Maybe you still won’t.I would never say that out loud to Easton, though.
“I killed Nate because I wanted to.” He unbuckles his seat belt and turns to me. I don’t want to look at him, but I can’t help it. “If you really want the truth, yes, I hated him. He was a whiny, spoiled little brat who got everything he wanted. Toys, stuffed animals, disgusting fucking rodents that he could keep in a cage, everything. He knew all he had to do was cry and whine and beat our parents down until they got tired, and he’d get what he wanted. Do you know what I wanted?”
My jaw hangs open. “You killed him because youwantedsomething and your parents wouldn’t buy it for you?”
Easton laughs. “What I wanted they couldn’t buy me. All I wanted that day was to see what would happen if I strangled him. I wanted to see how long it would take for him to die, and I was curious what I would do after. What everyone would do. I was obsessed with it. I fantasized about it for months leading up to it, wondering if I could snap his neck or if he would be able to fight back. So that’s why I killed him. Because it was time I got something thatIwanted.”
I feel like I’m going to throw up. This can’t be real. How could a ten-year-old think things like that?
“You look like you need a second to gather your thoughts,” Easton says. “I’ll go grab our phones. Then you need to figure out how you’re going to pull your shit together before we go home.”
He gets out and I take several panicked breaths. I could run. Right now I could run and hide from him. He wouldn’t be able to catch up anddrug me if he’s halfway across the parking lot before he even realizes I’m running. I don’t know where I’d go, but anywhere is better than here.
With a psychopath. A murderer.
A murderer who started killing when he was ten.
I stop panicking as something else becomes clear. Easton wastenyears old. Yes, it’s physically possible for a ten-year-old to kill a six-year-old. But how would a ten-year-old hide the body?
Unless someone helped him.
Outside the car, Easton reaches under the dumpster for our phones.
Maybe Marcus isn’t totally innocent after all. If he already lost one kid, he would absolutely protect his only living son. Eastonwastalking to Marcus about me the night I arrived. He was telling him to do a DNA test on me to prove I wasn’t Nate. And Marcus wasn’t fighting him on it.
Easton opens the door, and I wipe the tears from my face. He hands me my damp phone and I see a text from Valencia.
“She wants to know where we are. Tell her we were getting ice cream, but we’re coming home because it started to rain.”
I do as he says, and he pulls out of the parking lot. A couple minutes later I get a smiley face emoji back from Valencia.
When Easton pulls into the garage, he shuts off the car and turns to me again. “Okay. I need you to get your shit together now. Put your mask back on and be Nate. If they suspect something and you fuck it up, I’m going to kill you. Got it?”
Every hair on my body stands upright and I shiver. He says it so quickly and casually, which is how I know he’s telling the truth.
“And if you tell them what you know,” he continues, “I will kill you. I don’t show people the real me, but I showed you. Because I know you’re like me, too.”
Rage tightens the muscles in my throat while guilt pulls at my stomach. “I’m nothing like you.”
“No, you just lied to a grieving family and told them you were their long-lost dead son. There’s nothing psychotic about that at all.”
“I didn’tkillanyone.”
“Not physically. Though it is your fault JT is dead. I wouldn’t have killed him if it wasn’t for you showing up here and fucking everything up.”
That’s not true. I feel like it was always Easton’s plan to kill JT eventually. Things worked out this way because he wanted an excuse. And, yes, maybe giving him the excuse makes it somewhat my fault, but that’s not guilt I’m taking on. Easton is a murderer. Not me.
“And you need to tell Miles to knock it off with his podcast. In fact, I think it’s best if you end your relationship with him now. Whatever it is. Because if you don’t, I’ll kill him, too.”
I’m sitting, but it still feels like the ground has dropped out from under me. My chest gets tight and it feels like I can’t breathe.
“It would be easy. I could offer to go on his podcast and meet him where I killed JT. Then frame you for it. Or...” He pauses for dramatic effect. “I can use my original plan from back when he kept pestering me to be on his podcast. Burn his house down with him and his family trapped inside.”
Like the gas leak. Would he find a way to frame me for that, too?
“So we understand each other?” Easton asks. “You keep playingyour little game. I’ll keep playing mine. Then, when the time is right, you leave.”
Or he kills me.
