“I have plenty of time.”
“I’ll bet you do,” she said. “First question… will it hurt?”
“No. You won’t feel a thing. It’ll be exactly like going to sleep. When you wake, you won’t remember this conversation or yourdecision to try. And it won’t be a magic bullet. It’ll give you space to heal—but you’ll have to do the work.”
She nodded, conviction flashing in her eyes. “I’ll do whatever it takes. I can’t live like this anymore. I’ll do it. You have my consent.”
Her heartbeat was perfectly steady—impressive, truly. But then, she was remarkable. Just like her brother. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d have her courage, were our roles reversed.
“What’s your second question?”
“I was going to ask if you love my brother.” She paused, meeting my gaze. “But actually, I think you’ve already answered that pretty thoroughly.”
“No warnings for me?” I cocked my head, studying her. She looked calmer than I’d ever seen her. “You won’t ask me to leave him alone?”
“If this is truly who you are, Cole—if you’re capable of kindness and gentleness with the people around you, and if you really do love him—then I don’t think I need to know much else. The rest is just details.”
Something settled painfully in my chest at her words. It shocked me how badly I wanted them to be true. I’d never thought of myself as broken. But now I realized I hadn’t been myself for a very long time. I’d spent hundreds of years—nearly a thousand—as someone alien and distant. And maybe I’d never fully be myself again, no matter how many feelings I grew from here on out.
Either way, being the kind of person she just described felt like an impossible wish.
Because if she understood what I was—what I’d done to countless people, simply because I could—she would run screaming.
The fact that those I killed had been cold-blooded murderers didn’t change the truth: I liked it. I enjoyed making them confess. I enjoyed their pain. Their helplessness.
That thought wrenched through me, twisting my stomach with something I didn’t recognize. It felt like despair—but hotter. I dropped my gaze so I wouldn’t have to meet her eyes and nodded.
But I couldn’t be sure if I was lying. To her. To myself. Or maybe both.
“All right, Sam,” I said softly. “Let’s begin.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN || ELI
Something was wrong with Sam.
Or, well… notwrong, exactly. The opposite, if anything. Over the next week, her behavior changed dramatically.
First, she got very sick and barely emerged from her room—except to stumble into the kitchen, drink water, and pop aspirin like candy—before disappearing again. That lasted three days. At first, I thought she’d just overdone it on the drinking. Or maybe she had the flu. She barely spoke to me and flatly refused to answer any of my questions—except to snap that she was fine. She spent most of the time sleeping.
After the fourth day of this, things got very strange.
I woke up at noon after another brutal shift and found Sam on her hands and knees in the bathroom, a scrub brush in one hand and a rag in the other. A bucket sat beside her. The bathroom was spotless and smelled like lemon-scented cleaner.
“Did you get sick again?” I asked, still bleary-eyed and under-caffeinated.
“I’m feeling better now. Just doing some chores.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were clear, and there wasn’t even a trace of a slur in her voice. She added, “There’s coffee, too. It’s a fresh pot—I drank most of what I made this morning.”
Surprise rippled through me. Sam didn’t do chores. She was usually too hungover. And she typically made coffee—but only one pot in the morning. It was usually stone-cold by the time I got up.
“Oh.”
She didn’t seem to notice my disbelieving stare, because she turned and went right back to scrubbing.
Three days later, Sam left the house dressed smartly in a professional-looking skirt and blouse. I hadn’t even realized she owned clothes like that.
“Hey, I’m heading out,” she told me, pausing in the doorway. “I probably won’t be home until late. I might not see you before you head to work.”
“You’re dressed up,” I said.
