Christmas music is still playing from the record player, mocking me. I’m going to smash that goddamn thing.
I finally drag myself up to my knees to do exactly that, but then my gaze finds Krampus sprawled out on the hardwood. Blood pools beneath him, spreading slowly across the lounge floor. His eyes stare, sightless, at the ceiling. His chest has been ripped open by the shotgun blast.
My mouth falls open and tears gather in my eyes. I didn’t believe it, not really; I was still clinging to some fairy-tale hope. But now…
I crawl across the floor and kneel at his side, bending down to press my forehead to his cheek. It’s still warm. Hot, even.
“I’m sorry,” I cry to his corpse. “I should’ve… I should’ve done more, I…”
I collapse into helpless, racking sobs. Distantly, I realize it’s foolish to cry over this monster. Theodora probably saved my life with that shot, too. Krampus was never my friend, just a temporary ally until we achieved our shared goal.
He was terrifying. Focused. Determined to deal out justice, no matter what it cost him.
He was… everything I wish I was.
My fists clench in my lap. I shut my eyes against the flood of tears, head bowing, shoulders shaking as I cry.
I’ve always known that the world isn’t fair. I saw my lies, my theft, my cons, as a way of righting the balance, just a little bit. But my justice was selfish and small. Krampus was the real deal. He could have changed things in a way I never even dared to dream of.
He deserved better.
And I… I deserve to be punished. I was starting to crave it, even. There is a hollow ache in my chest at the thought that I will never receive whatever he had in store for me. I will never know what I deserved in his eyes. If my sins merit death, or if Ideserve absolution. Now I’ll be forced to carry the question—and the guilt—for the rest of my sorry life.
I sob harder at the thought. “It isn’t fair,” I whisper. Life isn’t fair. The truth I’ve always known. But for a moment, when I was with Krampus, it felt possible that it might not be true. “It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair…”
A massive hand closes around my wrist. I scream, trying to jerk away, but it holds me steady.
“Crying over me, little sinner?” a low, familiar rumble asks.
Chapter
Fifteen
Iraise a shaky hand to wipe away my tears and see something impossible: Krampus’s fiery eyes locked on me.Alive. My gaze darts down to the fatal wound on his chest, but it’s no longer as gruesome as it was before. As I watch, it slowly seals itself up, fresh skin covering the gaping hole as though it never existed.
Krampus sits up, his hand still gripping my wrist. “You thought such a weapon could kill me?”
I choke out a half sob, half laugh. “Well, you looked real fucking dead for a minute there.”
He cocks his head. “Yet still you tried to fight them.”
I open my mouth and shut it again. It’s true; there was no real reason for me to tackle Theodora after she had already shot Krampus. There was nothing to gain and everything to lose. I could’ve forced out some crocodile tears and followed them into the safe room.
The thought didn’t even occur to me, when I thought Krampus was gone.
“I told you I’m all in,” I say. “I meant it. I want…” I almost sayrevenge, but I’m not sure it feels right anymore. “Justice.”
Krampus rises to his feet, lifting me with him before releasing his hold on me. “Where did the Kohlers go?”
I turn toward the bookshelf, which looks like a normal wall now that it’s closed. “The panic room.”
We wordlessly go to work, trying to find a way in. The tears on my face slowly dry, and so does the blood on the floor. That goddamn Christmas music is still playing, but I leave it on because it’s better than having silence between us. I feel awkward, and vulnerable, after he saw how I cried for him. Something has shifted between us.
But there’s no time to figure it out. We have bigger concerns. Like this goddamn panic room.
Now that it’s shut, there’s no sign of a way in. Even after Krampus and I tear all of the books off the shelf, there’s no hidden button or lever that we can find, not even a raised groove that we can pry open. It’s easy to find the button that opened the passageway on the underside of the desk, but nothing happens when I press it. It must be locked from inside now.
I straighten up from where I kneel under the desk, look at Krampus, and shake my head.
