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All I could do was stare at the only person I had ever loved before Casey had come into our lives. My mind was having a tough time trying to come to terms with what I had just heard. “A serial…”
He slammed his beer bottle down onto the table, making it foam up, the bubbles stopping at the lip of the bottle before disintegrating back down into the liquid. “Yeah, babe. A mother fucking serial killer.”
I turned away from him and stared out of the kitchen window over the sink. Thoughts of what I was and the things I did were running through my mind. I looked down at my shaking hands and imagined them covered in blood. Her blood. I turned to leave, my feet taking long strides to get out of the kitchen. To leave the house. I didn’t have an idea as to where I was going to go. Too many thoughts were tumbling through my mind too quickly for me to latch on to even one of them.
I needed to get away. To get away from her. The only constant thought was to find the person who had tried to murder her and show him what a real serial killer could do. But most of all, I wanted to get away so that my stain couldn’t infect her.A fucking serial killer survivor.She would hate me.
“Stop!” His fierce growl had me pausing for a beat before reaching the door. I grabbed my truck keys and had my hand on the doorknob, ready to leave, when he grabbed me by the back of my clean t-shirt and slammed me up against the door.
“Don’t you fuckingdarewalk out that door,” he hissed in my ear. “Whoever had her is nothing like you, you fucking idiot.”
I grunted harshly, my daze turning into a blinding rage in a heartbeat. “How could you say that? I amexactlylike that. She ran away from someone exactly like me.” Already the rage was being overtaken by something I could only describe as utter pain. It began to rip through me as I kept imagining what horrors she might have gone through. “It could have been me,” I whispered.
He pressed his body solidly against mine, pressing me hard against the wood. “Sheneedsyou. She needs us. Both of us.” He choked on the words. “He murdered seven other women just like her. He tortured them before leaving their naked bodies to be found. For no other reason than he is a sick fuck that gets off hurting innocents.”
He slammed me back against the door, his words ringing in my ears even though he was whispering them through clenched teeth. “Does that sound like you? Does it?”
I choked, unable to answer him. My thoughts drifted to the bodies I had fed to his uncle’s pigs in order to hide the evidence of my kills. I thought of the pieces that I couldn’t feed to them, how I dissolved them in lye, burned them, then mixed what was left in the concrete I poured at my job sites. “No, I don’t leave my victims to be found,” I whispered.
“You fucking idiot. You don’t havevictims,” He spat out the word harshly. “They are monsters that you take away fromtheirvictims. You do something that law enforcement can’t when our fucking hands are tied. Yousaveinnocent lives. You don’t take them.”
Our heavy breaths were loud in the foyer as he growled the words in my ear. “I don’t—”
“Shut up. Just shut up! Listen to me, Brent. That sweet girl in there, the one that we are both falling in love with? That girl we want to make ours? She needs us both. He is still out there, and he could be looking for her right now.”
His words had me stiffening. Every muscle in my body went hard as stone, preparing to unleash the devil on the man that wanted to take her away from us. From me. I could take care of him. I could stop him from ever breathing air again, from hurting another living soul. It was me that could end him. Ethan would have to follow the law and take him into custody, where he would continue to live, to breathe, to eat, and to sleep. Where he could continue to want our girl. He would never stop. But I could stop him.
“Tell me what you know.”
We walked back into the kitchen, and he pushed me down into a chair. He grabbed a second beer out of the fridge, uncapped it, and handed it to me. I gratefully took a large swallow and then a second as I willed my hands to stop shaking. I clenched my fist and closed my eyes as I tried to forget the blood I had imagined coating them just a few minutes ago.
He sat down heavily and sighed. “There was an article that she had read on my computer. It had a condensed story about her, her name, the town she was from…” he trailed off, staring hard at his bottle. “How long she had been kept. Five days, Brent. Five fucking days. She was found outside his house naked, covered in blood. She was dehydrated but otherwise healthy.” He snorted. “Otherwise, healthy. That’s what the article said. As if not being tortured meant she was healthy. Fuck! It explains so much.”
“Her reaction inside the store.”
He nodded. “The way she always seems to be watching; always looking around.”
“How she kept her eyes on the door when she first got to town. Her back to the wall.”
“Yeah, she was trying to stay safe, scared that he would follow her. The thing is, though, she doesn’t know who he is. No one does.”
“If he were to walk right up to her, she wouldn’t even know it was him.” An icy chill ran up my spine.
“She needs us more than we ever thought.”
My mind circled back around. “But if she finds out what I am…”
“Ifshe finds out what you have done, we will make her understand that you are nothing like him. You protect the innocent by removing the monsters from their lives.”
I didn’t believe for a single second that it would be that easy. If she found out, it would send her running. I couldn’t let that happen, but at that moment, I couldn’t think of any way to stop it other than to tie her to the bed. I closed my eyes and breathed through the thought.
A quiet voice spoke up from the entrance to the kitchen, quiet and hesitant. “Is everything alright?”
We both straightened up and pasted smiles on our faces. I turned in my chair and caught sight of her dressed in a baggy t-shirt that she had to have pillaged from one of our drawers. My smile widened and turned genuine as she fiddled with the hem.
“I hope you don’t mind. I washed all my clothes earlier but fell asleep before I put them in the dryer.”
“Of course not, sugar.” Ethan stood up and walked over to her taking her hand, and leading her over to the table. She took the seat that had become hers since she arrived in our home, just yesterday. “You can take whatever you need from either of us whenever you need.”
