Page 23 of Love You To Pieces

It feels not fair that a monster can be so beautiful.

When he looks at me again, lips still curled in a fox-like grin, it hits me just how blue his eyes are. Like the expanse of open sky we drove under for most of our trek through Texas, before the storm on the day we came to Wolf Lake.

“You are something, you know that?” He glances outside, like he’s searching for something, and as I watch, he closes the door quietly behind him. “Fox is looking for you. He doesn’t really know your name, so he’s just yelling and hoping for the best…this is where you tell me your name, by the way.”

“You first.”

I don’t expect him to answer, but his smile never even falters. “Deacon,” the man introduces. “Deacon Shaw. Adopted brother to the esteemed sheriff of our lovely town.” He rolls his eyes as he says it, as if suggesting he’s not so impressed by Fox’s position. The way he stressed the word adopted makes me silently question the importance of that. Does he not see his brother as true family? If he doesn’t, then why live here with him?

“I’m Sadie,” I admit finally, as he continues to stare at me pointedly. My grip adjusts on the knife again. “Sadie-Rae. Where’s my dog?”

“Not in here.”

“I got that, actually.”

“And you shouldn’t be in here either.” Ignoring the fact I’m holding a weapon, Deacon strides by me, brushing past within a few inches of the blade that I follow him with, holding it between us like it could possibly save me from him.

But stabbing him in the throat feels like it would be a damn fine deterrent to keep him from doing to me what was done to Ariana, so long as I don’t let him get a weapon first.

“A shame,” he repeats, reaching out to tuck Ariana’s hair back behind her ear. I make a choking, gasping noise as he does, pulling his unimpressed gaze up to me. “Oh, come on,” he tsks, rolling his eyes. “You saw her when she was still bleeding. And when we met, you were covered in the gore of a man who you ran through with a chainsaw; you still are. This is nothing.”

God, I wish he wouldn’t say that. It makes me unable to ignore how disgusting I am, and how badly I need a shower, though I push it down on my list of priorities once more.

“Where’s my dog?”

“You’re like a broken record.” He cups her jaw, turning the corpse’s face up to him like he’s studying her eye sockets. He even pries her mouth open in a movement that makes my stomach turn, and the whole time, Deacon ignores the knife still shaking in the air between us as my arm starts to ache from holding it up.

At last, I drop it, frustrated and curious. “What are you doing?”

“I want to see what they took and figure out why.” When he turns her head again, I see a wound I hadn’t before, and my heart almost stops bleeding when the gash on her neck gapes open like a second mouth, revealing bone and sinew underneath.

“Oh, fuck.” The knife comes back up, my movements jerky. “D-did you…” I trail off, swallow, and force myself to continue. “Did you kill her?”

Deacon’s blue gaze flicks up to meet mine, searching and shrewd. “She was never walking out of that basement alive, Sadie-Rae,” he says slowly, his hand leaving her face. With slow steps he circles the table, trying to remove the obstacle between us, but I don’t let him. I sidestep it, feeling more than a little uncomfortable about using Ariana’s body as a barrier for my safety. “She begged me to kill her.” He hesitates, his head tilting slightly, and I see a hint of cold cruelty in his gaze. “She asked you to as well, didn’t she?”

The words hit me like a physical blow and I stumble, having to grab onto the edge of the tilted table near Ariana’s hair to catch myself. “Stop it.”

“No, no.” He tsks, shaking his head. “She did. She begged you, didn’t she? Somehow she worked through the pain of having her tongue cut out just to form those words, hoping you’d end it⁠—”

“Stop it!” I hiss again, cutting him off. “Stop…stop talking about her!” I brandish the knife between us, the shaking so obvious it’s embarrassing. “You didn’t know her!”

“No, I didn’t.” He glances down, then back up at me. “But I know what suffering is. You couldn’t end hers, so I had to do it for you.” There’s a note of dismissal in his voice, along with the unfriendly taunting. “What happened, hmm?” I hate the way he’s goading me, and every word makes me want to stab him in the fucking throat. “Too squeamish? Too weak to end it for her, to give her one final act of kindness so⁠—”

“Because I’m afraid of being alone!” The words are out before I can stop them, and when I blink back against the hot pressure suddenly pressing against my eyes, I feel tears stream down my cheeks, blurring my vision. “So please, for fuck’s sake. Please don’t make me stab you. Where the fuck is my dog, Deacon Shaw?”

Deacon doesn’t answer. He tilts his head to eye me, as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “Are you going to stab me, pretty little rabbit?” he murmurs at last, reaching across Ariana’s body to tap the edge of the knife in my hand. “Are you going to cut me to pieces just like your friend here?”

“Stop it.” My stomach churns every time he mentions her, though I try to ignore how my hand shakes with both horror and exhaustion. “Where’s my fucking dog?”

“Not in here”—he spreads his arms with a sly grin on his face—“but you’re welcome to look around a little more. Don’t you want to know if your other friends are here too?”

A shiver trails down my spine, and a fear I didn’t know existed blooms in my stomach. I can’t look at Tyler again, though my mind betrays me by forcing me to remember his dead body in the cell where Pearl found him.

“No.” I move finally, realizing this isn’t getting me anywhere, and I stride around the table, trying to look bold.

God, I hope I look something other than scared. Even annoyed will do, instead of showing the terror that’s turned my insides cold. I don’t let myself hesitate as I stalk toward Deacon, and my knuckles are white against the blade from gripping it so tightly.

“Where the actual fuck⁠—”