“You,” Donovan says, “are like a chocolate bar with cayenne pepper in it.”
Without another word, he turns and walks out, closing the door behind him.
“What the hell?” Charlotte says as Donovan’s Prius pulls away from the curb.
I sink down on my couch and grab a slice of pepperoni straight from the box. Three premonitions in one day have left me starving. “Don’t ask me.”
“He’s not wrong, you know. But he really hasn’t known you long enough to say something like that. What in the name of God did the two of you get up to today? The Facebook page is on freaking fire.”
I take another bite of pizza, nearly moaning at how good it tastes. We Knead Pizza guards the secret recipe for their tomato sauce closely. They won’t even tell Charlotte’s mother, and she’s the mayor. “Please say Mrs. Grant didn’t see Donovan carrying me inside.”
She strides back to the kitchen, grabbing a couple of wine glasses from the rack and a bottle of red from the pantry. Pouring us both glasses, she hands me one and settles on the couch with her own. “Of course she did. I swear, it’s like she has a telephoto lens. And sex radar.”
“Ugh,” I moan, burying my face in my glass.
“Anyway, tell me everything. Because it definitely seems like tall, dark, and grumpy’s got a thing for you.”
I almost choke on my wine. “He doesn’t! He’s dating Jenny Abruzzo.”
“Saint Jenny?” Charlotte muses. “Well, that’s too bad. He was looking at you like you were his own personal spicy chocolate bar.”
“He was just excited to work on my laptop. Technology gives him a boner,” I say, but absently. I have bigger things on my mind.
I don’t want to tell Charlotte about the monster. She doesn’t know what happened that night; I’ve never talked about it to anyone, beyond what I had to say in court back then. I’d much rather eat pizza and drink wine than revisit the worst time in my life. But maybe Charlotte can find out more than Julia knew—like, exactly when he’s getting out and if there’s a way to keep the bastard away from both of us without getting me locked up a second time.
“Earth to Rune.” Charlotte waves a hand in front of my face. “You okay?”
I blink, startled back to myself. “I’m all right. Today was just…a lot.”
“Did you hit your head in the crash?” she says, channeling Worried Charlotte again. “Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking wine. I could call Jess and tell her I need to stay here tonight?—”
Part of me wants to beg her to do just that. But I don’t want to be a burden to Charlotte or her wife, especially after what I’m getting ready to say. Who knows—when Charlotte’s heard the truth, maybe she won’t even want to speak to me again.
“No need,” I say firmly.
“Really?” She narrows her eyes at me. “If you’re not concussed, and you and DJ Blue Eyes aren’t doing the nasty, then why was he carrying you?”
It’s now or never. “Charlotte, do you remember when we were in high school, and I got, um, sent away?”
My voice shakes despite my effort to keep it steady. Sensing my anxiety, Valentine jumps into my lap, curling up. I stroke her fur as Charlotte says, “Yeah, of course. Our junior year. After the fire at your foster family’s house. What does that have to do with anything?”
I draw a deep breath. “That fire? I set it.”
Bracing myself, I tell her almost everything. How the monster would sneak into my room at night. How his wife never stopped him. How, when I threatened to report him, he left me alone but turned his sights on Julia. How, before he could get his filthy hands on her, I confronted his sorry ass with a lit match in my hand.
I don’t tell her about the vision that consumed me, the premonition where I saw him doing to Julia what he did to me. About how I knew that interfering with the natural order of things would cost me, if I could manage it at all. I could stop the monster from hurting Julia, but I would pay for it with my freedom. Just like I saved Officer Asshat and wound up in jail. Not for long, but still.
In my experience, magic—if that’s what you want to call my gift—always has a price.
But Charlotte wouldn’t believe any of that, so I don’t bother with it. Instead, I just tell her about how he refused to let Julia go, how I screamed for her to run. And then I dropped the lit match right on top of those stupid baseball cards he was obsessed with and watched them burn.
“He came for me after that,” I say, seeing not my cozy living room but the house that always stank of dirty dishes and cigarettes. Hearing the monster’s bellows of rage as he chased me through one smoke-filled room after another, out into the tiny dirt courtyard. “But Julia ran, like I told her. Straight to a neighbor’s house. They called 911.”
Charlotte’s voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. “And did he catch you, Rune?”
“He tried,” I say, petting Valentine’s soft fur. “But, spoiler alert. I had a lot of other matches.”
“You lit him on fire and burned his house down. And for that, they sent you away.”
