Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
She looks at me like I’m a traitor and she can hardly stand the sight of me.
Then she shakes her head and stands up. “Goodbye, Brynn.”
I watch her walk away, but between the trauma fog, the swell of confused emotions I’m trying my best to tamp down, and my mind struggling to process this entire day, I don’t muster a response until she’s halfway across the lawn.
“Goodbye, Stacie,” I say softly.
Chapter Twenty-three
Brynn
“Thank you, Kylie. In other news, tragedy struck the campus of Calhoun University last night when a deadly fire tore through a fraternity house in the early morning hours, consuming the structure and claiming the lives of two students.”
Two pictures replace the still image of a house on fire, and my stomach sinks when I see Kyle’s face fill part of the television screen. The second boy pictured is the redhead from the basement who gave me the creeps. Apparently, his name was Arthur.
The news anchor gives a brief, polished blurb about each boy’s achievements, then goes on to solemnly conclude that the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
I jump when the TV turns off, filling up with dread as I look back at the man I can feel looming behind me.
I didn’t even hear him come in.
When I meet Killian’s gaze, I feel like I must have the power of Medusa because his eyes harden, and his jaw turns to granite. “Why are you watching that garbage?”
I swallow. “I was just… trying to find out what’s going on.”
“So you turned on the news,” he says wryly.
I can feel his guard is up. I can even feel him wanting to be mean to me, and I don’t know why, but I know I can’t handle it right now.
I don’t enjoy admitting it given the intimacies we’ve shared, but I’m feeling a bit afraid of him right now.
“What would you have me do instead?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level as I look up at him.
“You’ve got the primary source right here,” he states, his voice hard, not even bothering to feign innocence. “If you have questions, ask.”
I feel my eyes widening of their own volition. I try to stop it before he notices, but I’m sure I fail.
I don’t know what he expects from me anyway. I’ve never been in a position like this before. I don’t know what to make of it or how I’m supposed to react.
“So it was you,” I say softly, breaking his gaze and looking forward. Maybe it’s foolish to turn my back to him when I’m the sole witness to a couple of murders he committed with his friends last night, but it doesn’t feel dangerous. I don’t think he’ll hurt me.
“Of course it was me.”
I don’t know why I thought he wouldn’t own up to it.
I guess because it’s crazy. Doesn’t he know that?
“Did you… did you just start it from the outside and leave?”
“No. We went inside.”
We.
“Why?” I ask softly.
“Because we were about to set the house on fire, and there were a couple of guys we didn’t want to get out.”
My gut wrenches. I press a hand against my stomach, willing bile to stay down when it threatens to come up my throat.
“I get Kyle, but why the redhead? He feels like a random choice.”
“He was. We had two doses of the paralytic, and I recognized the redhead from the basement, so he had to suffice.” He grips the back of the couch, then leans down close enough that I can feel his breath on the shell of my ear. “As luck would have it, your buddy Aiden wasn’t home.”
A chill shoots down my spine.
Oh my god. He’s crazy.
“The paralytic?”
“I wanted them to be conscious of what was happening, but helpless to stop it. Just like you would have been that night if they’d had their way.”
My heart twists when he says it like that.
It’s immensely fucked up to imagine how horrifying their last moments must have been, trapped in a house on fire, betrayed by their bodies and unable to escape like everyone else.
But…
Maybe something is broken in my brain because while the gesture was horrifying, the way he frames it sounds almost… well-meaning. Protective.
He wanted to give them a taste of the medicine they tried to give me, and while that’s definitely not right morally speaking… there is some kind of poetic justice buried beneath the depravity.
It just also drives home the worst thought I had today.
That those guys are dead because of me.
Logically, I know it was their actions that started all of this, not mine, but it still feels… bad.
I swallow, trying to shrug off the guilt, but it keeps washing over me with the insistence of a waterfall.
“This is a lot, Killian.”
“I did it for you,” he states.
“But I didn’t ask you to,” I say, the passion breaking through. “I would never have asked you to do something like this.”