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ChapterTwenty
There was someone in my bed. My molecule in my being froze as it sensed the difference in the atmosphere around me. Slowly I moved my hand up beneath my pillow. The hilt of the knife I kept there fit perfectly in the palm of my hand just as it always did. The pattern the person was tapping out with the foot on my mattress was the only indication that they were tired of waiting for me to wake up.
“You can let go of that damn knife. If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it twenty minutes ago when I laid down,” Alicen’s voice reached my ears but did nothing to thaw out of the shell of ice that encased me as soon as I realized I wasn’t alone.
“Twenty minutes ago?” There’s no way the girl had been laying in my bed for that long without me knowing.
“Yep.” She said with an over exaggeration on the “p”. She had been full of nothing but attitude and sarcasm since the Dom and Angel incident. She still refused to talk about what happened with them or what was going on with her.
I couldn’t blame her. There were still a million and twelve things I didn’t talk about. Not with anyone. Fuck, most of the time there were things I didn’t even talk to myself about.
Don’t judge. There’s not a fucking thing wrong with talking to yourself.
“You’re losing your touch. If I’d been anyone else, I could’ve had you sliced and diced before you could even fight back. Does this mean you’re starting to get used to me?” She seemed to be a little perturbed by the thought of me being used to her.
I was still lost in my shock to even form an answer for her. I didn’t know whether I was used to her, trusted her, or just way fucked up by everything lately to sleep through her climbing into bed with me.
It had been two weeks since the car bombing with no answers on that. A week since I tortured Gio’s man and came up with no answers. That same amount of time since the last message between me and my shady ass uncle. It had also been two weeks since there had been any kind of naught interaction between me and any of the Valentino boys.
That was a travesty all its own.
My world was crashing, and I still felt as if I had no direction. I had a feeling things were about to hit the fan though.
I wasn’t sure why, but Jasper had put that last guy’s body on ice. He’d just told me that little nugget of information last night when he decided to give me a heads up that I would need to be on the lookout for Nico or his boys. He apparently delivered that little package last night. I wasn’t sure what his thought process was, but he was the one who disposed of the bodies ninety nine percent of the time. He’d probably kill me if he knew I was thinking that was his specialty, but in fact it was.
Once Nico saw his man, he’d be heading my way.
Now I was lying in bed flabbergasted that Alicen had been able to get into my apartment, into my bedroom, and then into bed with me without disturbing me one bit. I couldn’t even be positive it was her that had woken me up. There was a very large possibility that I’d simply woken up on my own.
Maybe she was right. I was losing my touch. I couldn’t seem to make anything else work out right. Why should this be any different?
“You couldn’t have sliced and diced me. I would’ve woken up as soon as you attacked for one. For two, you wouldn’t have been able to handle killing someone. You would’ve ended up throwing up everywhere as soon as you made the first cut.” Alicen liked to show the world a no-nonsense bad bitch energy, but I knew better than that. She might be able to handle herself when need be, but she was insecure, jumpy, and a little terrified of the world underneath all the black eyeliner and lavender hair dye.
“I could kill someone.” She sounded so sure of herself that I couldn’t hold in the deep belly laugh that shook the whole damn bed. This girl was hilarious.
“You kill someone? Who could you kill?” I asked between bouts of laughter. I was a big believer that anyone could kill if they had to, if they were put in a situation where they had no choice, but I couldn’t believe that Alicen would ever be the type of person to just go out and kill someone.
Alicen rolled over onto her side to face me. Her little hands pressed under her sweet chubby little cheeks. Her large chocolate anime eyes blinked at me. It was the serious look that stopped my laughter. Whatever she was about to say was something I wasn’t going to like. It was something that had been weighing down on her, and it was time for her to share it with me.
“You never know a person. No matter how much time you’ve spent with them. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them. People always hide who they truly are. Especially if whoever they really are deep down inside is a monster. There’s no way to tell how hideous their monster is until it’s too late.” She was no longer looking at me as she spoke. Her eyes were glazed over as she was lost to whatever memories were playing in her mind.
A helpless feeling came over me as I rolled to face her. I wanted to wrap my arms around her. Tell her she didn’t need to relive whatever happened. I didn’t need to know about her past. She could keep it locked down where she’d put those memories and never look at them again. It was a strange feeling to want to protect someone from their own memories. I couldn’t fight them. There was nothing for me to kill there. All I could do was sit back and let her take the lead here.
“You could know a person your entire life. See them every day. Think you know the kind of person they are. Then something happens to prove you dead wrong. Sam Holland is my next-door neighbor. We’ve lived next to each other forever. My mom has pictures of us together when we’re still in diapers. He’s an asshole for the most part, but I used to think he was mostly harmless. The type whose bark was worse than his bite.” Her body began to shake, and her eyes turned glassy from unshed tears.
I wasn’t going to like where this was going. I could already feel the rage building up inside. Sam was the person that I beat down into the ground on the day I met Milo. He’d been bullying my friend, and I just couldn’t stand back and let it happen. I hadn’t even known Milo then, but something told me I had to protect him.
That same feeling was working its way through me now. I needed to do something to protect Alicen. She deserved to feel safe and happy. Have justice for whatever was done to her. I wouldn’t let him continue to walk the halls of the high school with her.
Right now, though, all I could do was lay in the bed next to her and listen to whatever part of her story she wanted to tell me.
“Him I could kill. I wouldn’t even feel any remorse for it. I can still feel his hands on my body. The way he forced himself inside of me. I was trapped in my body, unable to do anything at all but lay there silently crying, screaming in my head, as he did what he did to me. I want to return the favor. I want him trapped inside his own body fully aware of what’s happening to him while I make him suffer.”
Bile moved up my throat as I thought about what she must’ve gone through. Nothing like that has ever happened to me, but at least now I knew why Jasper was so reluctant to tell me her story. He’d said it was something she needed to be ready to share. He knew all about what it felt like to be that kind of victim. This was something they shared, and it helped me understand why he had connected with her on such a deep level.
He’d also known exactly what I was going to do as soon as I found out about it.
I would take care of Sam the same way I’d taken care of Jasper’s father.
