Romeo straightened to full height.“What’s in the field, Chad?”
Chad looked him in the eye.“There are bodies in the field.That’s what the maggots are eating.I know they’re there but ...I don’t know how, or why, or who, and I thought maybe that was the reason.”
“You encouraged it.Nothing gets you harder than watching me kill.”
Chad took a step back.“I....”
“You love it.For me it’s a need, a quench, a meal to a starving man, but you, you love it, you get aroused by it.You claw at my clothes like a desperate dog afterwards and beg with your eyes for me to take you.”Romeo dropped down the final few steps.“I’m sick all right, in here,” he pointed at his forehead, “But you ...you’re sick in the head, in your cock, in your goddamn heart—”
“Shut up.”Chad snapped, clutching his head.
“And I love that you’re like that.”
Chad met his eyes.
“You didn’t try to end your life because of what is going on in that field.Those people ...they aren’tgood, and that was important to you.I wasn’t to kill anyone you deemedgood, but if I could solve the cold cases, provide you with evidence, then they were our—”
“Poppy feed.”
Romeo’s eyebrows jumped up his head.“Yes.”
Chad hurried past him to get to the kitchen.He stared out of the window.“They killed people.”
“Yes.”
“And I bought them here ...and what?”he frowned.His eyes were wet.“To watch you kill them so I could get myself off.”He clutched his chest.“Is that who I am?”
“We started...”Romeo couldn’t think of a better word for it and settled onhunting.“We started hunting for my benefit.This thing inside my head, this voice, this urge,” he curled his thumb and fingers of his left hand, “this clawing inside my skull can only be satisfied by murder.The rush it gives me, the sensation, the experience, I can’t explain it to you, but when I satisfied it once, I knew I’d have to again and again to exist on this earth.I can’t go back to holding it at bay.I can’t live like that.We came up with a compromise.I kill, but only those you deem deserve it.”
“Where is the part about me being a bitch in heat?”
“I didn’t quite say that,” Romeo snorted.“But me killing has the added bonus of being particularly erotic for you ...and now, for me too.”
“Fuck,” Chad muttered, spinning on the cold tap.He wet his hand, then brushed it over his hair.
“Difficult to accept?”Romeo asked, inching closer.
“No,” Chad replied.“It rings true.What you’re telling me, I believe it.I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I do.I didn’t try to kill myself because of the bodies in the field despite how fucked up that is.Despite how much Iwishthat was the reason.”
“Why did you then?”
Chad shook his head.“I don’t know.”
Romeo exhaled from his nose.“Josh is investigating missing people...”
“They’re in our field.”
“Yes.He got our car we used to scout our victims and collect them when we were ready.”
“How the hell did he get it?”Chad asked.
“I parked it in the parking ramp at the hospital.”
Chad’s eyes widened.“I must’ve warned you to keep that car out of sight.No public places, and you park there!What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking my boyfriend was in the hospital and I was damn well going to be there for him!”
“It was reckless.”
