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Tate shook his head. “I spilled something on it, and took it off. I forgot it, that’s all.”
Tate kept a tight hold of his brother’s hand, but had begun rocking back and forth on his knees, staring at a fixed spot on his brother’s chest.
The place where his heart should’ve been beating.
“Then it caught up with me. The reality of what I’d done. I’d killed two people and for what? I got no pleasure from it, I got nothing. It didn’t feel like he said it would. I didn’t feel powerful, or proud so I did it to myself.”
Chad paused. “You tried to kill yourself?”
“I wish I had. I got scared. I knew what was going to happen, and I panicked. I didn’t want to die, I couldn’t even do that. When you came to the hospital, I thought you knew it was me, I thought everyone knew. I thought you were there to arrest me, but then you started asking questions about my attacker, and I saw the opportunity to get away with it.”
“Why kill Garrett?”
“I don’t know.” Tate let his brother’s hand drop. “Vincent said I had no other choice. I’d already killed two and he wanted me to kill a third, a fourth. I didn’t know what to do. I killed Garrett. I watched from a distance. He just fell asleep, he had no idea what was happening. I didn’thurthim. I didn’t hurt them and I didn’t hurt my brother.”
Chad’s hands slipped on Shawn’s chest. “He still isn’t breathing, Tate.”
“But I didn’t hurt him, and as soon as the ambulance gets here, they’ll get him breathing again, won’t they? They have to. He was only in there for five minutes. I don’t understand why it happened so fast.”
“He’s eight years old.” Chad glanced at the car. “It won’t take as much.”
“I changed my mind.” He looked up at the sky. “That has to count for something. I know what I was doing was wrong, but I’m not a bad person. I’m not. I’m not a serial killer.”
Tate held his hands out in front of himself, flipping them over, studying them while his face cracked, and his tears came. “I … I was just the hands for one.”
“They’re not Vincent’s hands, they’re yours.”
Tate dropped them by his sides as he stood up, and walked away until he was leaning against his car, watching as Chad battled on.
Chad’s muscles screamed in protest, but he didn’t stop his reps.
He had to catch his breath before he could breathe into Shawn, and he wiped his sweaty brow with the hem of his shirt.
“Come on Shawn, breathe, goddamn it.”
“I’ve killed him, haven’t I?”
Chad didn’t answer.
“Shawn trusted me. I drove him up here, said I’d be back and to put the heating on, and he did.Theyall trusted me, thought I was doing them a favor, giving them a ride home. They all turned the heating on. They all waited for me to come back.”
“And you didn’t, not until it was too late.”
“I didn’t touch them, or mess with the bodies. I knew Vincent would’ve liked it but I didn’t, I couldn’t—”
“Tate, you killed them. You may not have got the sick satisfaction that Vincent Whitehall got. You may not have cut them up and scattered their body parts in a sick game. But you still killed them. You killed them, and for what?”
“Because Vincent wanted me to. If you hadn’t have gone to my house…”
Chad looked up. “You did this, and you can keep lashing out all you want, but you have to take some responsibility. It wasn’t all Vincent Whitehall getting in your head. It wasn’t all me putting the pressure on you. Tate … you did this.”
Tate fell silent.
Chad growled at Shawn to breathe.
“You’ll keep trying?” Tate whispered.
“Trying?”
