“But I had to choose to do this.” Now his voice has that commanding edge again. “I did it for Donny. I owe him everything, but I also had to buy into the pain. Accept that this work would hurt me in ways I couldn’t imagine, and I had to own it, or else I wouldn’t survive it. I’m good at taking pain.”
Is he saying I’m not? I lived through watching my family die. I survived one year sleeping in abandoned buildings and underpasses, and two in a car. I’m still here, aren’t I?
I can feel my brow scrunching because my traitorous face justlovesto broadcast everything I feel. “I can take pain.”
“You can.” He says it like a fact, not a compliment. “You wouldn’t still be here if you couldn’t. That’s the only reason I’m not fighting Donny harder on keeping you here.”
I do everything I can to push the disappointment away before my face can betray me. “You still want me gone?”
“Donny won’t want you to go, not when he knows how powerful you are.” He takes a step toward me, and I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact from where I’m sitting on the bed. “You need to decide whether you want this. Not because Donny wants you here, or because you have nowhere else to go,but becauseyouwant this. This job will take from you until you have nothing left to give.”
The warning hangs in the air between us. I focus on that, and pointedlynoton how much Nico still doesn’t want me here. If I give up now, what was the point of Dad holding that plastic in his teeth so I’d have a chance? Did I really survive two years of living in my car just to give up because I’m scared?
I need to be useful. Do something that gives worth to my life. If I can’t do that, these thoughts are going to win.
“I can do this.” I stand up, closing some of the distance between us so he can see I’m serious. “I want to help people so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
I also want to look that Game Master motherfucker in the eye and drag him into one of those jars, kicking and screaming.
His eyes hold mine for a long moment. Whatever he finds there seems to satisfy him, because his shoulders drop. “Good.”
He’s standing so close that I can see the gray ring around his irises. Close enough that if I reached out, my fingers could brush the front of his shirt.
I remember what I told DJ earlier about blowing off steam, and suddenly the concept feels a lot less theoretical. Because Nico’s standing in my room, in this small space between the bed and the door, and I’m looking up at him, wondering what it would feel like to close that distance. To find out if touching him would quiet the noise in my head the way I think it might.
If I’m being super honest, the main appeal of sex with Dylan was always the shower, bed, possible food, and how the whole thing made me feel numb. Most of the time, I’d be convinced that everyone is a liar and sex never feels good unless you’re a man, but then, every once in a while, Dylan would hit a spot, or my body would respond in some rare and unexpected way that felt good. I’d get a glimpse of what other people say sex feels like.Or at least what they say it feels like in the movies. I’ve still never orgasmed with a man before.
I have a feeling that sex with Nico would feel good.
The thought makes me feel ridiculously transparent. I hope he can’t tell what I’m thinking. What’s wrong with me? He’s only just stopped actively trying to get me to leave. He might not hate me anymore—at least, I hope he doesn’t—but he definitely doesn’t want to blow off steam with me. He’s the team leader. He’s serious and focused and probably hasn’t thought about me that way for even a second.
But God, he’s so beautiful. Even with that serious look on his face that tells me he’s working through something in his head, there’s something about him that makes a tingling feeling spread all the way up through my body. His gaze drops to my neck. His throat rolls.
He steps back so fast he nearly stumbles, and heads for the door. I release a shuddering breath.
He pauses, back turned to me, bracing one hand on the knob. “If you don’t want to dull your senses, then we won’t dull them.”
He pulls the door closed behind him. Only then does Bob heave a sigh and relax.
CHAPTER 21
“Kate and Kenny? Together romantically? That’s insane. Kenny was devoted to me, and Kate would never do such a thing. They carpooled because they worked in the same building.”
—Interview with Rebecca Bleger, May 1979
“Benjamin,” Donny says, standing in the middle of the living room next to a corkboard he rolled in from his office. “Could you remind us of everything we know about Alan Morrow from when he was alive?”
“Yep.” Benji stretches his legs out in front of him. He’s leaning against the couch while sitting on the floor, between DJ and me. “Alan Morrow was born in 1947. The only child of Michael and Abigail Morrow, who were, at least according to Alan’s journals,notnurturing parents. Alan’s IQ tested at 116, which is above average but not genius-level—although he did consider himself a genius and referred to himself as such during interviews. Alan earned his bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania College of Technology. That’s where he met Maeve Sullivan. They were engaged for eighteen months before she ended the relationship, and he committed his first murder six months later. He worked as a safety inspector for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and lived alone until his arrest.”
“Of course he worked for OSHA,” Griffin grumbles. “Fucking bureaucrat.”
“What was his victimology?” DJ asks.
“His victims varied by age, sexual orientation, gender, and race,” Benji says, counting them off on his fingers, “but he always targeted bonded pairs. What I don’t understand is what drew him to each pair. It feels random.”
“He had to feel an emotional connection with each couple,” Donny says. “Morrow usually encountered them in his daily life. Perhaps overheard an argument between spouses, or somebody saying ‘I love you’ over the phone, and something about the interaction would trigger him. He’d witness a moment of genuine affection and feel compelled to destroy it, or see a couple fighting and decide they didn’t deserve what he’d lost.”
The randomness of it makes it scarier, like there’s no way to protect yourself except to never love anyone.
