“We didn’t know what to get you,” Haven says quietly, drawing my eyes to her as she curls her legs under her on the couch. “I mean,” she laughs. “What do you get a guy who has everything he needs, right?”
“Not everything,” Kai murmurs.
I stare at him, my chest growing tighter and tighter. “If this is about the other night?—”
Kai shakes his head, but Haven nods, and I blink hard, my jaw clenching.
I’d had too much fucking bourbon. And they’d been so…so fucking open. We’d spoken about everything that night—Haven’s dad and uncle, Kai’s brother and father.
Then they’d both turned to me, and…I told them.
Everything.
Evelyn, Sybil…and everything that followed.
And instead of the revulsion, the hate, thefearI’d expected? They’d held my fucking hand like we were at a serial killer’s anonymous meeting and it was my turn to share.
So I shared.
Not just my body count…but how, even now, even here, I can feel the urge growing again. A desperate need for the homeostasis my mind so desperately craves.
I told them there’s only one way to sate that hunger. That was before I had my epiphany, of course.
“We know what you need, Bash,” Kai says, making my fucking heart stutter again.
Haven takes the gift from Kai’s hands and presses it into my palm. Her blue eyes are steady on mine, utterly withoutjudgment. The butterflies in her ears catch the light as she gives me a slow nod.
I tear through the brown paper packaging, and the contents clatter to the floor.
A box of red pens and a flash drive.
“Christ, you remembered,” I mutter, shaking the pens so they rattle. When I look up, Haven’s grinning impishly at me. “I think my teaching days are over, sweet girl.”
“I’m not so sure.” She shrugs, glancing at Kai under her lashes. “You’ve sure taught me a lot the past few days…”
Kai laughs, and Haven joins him, both of them so fucking mischievous, I’m nearly overwhelmed with the urge to draw them over my knee and teach them both a lesson they’ll never forget.
But first…
I pick up the black flash drive, frowning down at the innocuous piece of plastic and metal. “What’s on here?”
“He’s a registered sex offender,” Kai says, his voice going flat and hard. “Except the registry doesn’t tell the whole story. Three of his victims were under ten. He plea-bargained down to a lesser charge, served eighteen months, and now he lives two hours from the nearest elementary school.”
“Right on the edge of the legal limit,” Haven cuts in, sounding disgusted.
“We can’t change what happened to any of us in the past,” Kai says quietly. “But you can make sure this piece of shit never touches another child.”
I look between them—my beautiful monsters, my perfect partners in every conceivable crime—and try my best not to suffocate.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Kai’s hand finds my shoulder, squeezing.
“Merry Christmas, Bastian,” Haven says.
I close my fingers around the flash drive.
“I love you,” I tell them, and the words don’t feel strange anymore. Don’t feel like weakness. “Both of you. More than I can ever express.”
