“Did you look me up?” She swallows, her voice shaking.
“I tried,” I admit, “I found nothing.”
“Have you killed people, Dean?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill someone today?”
“I did.”
Her eyes bounce between mine, and her throat bobs as she swallows hard. “Who?”
“The man who shot at us on the street.”
She nods slowly, “A part of me knows I should be afraid of you. I’m afraid of everyone else, but you?” She laughs, but it holds no amusement. “You’ve never scared me, and I think that only scares me more.”
“Why are you afraid?”
“Someone tried to kill me.” My body’s reaction is instantaneous, my blood goes white hot, and everything quietens until nothing is left but the roaring inside my ears. “Before I came here, back in my hometown… I didn’t know until it was too late.”
“Didn’t know what?” I somehow manage to keep my voice level, the rage pumping through me hidden just beneath the surface.
“I was being stalked.”
Chapter Twenty-six
I’m not sure if it’s shock, numbness, or plain stupidness, but there isn’t a single part of me that is afraid of Dean or his truths. Maybe it’ll catch up to me later, in the middle of the night when I have nothing but my mind to haunt me and a past that is always one step behind. But right now? Right now, I want to tell him. I want someone else to know, to lighten the load.
“There were no signs. I always thought that there were signs, but I didn’t see any. I lived normally. I wasn’t afraid, I went to bed with my doors unlocked and my windows open, and I never thought about it.”
I avert my eyes from his deep, fathomless ones to Lily, “And it was too late. He came after I’d gone to bed. I was reading, and I heard something. Sometimes my door opened when it was windy, and it had been storming that night. I didn’t think.”
“Sloane,” Dean captures my attention again, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I left the door unlocked, and he got in.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He repeats, sterner.
“I tried to hide and called the cops, but they didn’t get there in time. He told me he was going to kill me, that if he couldn’t have me, no one could. He pinned me down, and he was going to stab me. I managed to dislodge him enough so that when he went to stab me, it missed and got me in the hip instead. He cut me open.”
As if to remind me of the night, my scarring smarts, a sharp, stabbing flare that throbs against my hip.
“The police got there before he tried again.”
“They caught him?” Dean demands.
My eyes close as I picture that night again, as I remember how my life changed irrevocably. “No. He got away.”
“Who is it!?” Dean stands abruptly, “Where are they?”
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t know who it was or where they are. They never found him.”
“What the fuck do you mean!?” Dean explodes, and I flinch at the sudden volume. Lily does too.
“I don’t know,” I grind out, “No one knows.”
“I’ll find them,” He declares, “I’ll find them, and I’ll kill them.”
