“It’s with me.”
Chad shook his head.“They told me about you, and I...I watched that documentary.”
“Of course you did...”Romeo muttered.
“You took me, you trapped me in your farmhouse.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“I don’t remember.”
Chad hand knocked the knife block.He pulled out the biggest one.It was a slow action, deliberately so, and he watched Romeo, waiting to see what he’d do.Romeo didn’t react.Chad didn’t launch at him with the knife but held it in front of himself.
“You’re a serial killer, and they all think you’re dead, but you’re not.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re a danger to society.”
Romeo’s mouth twitched with a smile.“Yes.I am.But you keep me under lock and key.You keep the monster on the chain.”
Chad flexed his eyebrow.“Monster?”
Romeo lifted his hand slowly, broadcasting his intention as he reached for the back of his head.“In here.There’s a monstrous part of me.It’s been there as long as I remember, gnawing away at my sanity until I gave in.Satisfying that part of me, it makes me feel like a god.”
“You’re not a god.”
Romeo continued, “It’s addicting, and I crave it, even now I crave it.”
Chad flashed the knife at him.Romeo’s smile dimmed.
“Not you, though, I wouldn’t satisfy that craving with you.You’re special to me.”
“Am I a monster too?”Chad asked.
Romeo hesitated.The press, the public, they’d labeled Chad as a monster.
“That’s a yes then—”
“No.It’s a no.You’re not a monster, Chad.”
“Then why do I feel like one?”
Romeo had no answer for that.
“Why do I feelwrong?”
“You’re not wrong, you’re perfect.”
“Says you,” Chad sneered.“The serial killer.”His gaze darted away, then stuck to Romeo again.“You killed innocent people.”
Romeo resisted the urge to roll his eyes.“There are noinnocentpeople.There’s good and bad in all of us, and I don’t weigh up one person’s misdeeds with another’s.I kill without bias, not valuing one life over the other.It was all about the opportunity, the right set of circumstances, that led to a kill.Until I met you at least.”
Chad sucked in a breath.His hand shook, and the blade edge danced a reflection up the wall.“What the hell are you talking about?”
Romeo bit his tongue, silencing himself.It wasn’t the right moment to reveal all about his and Chad’s arrangement, not when Chad looked like he was barely keeping it together.
It was no longer just Chad’s hand shaking, his whole body quaked.Tears filled his eyes and dropped onto his pale cheeks. Romeo took a step closer, wanting to pull him close, embrace him in a tight hug, but Chad shot back, raising the knife.
