He grabs my shoulders, shaking me once. “Judas is dangerous. He’s killed before, and he’ll kill again.”
“Judas saved me from Axel that night,” I say. “And he saved me from my stepdad in 2014.”
He shakes his head. “Judas didn’t save you, Carmen. And that cop might have been a bad person, but he didn’t deserve to die. Judas followed him that night. He convinced himself he was the serial killer who got caught in 2005. Everything he told you was a lie. He killed that man and your mom just because he could not, because he had to.”
“No,” I say. My head keeps moving back and forth. “You’re lying.”
He pulls his phone from his pocket and lifts the screen toward me. “I’m calling the cops. They’ll track your location and find him.”
I slap the phone out of his hand. It skids across the floor and clatters against the cabinet. “How can you do that?”
“How can I?” he shouts. His eyes go wide, veins rising at his temples. “Ever since he came to this house, I’ve been protecting him. But you can’t protect a boy who was raised by a serial killer for a year. A boy who was taught how to kill.”
He drags both hands over his head. “God.” Then he looks at me again. “You know why maids don’t stay here? Because he killed every single one. I ran out of excuses. Nobody asked questions because we pretended there weren’t any. And believe me, Carmen, when I tell you this. You’ll be next.”
Something inside me breaks when he bends to grab the phone.
I can’t lose Judas again.
My palms slide back against the counter. My fingers find the handle of the knife. Cold metal presses into my skin as I turn.
Catherine stands by the window, staring into the garden. She looks like a statue, locked in place.
“Don’t,” I shout towards him.
She doesn’t turn. She doesn’t flinch. It’s like she already knows.
My heart is beating. My eyelids blink too fast, like I’m slipping into someone else’s body, someone I can’t control.
I surge forward and drive the blade into him.
He crashes into the chair and falls to the floor. I drop on top of him, my knees hitting hard by his side, and I lift the knife and bring it down. Again. Again.
Eleven times.
I can’t feel my hand. I just watched it move. Blood sprays my face. His mouth opens and closes, a wet sound gurgling out as he looks at me for the last time.
The knife slips from my fingers and lands beside his body.
My hands start to shake as I look down at them. The room tilts and the walls fade, and I’m not here anymore.
2014.
Justin was on the floor when a man in a ski mask burst through the front door. The crash of it drew Mom to the kitchen. Her hands shook so hard she could barely keep the phone steady as she tried to dial 911.
But she didn’t think someone else was here, she just looked at me and screamed, “You fucking brat. What have you done?”
“Me?” I whispered. My knees barely held me up.
No matter what happened, I knew I would take the blame. I always did.
The knife lay on the counter. My fingers closed around the handle. My legs trembled as I lunged toward her, knocking the phone from her hand. We went down together. And by the time we fell down, the blade was already buried in her chest.
Her eyes locked on mine, and she begged.
I yanked the knife free. I drove it back in. Again. Again. Again. Eleven times. The same number of times I had told her about my stepfather’s fists, his abuse, and how he sneaked by my side every night. Eleven times she had turned away.
A laugh tore out of me as I staggered back. The knife slipped from my grip and clattered across the floor. Blood spread around her. It smeared my hands, my arms, my clothes.
