His face twitches a little, but he’s able to maintain that soft smile. “Howisyour sweet Gabriel doing?”
I know he wants to egg me on, I know the rage inside of me wants to egg me on, but I’m well aware that’ll get me nowhere.
“You are risking so much to be this public, and for what?” I ask him.
Whitaker is trying to keep control of the conversation. He’s standing tall, looking self-assured without appearing like a dick. He wants to seem welcoming… and somehow, he’s pulling it off. “There are very few people in my life who have snagged my attention like you have, Liam. You might be the only one who has ever truly made me feel like this. I didn’t think much of you when I first saw you. You blended into the crowd, as do most people. But the more you weaseled your way into my life, the more I became absolutely fixated on you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I’d lie awake at night and just… think about what it’d be like to pick you apart. And then thoughts of you started to invade my silent moments, and it was like my mind was consumed by you. I’ve never felt like this about another person.”
“Sounds thrilling. So this was your plan to get me here? Use Jesse to coerce me into the building? And now are you going to kill me? Where’s my altar? I feel like I deserve the best as you slice into my flesh.”
Whitaker smiles at me. “Your death won’t be that simple, Liam. I want to savor it. There are few people in my life that I’ve chosen to savor. You… there’s something about you… you are what I’ve spent my whole life waiting for.”
I want to mock him, I want to laugh at his bullshit… but am I not as bad as him?
Do I not also get absolutely fixated on someone because I want to feel my blade enter their flesh? Because I want to see their miserable lives meet their end? I have dragged Gabriel into harm because of my fixation. I’ve caused him to end up in a hospital because I was chasing after an obsession just likeWhitaker has been. We really are not so different from each other.
And that pisses me off.
“Right there,” Whitaker says. “I knew you’d be perfect. You’re not even upset. You’re not afraid… you’re pissed. I can feel the anger radiating off of you. There’s no fear in your eyes. I want to watch you slowly break down until there is absolutely nothing left of you. And then I want to watch the life leave your eyes. We’re cleansing this world. I need to cleanse it of people like you.”
“Yeah? Because I feel like we’re not so different, you and I.”
That makes his smile widen. “Oh?”
“There’s so much darkness in this world, Whitaker. I’m assuming you know about my past.”
“I do. Of course I looked you up the moment you caught my eye.”
“I’ve seen darkness. I’ve felt darkness. I lay in a basement and stared at my mother’s dead body for hours. I watched my father get shot in the head. I felt something break inside of me that day. But I trudged on. And then I met Gabriel. He stepped into my path and brought my mundane and shitty world grinding to a halt. And then you took that from me. You made me realize that Gabriel is too precious to be tainted by someone like me. I have nothing left to live for,” I say with a laugh as I drop my hands. “Fill me full of bullet holes for all I fucking care. Honestly, though, Whitaker… you really shouldn’t tell me your secrets because you’ve just informed me that you don’t want to kill me right away, now do you? You don’t want me to die until you’re done with me.” I give him a mocking smile. “You don’t want to dispose of me just yet… not when you have plans for me.”
“Keep your hands up or I’ll shoot!” Wilcox yells, but my eyes are on Whitaker.
“Are you going to let him shoot me, Whitaker? Are you going to let him taint what is yours? That darkness inside of you wants me… are you going to let someone else take the first bite?”
“Don’t shoot him,” Whitaker snaps at Wilcox.
“He’s fucking with you. Make him listen, then,” Wilcox says. “You don’t understand how smart this man is.”
Whitaker is letting that darkness rule him…
The first step to being a monster in plain sight without anyone knowing is to keep that darkness tamped down. Is this why he’s always hidden out of sight? He knows he can’t control it?
I reach out before lunging at Wilcox. The man is obsessed with Whitaker, all of these people are, so he won’t go against Whitaker’s words, but still, he pulls the trigger as a warning, thinking that it’ll make me listen.
I cry out and jerk back, grabbing my chest. “Fuck,” I scream. “You fucking shot me. You…”
And the darkness descends upon Whitaker’s face. Rage consumes him as Wilcox is startled still. He’s never seen the true man he’s become obsessed with. He has no idea that he’s a pawn in Whitaker’s fucked-up game.
“I didn’t—” Wilcox struggles out.
The gun fires and Wilcox’s final words are silenced as I hit the ground on my side. Wilcox’s body hits right after me while Whitaker roars out his displeasure and shoots Wilcox again, even though the first bullet was quite final.
But Whitaker doesn’t care because how could such a simple and useless pawn topple the most important piece in his game?
“No, no, no,” he yells, rushing over to me while I gasp for breath. The moment he drops down, he sets his gun behind him, out of my reach. My hand is digging into my chest, my body curling up as he reaches for me, and I waste no time before Islam that needle right into his leg, using the surprise of it to kick the gun away from him.
He looks down at it, almost in shock that I betrayed him. But that expression is nothing compared to the one he wears when I sit up, and he realizes that I’d never been shot at all.
I lean forward to whisper in his ear. “Don’t fuck with me, Whitaker. I’ve killed countless parasites like you. You are just a drop in the bucket for me, and not even a significant one at that.” That desire to kill has turned into bliss as I watch the man before me die.
