It was… revulsion.
Abruptly, I found myself wondering who the victims had been—what they would have done with their lives. I wondered what experiences Morgan Peterson had robbed from them.
Eli stepped closer to the wall and looked at each of the newspaper clippings.
“New Orleans, three years ago,” he said. “David Applegate. He was twenty-one. Stabbed to death a few blocks from Tulane University. He was studying to become a social worker.”
“Eli, don’t do this.”
“Ethan Foster, two years ago. He was murdered in an alleyway a few blocks from Boston University. He studied business. He was twenty.”
I couldn’t hear this. Hearing their names made them real. It made them more than just Peterson’s handiwork. And Eli wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’twantto understand. He would believe an unacceptable lie. He would think there wassomething redeemable about me because of who I had always chosen to kill.
“Lucas Hayes, last year. He was found in a park less than a mile from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He’d been stabbed twenty-nine times.” Eli paused, then drew in a ragged breath. “He was twenty-two. One semester away from graduating with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science.”
“I would have made him confess his crimes to me first,” I said, desperate to make Eli stop. “And then I would have hypnotized him so he couldn’t move or scream.”
Eli didn’t look at me, but his shoulders stiffened, and he swallowed. Then he moved on to the last victim—the one who had brought me here.
“Joseph Goldberg, in Los Angeles. He was studying to become an accountant. He was stabbed forty-seven times, three blocks from the University of Southern California.” He paused, swallowing hard. His voice dropped to a miserable whisper. “A couple of days ago. He was only twenty.”
“I came here to murder Morgan Peterson in cold blood!” I stepped forward and grabbed Eli by the shoulder, spinning him so he could look at me and know I was telling the truth. “I didn’t give a shit about his victims! I wanted to kill him because I enjoy it!”
Eli didn’t even flinch, even though he knew what I was—what I did. His eyes locked with mine.
“Is it always killers?”
I fell silent. There it was. The question I had been afraid of.
“Nicolas, you swore you’d always tell me the truth.”
“It’s not what you think it is.”
“Itisalways murderers, isn’t it? It’s people who do things like this.” He gestured at the wall of grotesque photographs. “That’s why you had to go to the police station. You were…” He frowned,his eyebrows drawing together as he studied me. “You were what? Getting information about this guy?”
I gritted my teeth at his question, desperate to make him stop.
“Following a hungry vampire is idiotic, Eli. Antagonizing him is even more foolish.”
He snorted. “I don’t fit your victim profile.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Why the automotive store?” Then something became more vulnerable in his expression, and I saw it all over again—what it had cost him to come here.
“Tell me, Nicolas. Please. I need to know.”
I found that, in the face of that, I couldn’t evenwantto refuse him.
“It was down the street from where he murdered Joseph. I followed his scent into an alley behind the store and saw there were security cameras.” I paused, then added, “The scent vanished in the alleyway, so I knew he’d gotten into a vehicle. I figured the cameras might have caught the license plate, which I could run to give me an address.” I sighed. “I was hypnotizing the store manager into giving me the footage.”
And mind-controlling him into giving up his addiction to cigarettes. Naturally, I didn’t say that part out loud. It wouldn’t have helped my cause any.
“And then you went to the police station,” Eli said, nodding, clearly intent on galloping off in the wrong direction about me. “You reviewed the footage there. And you had someone run the guy’s license plate. Or maybe you did it yourself. And then it brought you here.”
“Yes.”
The smile that split his lips was much colder than I could have imagined Eli capable of.
