Billy’s voice gets conspiratorial.“Did you ever hear of the Boy Next Door Killer?”
Of course I’ve heard of him. Everyone has. When I shared a room with Maya, the true crime fanatic, I had to overhear an entire podcast series about him. Three episodes about a teenage boy who killed seven girls in Maine in one year before disappearing without a trace.
“Such a fascinating case,”Billy continues, standing from his chair and stepping into the aisle.“A seventeen-year-old boy from a good family. Captain of the cross-country team. The kind of young man mothers trusted with their daughters.”
I feel as though I’m being wrapped in something cold and heavy, like that boa constrictor fromThe Jungle Bookhas wound around my body and is squeezing me tighter and tighter, and I’m too hypnotized to move.
“The first girl was an accident, they said.”Billy walks closer, his steps careful and deliberate.“A moment of rage that spiraled out of control. But they were wrong. There was nothing accidental about it. The boy had been fantasizing for months about what it would feel like to have complete power over another person.”
Billy’s almost at the stage.
“It only took some gentle encouragement,”Billy says.“Some… mentoring, if you will. The boy was so receptive to my guidance. So eager to learn. He was bloodthirsty, and oh, so pretty. Our girls trusted him so readily.”
“You’re lying,” I say, but my voice wavers.
“Such misplaced faith you have.”Billy leans his hip against the edge of thestage, his whole posture slouching.“Have you ever paid attention to Nicholas’s eyes? With that gray ringaround the irises? They used to be such a lovely green, but I made that color go away.”
I can picture Nico’s eyes so clearly, that greenish teal color, the same shade as a milky pool, with the cloudy gray rings that I thought were just unique, part of what made him beautiful.
“Tell me, Eden,”Billy continues.“Have you ever wondered why he’s so cold all the time?”
I open my mouth to reply, but those words hollow me out. He’s right. Nico’s always wearing hoodies and long-sleeved shirts even when everyone else is in T-shirts.
“It’s because he remembers what it feels like to have something cold living inside of him,”Billy says.“Even years later, his body remembers. Why else do you think he would never leave this house?”
“Because he has work here,” I manage. “He has too much to do?—”
“Nicholas is a loose cannon,”Billy interrupts.“Unpredictable. Dangerous. I sure do love that about him. That edge he tries so hard to hide.”
“You possessed him.” As soon as I say the words out loud, I feel sick, grasping for logic. “Youkilled those girls.”
Billy makes a soft tutting sound, standing there with his hands at his sides.“I can only enter willing participants.”
“That’s bullshit,” I say. “Anyone can be possessed if the entity is strong enough. I wasn’t willing, and you still crawled into my head.”
“I couldn’t occupy you from in here if I tried.”Billy pushes off from where he’s leaning and floats up onto the stage, legs pedaling through the air before he lands on the surface.“Besides, I’m not interested in you. You, my dear, don’t have the same parts, nor do you have the appetites my Nicholas does.”
I think of all the words we threw up on the board during our team meeting.LONER.SINGLE.CRIMINAL RECORD. Nico isthe center of this team and hardly a loner, and he couldn’t be more different than Ed Mathis, living alone in that sad apartment.
“Nico’s nothing like other people who get possessed,” I say.
“Is that so?”Billy hums, sounding disbelieving.“Did you ever stop to think that not every one of us would choose the same type of person to possess? Or wonder why Donald Dellman could so accurately predict who I’d choose? My chosen one had to be like me. Nicholas had enough anger festering inside of him that it was easy for me to slip inside. He was begging for someone to give him permission to act on all those thoughts he’d been having.”
“You’re making things up.” I scramble to my feet because he’s getting close to me now. “That’s what you do. You embellish.”
Nico may have raised his voice, slammed the console, but he seemed as shocked as me that he did. He lost himself enough to forget his duty and left me here alone. Nico would never hurt anyone. He’d never beexcitedat the thought of murdering someone.
Billy weaves his head from side to side in a serpentine motion.“What if I told you that’s why he came down here to talk to me the night we met?”
My back hits the wall of my mental theater. I can almost feel the soft black curtain rubbing against my exposed skin.Billy continues walking toward me. I don’t want to wait around to see what happens if he reaches me.
I run toward the wings. Billy keeps his pace methodical and controlled, and with a pang, I realize it’s the same way Nico moves, like a panther, full of power and ready to spring at any moment.
“Nicholas couldn’t bear having you in the house,”Billy says.“The temptation was too much. He needed my guidance on howto handle the situation. How to make the urges stop. I told him how he could remove the urges… permanently.”
“You’re a liar,” I say.
“How else would I have known your name when you were all the way upstairs in your room?”Billy asks.
