“What have you done?” the figure whispered.
Stop.
Breathe, Decker.
Decker Belmont.
Laurie Lane.
Neighbors.
Nathan.
He lay off kilter, leg skewed, white bone reflecting the change-igniting moon.
My friend.
Decker’s stomach roiled. He’d killed one of his own. Fed from him, like he was livestock.
Your body, my food, your body, my food, you came for Laurie, I had to do this for Laurie—
“Laurie,” he forced out raggedly. “Laurie, he—” What evidence did he have? What proof that this wasn’t cold murder?
Laurie would never believe him. Decker had to try.
Had to do it, had to, had to.
He was covered in Nathan. Wiping an arm across his mouth left his sleeve dark and damp.
Laurie blanched, his gaze flickering away to the claw marks raking through the wood next to the handle.
“I—I stopped him—he was coming for you,” Decker said.
Sinking his nails into his palm, Decker stepped back, his footing slick.
The preacher looked at him like a monster. Filth dripped from Decker as if he’d been baptized in scarlet. His shame-hollowed chest ached under the deep wounds.
“Go back inside, Laurie.” His voice caught in his throat. Decker wanted to taste Laurie, drain him and be done with it, never hearing his fluttering heartbeat again and maybe Laurie would be the end of him, and he wouldn’t even mind.
If Laurie sounded the alarm, would anyone from Ridgewater answer a call to help in the small hours of the morning? Would Decker attack him, protecting the creatures of Ender’s Ridge from what would happen if they were found out?
Laurie took a trembling breath.
Stepped off the wooden platform near the door.
Met the fading red of Decker’s eyes. “I will not.”
“Please.”
“No.” Laurie didn’t look at Nathan’s body.
Decker searched for words and only came up with exhaustion. “I’ll tell you.” Decker’s stomach clenched, nausea rolling through him, and he left a bloody handprint on the side of theGoose. “I need—I need Safi first. The girls went to the dance hall—”
“Decker—” Laurie’s voice was thin, desperate as he ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if he was trying to rouse himself from a horrible nightmare. “Decker, I don’t—you want them to see this?” He helplessly gestured at him, at the broken body at his feet. “What if—oh, God—” His face went pale and he bent over, hands on his knees.
The only danger to me is you, Laurie Lane. You are my undoing.
“They know,” Decker said, hollow.
