He felt my presence and twisted around, his bloodshot eyes widening in shock. “You,” he choked. I’d never seen fear like this on anyone’s face before. “I always knew it would be a Cornier,” he rasped, saliva bubbling from one corner of his mouth. “But I never thought it would be you.”
I froze, unmoored by his strange words.
“Please,” he begged, reaching out his arms. “Have mercy. Call 911.”
I looked at him. Past his pain and into his heart. And all I saw was sin.
“For Ever,” I whispered, and stepped away.
For several minutes he struggled, legs and arms jerking, trying to crawl to me, but then he went still. His chest stopped rising and falling. The announcers on TV whooped at a touchdown. Killian’s eyes were wide and unseeing.
I walked home as the first rays of dawn began to lighten the dark, a different person. So this was what it felt like to have your darkest prayer answered. To make a covenant with the Devil. I was a true killer now and would have to spend my life paying for it. I owed a debt.
I was back in bed lying next to Ever by the time he woke up. The moment his eyes opened and he looked at me, I knew.
I’d saved him.
I was a fallen woman.
It was worth it.
38
NOW
The wind carries me as I stride barefoot through the woods. Above me, the clouds crack open. Lightning lashes down in jagged strikes. I’m soaked, dressing gown clinging like a second skin, mud streaking my legs. The landscape I move through is surreal: in this storm my home has turned foreign, liminal, slipping back and forth between this world and a stranger one.
There’s a charge in the air, a feeling like anything is possible.
Dark clouds swirl above the Duncan house, drenching it in rain. I pound on the front door. It swings open, as if I’ve been expected, and there he is. Twenty-three-year-old Everett Duncan, ageless like his father. Tall and dark; pale and beautiful. Since we were seventeen, his existence has made me feel like the real world might be more mysterious and exciting than I’d given it credit for, closer to the worlds inside my books.
His eyes widen as he takes me in, studying the long strings of hair dripping down my face. His eyes dip to my soaked white gown and then quickly jerk back up.
I finally catch my breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
He stares at me for the longest time, lingering over the pulse in my neck. Then he shakes his head. “No.”
He turns and disappears into the house.
I follow him, leaving the door open. Wind rushes in. “You can’t hide. We have to have it out.”
He paces to the old chipped coffee table, pulling at his hair. The mist that’s crept in with me is so thick it’s already curling at the ends. “No, Ruth. Turn around and let’s pretend you never came.”
I stand firmly at the edge of the living room. “We have to have truth between us. It’s time.”
Ever strides to me. Presses two fingers to my chest and turns an invisible key. “Remember what you told me? It’s better this way.”
“The night your father almost killed you, when you showed up on my doorstep—”
“Don’t,” he begs.
“I went to your house while you were sleeping and poured antifreeze in your father’s drink. I watched him die on the floor, right there.” I point to the carpet in front of the TV. “I let everyone think he’d died of alcohol poisoning but it was me, Ever. I killed him so he wouldn’t ever lay a hand on you again.”
There. I’ve done the thing I once thought was impossible. I’ve confessed.
Ever drops his head in his hands. His shoulders shake.
“I know you hate me now,” I say. “I know we can’t be friends. But I thought maybe if I told you my secret, you’d tell me—”
