The genuine fear in his voice throws me. “I’m fine.” I look at Nico, really look at him, and worrying he could hurt mesuddenly feels dumb because this isNico. The same guy who’s been grumpily standing outside the bathroom when I pee for the past couple of days, not someone who wants to murder me. I draw in a deep breath, holding it for a couple of seconds before blowing it out. “Is there any chance you’d do it?”
He scrunches up his face, and all that fear comes pouring back in.
“I can’t answer that,” he says.
“Seriously?”
“The possession changed me,” he says. “In ways I don’t understand.”
“You want tokill me?”
“I don’twantto.” He scrubs both hands through his hair, gripping it hard enough that it has to hurt. “Did you not get to that part in your required reading yet? About possession changing the brain?”
I do remember reading about how some people can’t remember who they were before the possession began, how some turn violent even after the entity has been removed because the entity’s rage is permanently encoded into their neural architecture. But no part of me wants to accept that this is what happened to Nico.
“Just because you’re not who you used to be, doesn’t mean you’re dangerous,” I say. “Donny wouldn’t leave you alone with me if you were.”
“Donny doesn’t think I’ll hurt you,” Nico says. “He believes I’m stable.”
“Doyouthink you’re stable?” I ask.
The pause that follows is too long. Way too long.
“I thought I was,” he admits.“Until you showed up.”
Bob snaps his teeth. Nico’s eyes drop to him.
“See? Even your dog knows something’s wrong with me. Animals always know.”
My thoughts are ping-ponging around so fast I can barely tell which one to focus on. Nico’s keeping his distance even though he could close it in two steps. There’s tension in his shoulders, like he’s holding himself back.
The ectoplasm amplified my feelings to the point where I could hardly think past how badly I wanted him. He was contaminated, too. If he was going to snap and hurt me, wouldn’t he have done it then?
I kissed him. Billy made him rape those women. Kissing him could have triggered him, but it didn’t. Even when I touched him, he didn’t snap.
He stopped.
Something clicks in my brain.
Could Billy have been the reason he stopped things and regretted them?
The panic on Nico’s face had only faded when he’d seen something I hadn’t, something I never figured out. I hadn’t taken that angry look in his eyes seriously until he’d left the kitchen and I was pulling my shirt back on.
But maybe he hadn’t seen anything at all.
He must have looked panicked because he was trying to fight off anything Billy left inside him. Billy must still be in his head, not possessing him anymore but still haunting him.I wasn’t his Griffin. Hedidwant me.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” I say.
“Are you sure about that?” he asks.
I nod. “If you wanted to, you already would’ve.”
He drags a hand down his face, giving his head a disappointed shake.
“I keep telling Donny,” he says. “I can’t control myself around you. I can’t be alone with you, but he’s not fuckinglisteningto me. He’s acting as if he knows me better than I do.”
My pulse is jumping. I’m suddenly back in my kitchen, trying to process the gun Stanley Daniels aimed at my chest.
