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My face fell. “Mine would’ve killed you.”
A soft laughed bubbled up her throat. “We’ve proved that he won’t. He’s you. Just a version of you that never should’ve been and was forced onto you. You’ve tried to separate yourself from him for so long, because he means things you don’t like or want. But he has to want what you want. That’s how I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”
I’d never thought of the darkness that way. I’d never thought of it in any way other than a curse and monster.
“But mine . . .” Her stare fell to a spot on my chest, the smile that had been lighting her face vanished. “I don’t think it will be as easy. They aren’t my own, and they don’t want to give me up.”
Not a sound. Not a trace.
Feed the blade. Watch the light fade.
Pull her closer. Keep her safe, safe, safe.
It was an echo, like the beast was pacing in the furthest corner of my mind until he could take over again.
But we were in agreement.
I tilted her head back but paused with my mouth above hers. “When they’re dead, they won’t have a choice.”
I walked into Beck’s room a couple hours later and hurried to catch the burrito that was thrown at me.
“For someone who always tells me to announce myself, I can’t remember you ever knocking.” He lifted his brows and pointed a burrito at me before taking a bite of it.
“I’ll work on it,” I said as I shut the door behind me and entered his room. “What do you need to show me?”
He stopped chewing for a few seconds before continuing. Nodding toward the bed, he said, “Just sit, man. You don’t have to be so on all the time.”
I had a job to do. I wouldn’t relax until it was done. Couldn’t.
“I don’t eat when I’m working, Beck.”
“Don’t eat. Don’t sleep,” he murmured in a mocking tone. “Fucking robot.”
I wasn’t going to apologize for something I’d been trained to do my entire life.
“You know, it sucks,” he began, his vacant stare at a spot on the floor. “It sucks knowing the girl you love is getting paid to give herself to countless men. It destroys you when, after years of waiting for her to love you too, she falls for your best friend.”
I would’ve preferred he’d shot me.
Because this was slow and excruciating. And I couldn’t say sorry enough times for the pain in his voice when the girl he was talking about was a constant thrum in my veins.
Jessica, Jessica, Jessica.
Mine, mine, mine.
“But you know what the killer is?” he asked, finally looking up at me. “Is seeing how she’s changed you.”
I knew how she’d changed me. I’d just experienced it with her again. But I couldn’t think of what Beck had seen in the short time he’d been near us.
He gestured to the unopened burrito in my hand. “I’ve known you forever. I know you don’t eat when you have a job.” He shrugged and huffed. “I know. Jessica’s struggling right now and needed you. Yeah?”
I stared at him for a few seconds, wondering where he was going with this, then gave a faint nod.
“And you were there for her.” He shifted forward in his seat and dropped his voice. “When the fuck were you ever there for Lily when she needed you?”
I sucked in a breath, my mouth already curled in a sneer.
But before I could respond with what he already knew, the words caught in my throat.
