But that doesn’t mean he isn’t worse.
I easily push to my feet and turn, not loving that my back is to the open water as I look at him in the moonlight. Wearing all black, his pale skin seems to almost glow under the moon, and I survey him from his messy, jet-black hair to his easy posture and the way he stands completely relaxed with his arms folded loosely.
He’s not afraid of me, but maybe he doesn’t have a reason to be. I can fix that, I decide, and edge toward the woods to give myself a bit of leeway so I don’t get rushed off the damn cliff and into the same water as Alan.
“That’s not very nice of you,” I remark, shoving my hands in my pockets like I’m cold. “She didn’t do anything to you.” I tilt my head. “Though I didn’t either. So I’m not sure why?—”
“You did,” the man interrupts, his dark eyes glittering under his brows. “Oh, but you did, Sierra Morwen?—”
“Tova,” I’m quick to interrupt, just as he did to me. “You don’t get to use my real name. Especially when I don’t know yours.”
The man smiles slowly, the expression never reaching his eyes. “You don’t disappoint at all, you know that? Fine.Tova,then, for now.” He stops speaking, and I swear he’s surveying me, as if finding things on my face that I can’t hide or don’t know exist. “I’m Larkin,” he adds after a few moments. “That’s all you get from me, because you don’t deserve more.”
I don’tdeservemore?
I have to work to swallow back the frustration burning up my throat like claws, and my fingers brush the box cutter in my pocket. Somehow he must notice, because his eyes flick to the pockets of my hoodie before landing on my face again, goading and unimpressed. “Really?” he asks. “Oh, that’s so predictable of you. I take it back. I’m a little disappointed. Is it really so easy to rile you up? Is that why you killed your roommate’s boyfriend?”
“How do you know who he is? Why do youcare?”I demand, keeping my words calm and steady. Determined not to let him provoke a real reaction out of me. Icertainlywon’t let him make me sloppy. I’ve been around enough problematic men in my life to handle the situation without breaking down, and I watch his face for any sign of a reaction. The fact Larkin gives me almost nothing is impressive rather than intimidating.
He feels like a challenge.
He feels like a threat.
“Oh, Tova, Tova…” Larkin takes a step forward, then one to the side. He circles me at enough of a distance that there’s no decision to be made on my part, though I shift to mirror him so I’m never unable to see his face and hands. “It’s cute that you really don’t know what you took from me.”
My eyes narrow, and my head tilts slightly, confusing in every angle of my body as I move. “I don’t even know you. How could I have taken anything at all? And how do you have the video fr-from back then?” I demand.
His smile widens, though it isn’t friendly. The wolfish grin feels like a hunter’s promise, and he stops suddenly to tilt his head in a way to mirror mine. “That’s the whole point.” He enunciates each word. “Thatwas what you took. Did you even know him, darling?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Answer the question.”
I hold his gaze for a few moments before looking away to gaze at the trees, though I keep him in my peripheral vision enough to know what he’s doing. “No,” I admit at last. “I didn’t. I was having a hard time that night. He made it worse. I’m not sorry,” I’m quick to add, in a frustrated tone that’s not my usual one. “Do you know what he was, Larkin?” I test his name on my tongue, finding that I like the way it tastes. “Do you know what hewanted?”
“Yes.”
His answer stretches between us, and I hold his eyes, searching for any kind of reaction he may unwittingly give. But, apparently, he’s better than that. Larkin just fuckingwatches mewith a glint in his dark eyes that’s mostly from the moon instead of his feelings.
“He was mine.”
“Kinky. You got a thing for pedophiles?” With anyone else, I’d hold my tongue to avoid offending them. I know I’m being abrasive, but right now, I couldn’t give a damn.
He snorts and rolls his eyes in a very long-suffering way, taking his time to get his point across. “No, silly girl.” The diminutive pet name becomes something else on his tongue that has me gripping the box cutter more tightly in my hand and has my toes curling in my sneakers.
I’m not afraid of him.
He lights up something else in me that I can’t—won’t—name even under penalty of torture or death. It isn’t affection.Certainly not that. But it isn’t fear, or trepidation, or even caution.
“He wasmineto kill that night.” Without warning, he rounds on me. Even as I drag the box cutter free, Larkin strikes, quick as a snake, prying it from my fingers using a combination of pressure points and deftness. I give a soft gasp, no more than a frustrated intake of breath, before he slams me hard against the tree at my back, knocking the wind out of me.
“Weeks and weeks of planning,” Larkin croons. “Only for you to ruin it. I had a plan. He was going to be my first.” Long-forgotten rage simmers in his words as he leans into me, and he doesn’t flinch as my nails bite into his wrist as the hand around my throat that tightens until I truly can’t draw in air.
“Let—” I try to say something, to threaten him, but the words won’t come out. My heart gives a few panicked, rapid flutters, and Larkin’s smile turns darker. Crueler.
“What was that?” he hisses. “Say again?” But his fingers tighten just a little bit more, as if to make sure I can’t get out the words.
As soon as my vision starts to blur at the edges, I stomp down on his foot as hard as I can, and my hand slips free from his wrist to go to his throat instead. But I’m not playing the long game to choke him out. I don’t need to see him whine and writhe, and I doubt I’d win that game with the head start he has.
