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Vega was a lunatic. He showed no emotions because he didn't have any. He didn't seem upset or anxious because he didn't have the ability to feel anything other than selfishness. Fear? None. Empathy? Nope. Happiness? Doubtful. Love? Not a chance in hell.

So what was Vega? Was he a monster? Was he a creature of the night? A Soulless ghoul from the dark side? Because he wasn't human. Fuck, he wasn't even an animal. Because even animals harbor some sort of emotions. They protect their young. They mourn the death of a loved one. Their brains might be small, but their hearts were far larger than the man next to me.

Vega sat up and exhaled a slow breath. He was quiet for a long time, staring at the fire. “When I first saw your picture, all I thought was how innocent you looked. It was hard to believe that someone with the face of an angel could be so callous. Then I learned about what you did. I thought to myself, 'I can do this. She deserves it.' Then, I watched you. I saw the way people looked at you. I saw the way they would smile as you talked. I was torn the night of the gala, but I knew I had a job to do. When I saw you in that red dress, you took my breath away. And when I watched Dylan grab you and saw the fear in your eyes, my entire body stiffened. I killed a manfor you,notbecause of you.I had never felt that level of anger before. And then, when that asshole shot at you, the only thing that flashed through my mind was the pain of a world without you. Call me a psychopath if it makesyou feel better, but I don't know any psychopath who would go through the lengths I will to save you.”

I glared at him. My brows angled hard, and my nostrils flared wide. “What do you expect me to do with that, huh? Throw my arms around you, and thank you? You want me to be indebted to you forever because you took someone's life for me? I didn't ask you to do that. You did that on your own. I don't want to carry that burden.”

“I don't expect you to carry any burden. You're right; I made certain choices. Because I have feelings. I'm not an emotionless zombie. Infatuation, hate, fear: thosearefeelings. Maybe they aren't the feelings you're used to, but they are feelings.”

“I know they are, but people with real feelings can't kill.”

Vega cocked his head. His jaw slacked, and his eyes narrowed. “My job doesn't define who I am. What I do doesn't make me the bad guy. There are worse people out there than me.”

“Are there?” I asked. My voice held a tone of sarcasm. I was pushing the buttons of a serial killer. A murderer. A hollow vessel of a man being manipulated by the Devil. And I didn't care.

Vega's mouth closed tight. He didn't answer. The flames of the fire turned his skin a deep shade of orange with bright highlights of yellow and gold. And as he stared at me, wordless, yet full of so many things to say, I laid down and rolled away from him.

There was no grace when you murdered people. God wasn't crossing off names in the Devil's playbook. Vega wasn't a missionary giving help to those who needed it. He was a killer. He was the same as the men who were after me.

Life wasn't a giant scale that you could tip by your actions. My life wasn't his to level what he had done in the past. Hiswrongs would follow him forever. It didn't matter if he saved my life or died trying.

My life wouldn't cleanse his.

* * * *

I awoke to the sound of a crash. It was loud and startling, and it caused me to jump up and grab my pink stuffed bunny for protection. I squeezed it instinctively as if it would ward off any evil that might crawl out of the dark.

My father had promised me it would keep me safe. He said the bunny could stop all my bad dreams. He assured me that nothing could ever touch me as long as I hugged it as tightly as I could. So, I hugged my bunny. I crushed him to the point his little glass eyes looked like they might shoot out of his head.

A second crash disrupted my foggy stupor. The sound of glass shattered off something hard. The wall. The floor. I wasn't sure. A guttural scream broke through the eerie silence that followed the crash. And I hugged my bunny even harder.

Then the scream came again. And again. It was my mother. I had never heard her scream like that before. Her tone was ear splintering-sharp. Sharp enough to break glass. My fear began to drift as my curiosity swelled. I couldn't just sit and suffocate my bunny anymore. I had to go see what was happening. Why was she screaming like that? What was causing her so much distress?

I stood at my door, my bunny under my arm and my hand on the doorknob. My mother was sobbing uncontrollably now. She was saying something under her breath. Whispering sounds that weren't strong enough for me to hear.

The knob was like ice against my small palm. It was hard to turn because of my fear and the weight it seemed to have. I opened the door and tip-toed into the hall. I walked toward her room, slowly plodding my way around creaky floorboards. Thecloser I got to the room, the louder her voice was. I could make out her words now. They were soft but clear.

“Just do it. Do it already. Why are you waiting? This is what you've wanted, isn't it?”

There was a long pause, and then she spoke again.

“I can't live like this anymore. I hate it. I hate it. I hate you. I fucking hate you!”

I crept closer. The bedroom door was cracked open. The light created a long beam of yellow over the floor and up the wall. It crawled over the ceiling like the lanky fingers of Nosferatu, clawing, scraping, and ripping apart the wallpaper and drywall. But I kept walking. I was drawn to the door. I had to see.

As I poked my head around the corner, I realized my mother wasn't alone. My father was with her. He was standing at the side of her bed with his back to the door. I could see how tense he was. His back was stiff. Every muscle in his neck was protruding, and the veins were thick and moving like worms under the skin. My father was taking slow, deep breaths.

My mother was sitting on the edge of the mattress with her head in her hands, still mumbling. She kept rubbing the side of her face vigorously. Her skin was bright red and shiny. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, and her expression looked like she was in pain: mouth open, gaping for air between slurred words, eyes swollen and red, chest lifting and lowering rapidly.

I was standing still. No one noticed I was there. I was like a shadow being cast against the wall. There but dismissed as unimportant and valueless. I was just another piece of the room that no one cared about.

My father reached out and pulled my mother's hand off her face. She resisted slightly, but she seemed so weak. She couldn't stop him. She couldn't fight him off. She looked like she barely had the strength to stand.

My mother was shaking as my father placed something shiny in her hand. I couldn't tell what it was at first, but as he adjusted her fingers and turned her hand, I could see it was a gun. He guided it to her temple, placed his finger over hers, and then everything went silent.

Slow motion in real life is a thing. Time can slow to the point that everything makes a noise. The air moving through my body was like tides rolling against the sand. The sweat dripping off my father's temples splashed like rain, even though it only hit his cotton socks. My mother's eyelids were as loud as the wind during a storm as she blinked.

Blood sprayed outward, covering the wall and splattering the floor in front of my feet. I could hear the blood as it seeped between the grains of wood. Small droplets soaked into my white socks with lace trim. It was warm and then cold against my skin. The ring from the gun swirled around the room like an eagle. I could feel it blowing the wispy edges of my hair as it echoed in my ears.