His (16 page)

     Gav    

My kitten lay beside me in the darkness, trying not to move. And in the darkness my heart beat underneath the bandage, pumping blood to the place where she’d cut me. In the darkness, too, my shadow waited. It was there even when I could not see it, darker still when I turned off the light. I could not hide from myself in the nighttime.

Peter Pan cried when his shadow left him. It was up to Wendy to sew it back on, to make sure that his shadow would never leave him again.

If I could leave my shadow somewhere and never see it again, I would.

My shadow. It’s a darkness that creeps in, shutting out anything bright or good until all I can see is the one thing that will satisfy it and drive it away. It begins to take me over, and then all I see is evil. When I kill, it retreats.

I’m not crazy. I’m not schizophrenic. This isn’t a second self or something ridiculous like that. I’m not abdicating responsibility. My crimes are my own, and I wield the knife. My stomach growls for food, but I’m the one eating. My heart aches for relief, but I’m the one murdering.

No, the shadow is something I wear like a cloak, and like a cloak it grows heavier with each step until it’s unbearable. That’s when I kill. I kill. Me. Not the shadow. Still, if it were gone, I wouldn’t need the release that killing gives me.

Wendy was able to sew Peter’s shadow back on using only a needle and thread. Is it so impossible to think that she could cut it away from me with a razor?

     Kat    

When I woke up, it was dim in the room. The sky outside of the bedroom window was gray, the curtains glowing white at the edges. I longed to look outside, to see the trees now in the half-darkness. Half-turned on my side, I tugged slightly at the rope before realizing that I was still captive. The knot was still tight around my wrist.

Next to me, Gavriel kicked out. He’d fallen asleep on his back, leaving me to stare at the ceiling for hours before I finally was able to drift off into restless sleep. Now he was the restless one. He kicked again and moaned, the blanket yanked down around his waist, his body twisted.

Sweat soaked the front of his shirt, a half-circle of transparent wet fabric clinging to his sculpted chest. His brows were clenched together tightly on his forehead, an expression so painful it hurt me to watch him writhe. Both sides of his mouth turned down in a grimace. The corners of his eyes leaked tears that mixed with the sweat trickling down his temples.

Killer. Kidnapper. Torturer. But as he tossed beside me, moaning again in his sleep, he looked like a child scared of the dark.

He turned over again, a whimper escaping his lips. He murmured half-words I could not understand. Then one I could, a whisper so sorrowful it nearly broke my heart.

“Kitten,” he whispered, and moaned again.

My arm was tied tight, but I could reach with my fingers as he moved his head. I touched the top of his hair, my fingertips stretching to caress him.

He stopped moaning. Stuck in an awkward stretch, I continued to pet him on top of his head with only my fingertips. My nails ran through his hair, pushing back the black mess. His lips moved but now there were no words, just silent intonations.

Then he rolled over, his arm swinging across my body, and he clutched me tightly, as though I were a pillow or a stuffed animal from his childhood. His head rested on my shoulder, damp with sweat. His knee rested on my thigh. The weight of him was so real, so impossibly human.

Was he a monster? And was I a monster for caring for him? Even now, tied up to bedposts, I could not help but think that I was less of a prisoner than he was.

I tilted my head down and kissed him softly on the forehead. Hot skin, still moist with sweat.

“Sleep,” I whispered, and he obeyed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

     Gav    

The next morning I brought her breakfast in bed. Her eyes were bleary; she must not have slept well. Pity.

“Why don’t you untie me?” she asked, as I offered her a piece of buttered biscuit.

“I have to go,” I said. “I can’t leave you untied when I leave the house.”

“Where are you going?” She wasn’t eating; I was slightly irritated.

“Out.”

The shadow was back. It had come back in the night, after so many days of being chased away. I knew I had to find a new victim. Not to kill right away, but soon.

There had been a man I’d been researching. A politician, one who enjoyed whoring around and beating on his wife. He’d slept with his intern, too, a fourteen year old girl. She’d come out of the building once while I was there, her hair mussed, her eyes rimmed red with tears. I watched him as he spoke with her in the parking lot, threatening her, bending her against the hood of his Lexus. The thought made me shiver with dread.

Yes. That would do it. That would drive the shadow back. An indulgence, to kill twice in a month, but I deserved it for dealing with such a hassle. That’s all she was, my pet, a small hassle. I pushed the biscuit into her mouth and she chewed. Chewed, chewed and swallowed.

“What were you dreaming about last night?” she asked.

Her shoulders were relaxed, even tied up. Her lips were pink and tempting.

“I didn’t dream,” I said.

“You did. You were talking in your sleep.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Were they nightmares?”

My eyes snapped back to hers. Clever one, she thought she was. And she was clever, but not clever enough. I didn’t know what she’d heard last night. The screams of the man I’d been killing in my dream? The cries of my mother?

“No,” I said.

“What happened to your mother?”

It was a guess, nothing more. I could tell. She was pushing, trying to figure me out. There was nothing to figure out, little kitten. Push too far, and you’ll see the darkness. I tossed the last piece of biscuit back onto the plate.

“Goodbye,” I said, and stood up before I could get any angrier.

The shadow was already creeping up around, clawing its way back in.

     Kat    

Hours passed. I struggled to untie the knots at my wrists, but I only drew the rope tighter. Hunger made my stomach growl. I wished I’d eaten more for breakfast.

What if he was serious? What if he left to try to kill himself? What if I was stuck here by myself?

Fear ran through me, and I had no way to tamp it down. Normally I would pop a pill when I got too anxious, but there were no pill here. I couldn’t reach anything. The ropes tightened around my wrists and I began to breathe hard.

Calm down, Kat. Calm down. Don’t freak out. If you freak out—

The door downstairs opened, and I heard his footsteps coming up the stairs. He was whistling. Strangely enough, I was relieved. He opened the bedroom door and walked in, a bounce in his step.

“I come bearing good news,” he said, hopping to my side and leaning over the bed. He was—oh God, he was untying me. First my feet, then my wrists. I rolled my wrist, getting the circulation back. He whistled as he undid the last knot. I’d never seen him so… upbeat. I wondered what the news was.

“Put on a dress for me, will you, kitten? Do this one thing for me today.” He went to the closet and threw down the remaining dresses that he’d brought for me. “Whichever you want.”

I picked up the first dress I saw and a set of lingerie and stood up.

“No! Not in the bathroom. Here. Dress in front of me. You know I can’t trust to you do anything without me, kitten.”

He watched me carefully as I dressed, his eyes touching me everywhere. I still felt dizzy from the wave of anxiety, but as I dressed I felt better. The one I chose was the red sheath, a shorter dress that hit me just above the knee. He looked me up and down appreciatively and then came over to where I stood.

“Gavriel?”

He kissed me briefly, like he was kissing his wife hello. I didn’t know if he was pretending to be happy, or if he actually was happy.

“You look beautiful, dear,” he said. “Sit down. Let me brush your hair.”

I sat down on the corner of the bed, dazed by his good mood. He retrieved a hairbrush from the bedside drawer and sat behind me. His hands moved through my hair, the brush caressing my scalp gently. There were a lot of knots, but he worked patiently, never yanking the brush. His fingers were long, careful. He would have been a good surgeon, I thought stupidly.

“There,” he said. “Now let’s go downstairs.”

He led me down, his hand guiding me on the small of my back. We passed the statue of horses on the stairs; their eyes seemed to watch me as I went down. When I realized we were heading to the kitchen, I started back in panic.

“It’s alright, kitten,” he said, catching me against his chest. “You’re going to make me something to eat, that’s all. That’s all.”

I trembled and continued. What else could I do?

He sat at the kitchen table, where days earlier I had watched him kill and dismember the professor. He gestured toward the fridge.

“Make us something to eat,” he said.

I opened the fridge and looked inside. It felt so weird to look at what a serial killer ate. Everything was so… normal. Milk, eggs, orange juice, shredded cheese.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Are you good at cooking? No, I don’t care. Make us an omelet. You know how to make an omelet, right?”

“Sure.”

“There’s ham in the bottom shelf.”

I took out all of the ingredients and began to do what I had done a million times. Sometimes when I was cooking in someone else’s kitchen, I didn’t know where anything was, but everything in his place was exactly where I would have put it. Bowls in the side cabinet. A pan underneath the counter next to the stove. I greased the pan with butter and turned the stove to hot. He sat there quietly, watching me as I beat the eggs in a large bowl. Then I took out a knife to cut the ham into pieces. As I finished cutting, I looked up at him. He was watching me intently.

“Did you not want me to use a knife?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrows in a question.

“I—it’s a weapon,” I said. “I tried to kill you before.” As I held the knife in my hand, my palm grew sweaty. I thought about the razor and blinked the thought away.

“Are you going to try to kill me now?” he asked, smiling.

I shook my head. No, I wasn’t. I was—I didn’t know what I was doing. I put the knife down and sprinkled ham over the cooking eggs in the pan. Added cheese. Flipped the omelet in half, flipped it over to finish cooking.

“Your parents were on the news today,” Gav said. “The local station.”

I almost knocked the pan off of the stove.

“What—what did they—”

“They thought you had run away again,” he said. “They begged for you to not do anything stupid. To come back home.”

So nobody was looking for me. Nobody thought I was kidnapped.

As though reading my mind, Gav spoke again.

“Your friend thinks otherwise,” he said. “The one with the spiked hair and all the piercings.”

“Jules,” I murmured. It seemed like so long ago I’d been shelving books alongside her, making jokes about the terrible books people checked out.

“She’s the only one who thinks you’re kidnapped, though,” he said, shrugging. “Nobody will listen to a girl who looks like that.”

“Like
what
?”

“You know full well that appearances are all that matter in the world today,” he said. “The eggs are done.”

So they were. I slid the omelet out onto a plate, cut it in half, made two servings. Gav came around and poured two glasses of orange juice. The silverware clattered onto the table. We sat side by side. I cut my omelet into pieces, holding the knife carefully so that he could see it. He didn’t care, or pretended not to.

“Delicious. Wonderful meal.” Gav set his knife down onto his plate, crossed over his fork. “What do you want in return?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing, yet.”

“You’re saving up favors?”

“Maybe.” Truth was, I had no idea what I wanted from him. I wanted… I didn’t know what I wanted.

“I’ll never let you go. If that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“What was the good news?”

“Hmm?”

“You said there was good news. Was it that my parents aren’t looking for me?”

“Oh! Oh, no. Although that is good news too. No, I was out looking for the next man to give me some release. A hundred or so miles away from the last victim, so it’s perfect. You know, I don’t normally kill close to home. This last one was an exception. He was special. That was a mistake, I suppose. It’s how you found me, anyway.”

“You… you’re going to kill someone else?” My mouth dropped open and my fork fell against the plate. I didn’t want to eat the last bite of my omelet.

“Yes. Tonight, maybe tomorrow. I’ve already laid the groundwork. Finding out his schedule, his routine. They always have a routine. You know.”

“How—how many people have you killed?”

“A few. One every few months.”

“And you get away with it?”

“They rarely get reported as murders, thank God. Most of them are businessmen who have a thousand other secrets - tax evasion, for one. The police usually think they’re skipping town to avoid the bills from Uncle Sam. Or if they’re in disputes with the local gangs, or if they’re addicted to drugs. Lots of evidence pointing in all directions. Except toward me.”

“How many?” I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know, but my curiosity got the best of me.

“Are you going to finish that?” Gav reached over and forked the last piece of my omelet into his mouth. “You know, psychopaths really aren’t that dangerous.”

“Really.” I frowned. He was acting like it wasn’t a big deal. And he seemed so normal now, in the daylight. It made me feel sick. Sick that I had been falling for him, sick that even now, I didn’t know if I hated him or if I was pretending to hate him.

“It’s only around three percent of all violent crimes that are committed by psychopaths, you know.” He chewed on one side of his mouth thoughtfully. “The vast majority of murders are done by irate spouses, or gangs, or whatever. Not by people like me.”