“You were a kid,” I insist, inching closer to him. “Billy used you.”
Nico steps backward, one hand shooting out to stop me. “I’m sick of everyone acting like I’m above it. I’m not the same person I was. I’m not stable. Donny keeps forcing me to be near you when I’ve told him, I’ve told him over and over, that I still get the urges. Any time I’m around you. I can’t get them to fuckingstop.”
It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard him speak. Even louder than when he yelled in the containment room. My certainty wobbles for just a second. One tiny stumble in my conviction.
All the emotion drains out of Nico’s face like someone pulled a plug.
“You know what I can’t seem to get Donny to believe?” Nico says. “Billy was right. A part of me did enjoy it.”
He lowers his chin and glowers at me, and suddenly, he doesn’t look like Nico at all. He looks like a predator wearing Nico’s skin. Goosebumps break out across my arms. My heart jackhammers, each beat echoing up into my ears.
“You’re trying to scare me,” I say.
“I’m being honest with you,” Nico says. “Allison—she was in my art class. I offered her a ride home from school. Drove her out to this service road in the middle of nowhere and strangled her with my bare hands. Lila was stronger than I expected. Grabbed a pen from my car and stabbed me with it before I could get her hands tied.”
He pulls back his hair to reveal a scar stretching across his forehead that his hair usually covers, from his temple to his hairline.
“Stop,” I beg, and the word comes out as a whimper.
“No.” He drops his hand, and his hair covers the scar back up. “You wanted to know who you’re living with, so I’m fucking telling you. Emily screamed so loud I had to punch her in the face to shut her up. Broke her nose. There was blood everywhere. You know what the worst part was? She kept begging me not to hurt her because her sister was waiting for her to come home, and I did it anyway. I raped her anyway. I killed heranyway.”
Tears are streaming down my face, and I can’t make them stop. “It wasn’t you.”
“Rebecca and Katherine Harmon were mother and daughter. I broke into their house at two in the morning. The mom heard something, came downstairs to check, and I hit her with a tire iron until her skull cracked open. The daughter heard her mom screaming. She tried to run, but I dragged her back upstairs to her bedroom and shoved her face into her pillow. I could feel everything when I raped her. Every second. And it feltgood.”
“Billy did this,” I plead. “It wasn’tyou.”
“How would you know? You think youknowme?” He’s yelling now. “You want to know how I know I’m not stable? I feel nothing, Eden. I used to feel everything. Too much, even. But now it’s just empty. All the time. So I pretend. I’m really fucking good at pretending I have feelings because I know what people want me to feel. I know what a normal person would feel, so I pretend, but inside?” He jabs a finger into his chest. “There’snothingthere.”
I try to back away from him, but he closes the space so fast that I don’t stand a chance. I stumble into the bookshelf, and he leans down toward me, his voice dropping so low that only I can hear. Bob snaps at Nico to keep his distance.
“I can’t be in the sameroomas you,” he seethes. “I can’t evenlookat you without feeling those urges. Something is wrong with me, Eden. So do me a favor and believe me when I tell you who I am, or else you’ll find out when I’m killing you.”
He strides out of the library and slams the door so hard the hinges rattle.
The backs of my eyeballs burn so much it’s like acid is pressing against them. My knees wobble and I sink to the floor, setting Bob down next to me. He spins around to stare at me. I press my fist against my mouth to muffle the sound, but it does nothing to stop the ragged sobs that rise in me until my shoulders shake with them.
I don’t know how much time passes before the door creaks open.
“Eden?”
I lift my head. Donny steadies himself on the door frame, a frown cutting deep wrinkles on either side of his mouth.
“You and I need to have a conversation.”
CHAPTER 34
How does an entity choose who to possess? Perhaps there’s an emotional resonance required. An entity might need to feel a kinship with its chosen host, or see a part of itself in them. From what I can tell, the reason varies.
—Journal of Donald Dellman, May 2015
I want to tell Donny to go to hell. I want to scream at him for bringing me into this house, for putting me in danger, forlyingto me, but all I do is wipe my eyes with my sleeve and nod.
In the kitchen, he drops tea bags into two plain green mugs that don’t have anything funny written on them.
“Chamomile,” Donny explains. “It’s soothing.”
Cool. I need some soothing. There’s nothing quite like a nice herbal beverage after discovering the guy down the hall daydreams about murdering you.
