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“I couldn’t stop thinking about—” He stopped himself, and the way he looked at me then told me exactly how he planned on finishing that sentence. “What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” I didn’t want to tell him I’d been too busy thinking about him when I shouldn’t be, not when he couldn’t at least say the same. “I wanted to go for a walk.”
Brett was suddenly before me, his voice so low and smooth it fell on my ears like honey, “A walk, huh? You wanted to go for a walk in the middle of the night when you have a stalker out there who’d love to get his hands on you?”
All I could do was nod and say, “Yeah.” The word was a bit too breathless, but oh well. “What were you thinking about?”
His tall frame loomed over mine. “What?”
“You said you couldn’t stop thinking about something, but you stopped yourself before finishing. What was it?” Though he stood in front of me, there was still a foot between us… but not after I inched closer.
“I think you know what I meant.”
Swallowing, I whispered, “Maybe I don’t.”
It looked like Brett lifted his arms to place his hands on my sides, but just before he set them on me, he pulled away and turned his back toward me, saying, “I think you should go back inside, Charlie. Only monsters like to play at night.” And then, without saying anything else, he started to walk away.
The bastard actually walked down the porch and through the backyard, step by step until he marched around the swing set, eventually reaching the far gate. I couldn’t believe it. He was just going to leave?
No. Oh, no.
I did the only thing I could: I went after him.
Chapter Twenty-One – Brett
I shouldn’t have gone up to the house. I just couldn’t get Charlie off my damn mind, and I wanted… well, I wanted to do things my dream self had done to dream Charlie. The last thing I thought would happen was Charlie herself coming outside at the same time.
But she had, and the way she looked at me through the darkness…
Let’s just say my thoughts were the opposite of pure, and that’s why I told her, “I think you should go back inside, Charlie. Only monsters like to play at night.” I turned and walked away from her, away from the house, toward the woods in the back, beyond the fenced-in portion of the yard.
Only monsters liked to play at night. People like me and her stalker. She was the farthest thing from being a monster herself, and that was why I walked away.
She was too soft. Too fragile. I’d break her. I’d hurt her somehow. I’d prove to her and to myself that I was no better than the stalker she wanted my help with—and I didn’t want that.
But Charlie didn’t take the hint. As I pushed out of the fence and walked into the woods, she was on my heel, trailing after me, unable to listen to my order of going back inside. I made it to the base of the tree where my stupid treehouse was when I heard Charlie’s voice.
“I’m not afraid of monsters.”
I let out a haggard breath. With my back to her, I bit back a smile and said, “We both know that’s a lie.”
“Maybe it is.” She had to be standing right behind me, with how close her voice sounded. So fucking close it physically hurt me to remain rooted in place, to not turn around and face her. “Maybe I am still afraid, but I’m not afraid of you.”
Though it was probably a mistake, I spun around. My hands were fists at my sides, in a constant state of flexing and unflexing. Anything to keep them off her. “You should be,” I hissed out. “You should be terrified of me. You’re as big as my pinky finger. I could kill you in a dozen ways without breaking a sweat.”
I towered over her, my body as close to hers as it could possibly be without any part of me touching her. “I could walk into that house and kill both your parents without feeling an ounce of guilt over it. The things I could do to you, Charlie… you should be very, very afraid of me.”
“You’re right,” she whispered, but she didn’t move away from me. She didn’t take a step back to put more space between us. She simply gazed up at me, darkness crawling along her skin like it had found a new home. “I should be, but I’m not. I’m not afraid of you.”
It would be so much easier if she was, if she hated me, if she was anyone but the sad, sorrowful Charlie who everyone always overlooked. God, it would be so much easier if she was anyone else in the world.
But then, if she was anyone else, I wouldn’t be here.
“I want you to be afraid of me,” I hissed out, trying to sound vile and full of venom, but it was so hard when all I wanted to do was sink to my knees before her and bury my face against the crook of her neck. I wanted to breathe her in, memorize everything about her, so that when I didn’t have her with me, I could picture her easily.
“I think that’s a lie,” she murmured. “I think you lie a lot. I… I think we both do.”
“You want the truth? If you don’t turn around and go home, you’ll regret following me. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Charlie.You. You’re the reason I went to that house. You’re the reason I can’t think straight anymore. It’s all you.”
