“Lacy?”I try to follow.
“She found me out.I had to blow the building early, and I almost didn’t escape.”
“We all thought you’d died.”
“I nearly did.”
“And then what?”
“I hid out.Healed best I could.Reached out to a friend to help nurse me back to health.”
“A friend?”
“A protégé of sorts.”He says it with such pride that I get a hit of insight.
“Protege.The Blackbird Killer?”
“Yes.”Now, he does sound smug.Like a proud papa talking about his son making the honor roll.
“Who is the Blackbird Killer?”Even though I’m about to die, I want to know.
“My student.”
“Who are they?Give me a name.”I take another small step forward but stop when he raises the trigger.
“Ah, ah.”
Shit, I pushed too hard.I need to have more finesse.But I’m wired, my whole body buzzing with adrenaline and my senses heightened.Suddenly, the lights from the glittering city and the sound of my own heartbeat are all too loud, too bright.
“This isn’t about them,” BK says.“It’s about us.”
“Us?”I can’t keep the disgust out of my tone.“There is no us.”
“Ah, but there is.”His rasp grows softer, more intimate.“That’s why I had to find you.We’re meant to be together.”
The sour taste is back in my mouth.
“Only you can heal me.”
I shake my head.I shouldn’t deny it; I should feed his delusion, feed his fantasy.But I can feel his darkness threatening to pull me under, and if I go down, I’ll drown.“I don’t understand.”
“You know what you said to me?The first night I came for you?”
He means the night he killed my family.“I don’t remember.”I do; I just don’t want to.
“You said you saw me die.In an explosion, in a fire.”
That was the first night my visions came to me.It would be harder now to hear this if I hadn’t told everything to Rex last night.
I’ll let him boast and relive that night.The night of his triumph and my suffering.I’ll give him the fantasy and let him wallow in it.
Only I can do this.Only I can give him what he needs.
“You were so young.So wise.You knew that I had killed them,” BK says.“I didn’t have to tell you.You knew everything.”
I was a child, I want to scream.My body aches like he’s beaten me.“Why did you kill my family?Why did you spare me?”
“I came for you.You were special,” he says now.
