“I’ll go to my hotel.”
“You think that’s secure enough?”
“More secure than your place probably.”
I can tell that Noah wants to keep talking to me, but he has to leave. So he just says, “I’ll be in touch.”
I nod. I owe Noah more than that, but it’s all I can manage.
It’s enough for him. He walks out to his truck and gets in. Wes backs into the street. Noah does the same.
Then they’re gone.
I feel strangely desolate as I hit the button for the garage door. It groans and lowers. Then there’s silence.
I walk back into the apartment. Elias is still in the loft.
“Come down here,” I order.
He’s slow about it, but he obeys. He moves in a crouch, creeping down the steps in an almost animal-like way. Noah asked if Elias is my prisoner, but Elias clearly understands that it’s not that simple. Or maybe, in a way, it’s simpler. He’s mine.
That doesn’t mean I won’t kill him. On a certain level, I’ve always known that our game would end that way. It was inevitable even before I learned the truth about him.
Wes once said that I was obsessed with Elias, and I am. His guilt hasn’t changed that. It’s changed thingsaroundthat, but it hasn’t changedthat.
I don’t know what things will look like when all the broken pieces inside me settle and fuse. I’m still calm because they’re still floating, and I’m glimpsing this or that piece.
That Elias is perfect for me.
That Elias is a liar and fraud.
That I love him.
That he’s part of a world that I do not allow to exist.
And now, that world, that reality, is drifting around inside me with all the other broken pieces, dark and sharp-edged.
It might kill me.
It might kill Elias.
I don’t know. I just know that he’s mine.
So I hold out my hand to him. He’s crouched on the bottom step now, his head tilting back so he can look up at me. His eyes are big and dark. He knows exactly how dangerous I am. But he loves it. This part of him is real. He takes my hand.
I pull him up and lead him to the closet under the loft. I find him a pair of my sweatpants and a sweatshirt. He puts them on, covering the traces of cum on his torso and between his legs. Elias’s height and build are pretty average, but my clothes make him look small and vulnerable.
I feel a surge of a strange, unfamiliar emotion. I’ve felt it before with him, but I really don’t understand it. I let it float away. Just another broken piece among the others.
I go to gather up weapons and my phone and other things, stuffing it all in a duffel bag. Elias is hovering by the bloodstain and the nearby traces of cum.
I decide to clean it up before we go. I get out the cleaning supplies and get to work. Elias watches me. His fixation isalmost eerie. Shock, maybe. This is all that’s left of his cousin. Maybe they were close.
But when I’m done and I hold out my hand, Elias takes it like he did before, like he’s not upset that I killed a member of his family.
Another lie?
I lead him out to the garage and we get in the Escalade. On the way here, he was unconscious in the back, but I let him ride in the front now. I do, however, engage the child locks so he can’t try to escape.
