for money, and he’s kept both of us very comfortable for years. But you and Beckett fucking Anderson had to go and ruin it all. Interfering,spying, sneaking around, speaking out…I bet you were proud of your little game of going to Soren and telling him about us. I bet you thought you could change Beckett’s life for the better?” He crossed to me in long strides and then crouched and got in my face. “And you have…just not the way you thought you would. Beckett’s not only going to lose his stepmom, but his little girlfriend, too.”
He pulled a long, wicked-looking knife from his belt and ran the tip down my face. “As for why you’re here in this house, I’m tired of rushing through my games and risking being interrupted. Campus patrols and well-meaning fucking buzzkills are on the lookout for ‘a predator who preys on college girls…’” He put air quotes around the last few words, taking them straight from theHeraldheadlines that had been splashed all around campus recently to raise awareness of the danger to female students.
“You’re the one attacking girls on campus,” I muttered. I’d suspected, of course, as soon as he’d grabbed me, but the nod he gave in confirmation was truly terrifying.
“I told you, I have my fun, and Colette has hers.”
“Why are you escalating now? How can you stay in Hade Harbor when you’re bound to get caught?”
He hesitated, looking off into a dark corner, lost in thought. “Because what used to be enough, isn’t anymore. The way it felt to slip a roofie in a water bottle in class, and then follow her home and have her while she was asleep and leave her to wonder if she just had a nightmare or not…it’s not quite cutting it anymore. That’s the thing about addiction. Your boyfriend could tell you that. You always want more.” He leaned in and inhaled my skin. “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
Before I could respond to that horrifying statement, a muffled doorbell rang.
Jefferies frowned and glanced upward, then stood, slipping his knife back in his belt. “Fucking Fall Fest. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon, Eve, and then we can get started.”
I held in my panic until he’d disappeared up the rickety wooden stairs, then sucked in heaping gasps of air. I was hyperventilating. I needed to calm down or I’d pass out. I dragged musty basement air into my panicking lungs. It wasn’t just the situation that was making me want to cry. It was the chain of revelations unfolding in my head.
I’d wanted to belong my entire life, finding my own life lacking. How stupid that seemed now, when I was faced with the very real possibility that I might never leave this basement. No one was searching for me. My mom thought I was staying at Lily’s. Lily thought I was working and then going home to my mom’s. My plans for the evening had been up in the air. I’d made all the most obvious mistakes that the leaflets around campus cautioned female students against.
My life had never been lacking. I had my mom and Asher, and Lily and her family. I had the Ice Gods, in a way, and I’d had Beckett. The man I belonged with.
Everything would have been different if I’d stopped this pointless tug of war between us, and just gone inside to wait for him. I’d let petty anger get in the way of what felt right. He’d called me a gold digger. So what? I’d called him a lot worse over the years. I knew I wasn’t one — and Beckett had admitted he knew I wasn’t one, either — and that’s what mattered.
I was loved. Ihadbelonged, I’d just been too blind to see it. But I could now. I really could.
If I had the chance to tell Beckett in person what I’d realized about myself, nothing could stop me.
But first, I needed to get out of here, before I never did again.
Jefferies stomped back down the stairs minutes later. It hadn’t taken him long at all to get rid of the Fall Fest visitors. Most families with young children used the local festival as a mini Halloween and went door to door with kids. The only difference was that the treats should be something harvest-themed, like candy apples and kettle corn. I had no clue what Jefferies was giving out to families.
“This fucking town with its cute traditions and spoiled middle class superiority. I can’t fucking stand it. Those idiots have no idea who really pulls the strings in this bougie hellhole.”
