I’m sure as shit scared now.
“I knew you would appreciate someone like me.I had to be sure, of course.I’ve been wrong before and it’s just ended badly.That’s why I knew it had to be different this time.I knew I had to make her see the real me from the very start.I knew she’d be here—you’dbe here—looking for me, too.”
What was it he told me?
I don’t take a lot of risks.I plan things out.I stay in my lane.
Well, the five women he murdered before tonight and the countless bodies he’s left strewn across the club would attest to the fact he’s pretty comfortable in that lane.“Billie wasn’t so sure.She can be kind of negative sometimes, but—”
“Billie.”Her name is pulled from my lips before I remember I should be too scared to speak.A flash of her bent body slumping over the bar jump-cuts across my mind, cutting through the fear, and I have to blink it away.
The corner of his mouth quirks up when he mistakes the furrow between my brows for jealousy.
“She’s just a friend,” he assures me, moving forward so he can tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and it takes everything in menot to recoil.“I met her at a singles cooking class a few months ago.”He scoffs at the memory.“Can you believe she followed me home?”
Yeah, actually, I can.Her psychopathy recognized his psychopathy—like attracts like.And the idea that these two people found each other and worked toward tonight’s common goal (even if Billie had a goal of her own) is terrifying.
“She’s been helping me ever since.We’re kindred spirits more than anything.Friends.”He stresses the word and then shrugs ruefully.“I mean, sometimes I think she might want more, but—”
“She does.”Now that I’ve said something and he hasn’t immediately stabbed me, it’s easier to convince my mouth to make sounds.Even if my throat closes around them, even when they tremble on the way out.
Tonight has been about John finding and winning over the One, but Billie already wanted that role.That’s the reason the sight of me looked like it left a bitter taste in her mouth.She didn’t hate me.She was jealous.She was trying to figure out why the man she wanted was doing all of this for me and why he wouldn’t do it for her.That’s why I needed to be last, so she could have a chance to show him I wasn’t the one he wanted.She was.All he had to do was look at her after the dust had settled and the blood had dried and realize she was there all along.Right under his nose.
I guess for Billie this was aMy Best Friend’s Weddingsituation.My best friend’s bloodbath, if you will.And I bet she would’ve used the same kind of lines at the end of the night if she hadn’t fallen over the railing.
Choose me.Murder with me.Let me make you happy.
But just likeMy Best Friend’s Wedding, it didn’t end with her getting the guy, and even after all she’s done for him, he hasn’t even noticed she’s gone.
He doesn’t know.
“Shedidwant more,” I say.
“Oh.”He’s well versed in how people turn into past tense—he’s been the reason they have all night—and there’s only a second of surprised comprehension, momentary disappointment, and then it’s gone as quickly as it came.He doesn’t need friends when he has me.
“Well, you had nothing to worry about.I knew you were what I wanted the first time I saw you.”
Like, what?Four hoursago?
Did he think the same thing about the other women?How long did it take for him to fall in love with them, realize they were a “mistake”—ones he could easily erase and dispose of—before looking for the next “one”?
“Those women,” I say.“The ones before this—”
He shakes his head, moving a palm to his heart as he concedes, “I know I have a history.I’m sure you do, too, but that doesn’t matter now that we’ve found each other.”
“But you—they—” I can’t comprehend it.He’s talking about them like they’re failed relationships, like they’re exes we can mutually agree to never talk about again, instead of what they really are: innocent women he killed in cold blood, like everyone else who’s crossed his path tonight.
“I was wrong about them, Jamie.I was wrong about what I wanted.”He moves his palm from his chest to my shoulder and I flinch.He thinks I’m hurt there were others before me, and it makes him double down on the besotted stare.When he brushes his fingers over the strap of my dress, rubbing one of the small panels of sheer material between his thumb and forefinger, I have to grit my teeth to keep from screaming.
“People always show you the best parts of themselves at first, but when things start to get tough, they show you who they really are.”I think his version of things getting “tough” in a relationship might be a little different from most other people’s.
“They acted like they liked me, but it wasn’t real, it wasn’t authentic.Not like us.”
Oh my god.
“So this time I made a promise to myself.”He’s not speaking to me anymore.He’s speaking at me, captivated by his own delusion, and I use the moment to flick my gaze around the space to see if there’s anything that will bring a Final Girl scene to mind.Something that will help me get the fuck away from him.
“I wouldn’t just fall for a pretty smile and some common interests.”
