Page 8

CHAPTER 8

REDLEY

He enjoyed killing her for what she did to me ? The words repeat in my head, but they don’t make any more sense the second, third, or fourth time.

No one has ever cared before. They’ve either not noticed or used Granny as a threat against me themselves, but instead, he kills her.

What else did he enjoy? Did he enjoy spending time with me? Lulling me into a false sense of safety just to rip it all away. My heart and stomach fight for which of them is sicker. Those same monstrous hands that carefully picked the glass out of my face cruelly stole my granny’s life, and I enjoyed it too. I let him sleep in my bed and was happy to find him there still watching me.

When I first saw him yesterday, hurt and covered in blood, I assumed he was a young man, maybe only a couple of years older, but I realize now I must have been wrong about that too. Just like I’ve been so wrong about everything else, never bothering to ask the most important questions, assuming I could believe my eyes.

“Whose blood was all over you when you showed up here? Was it yours?” I cry, remembering Heather who died just yesterday, right before he came. “Were you even hurt?” I ask, my sense of reality falling apart right in front of me. I let him stay.

“Why ask now? You didn’t care before,” he says, that same anger still pouring off him, and I just don’t get what he has to be angry about in the middle of the mess that he created.

My mouth opens and closes. My heart tries to rip itself out of me to escape the truth of my new reality and my hand in it. My realization sinks like a stone. Him not aging, him looking human, they’ve never been part of the legend. But the truth is lying on the floor dead in front of me. This isn’t a handsome, hurt young man who was gentle with me and played Elvis while I slept. I don’t have soft feelings for him.

“You’re the Wolf!” I shout. “You’re a killer.” This is the monster that took everything from me. My stomach roils, winning the battle with my heart, and I nearly puke with the thickness of my own betrayal. I caused this every bit as much as he did. I chose not to scream.

“And you are free now,” he growls, confirming my worst fears. He takes one step toward me, and I step back, but the room isn’t big, and there isn’t anywhere to go. Within seconds, I’m against the wall, and he’s nearly on top of me, still holding my wrists, but now pressing them to the wood above me.

“So what if she beat me?” I ask, my back against the logs, my mind unable to come to terms with how my pain could have caused such a reaction. “She’s been beating me for five damn years. She didn’t deserve to die for it!” I shout in his face, but he doesn’t seem to care. Why would he? He’s been killing on these mountains for generations. What the hell is one more death to him?

He stares at me with a fierceness that seems far too human for a monster. His eyes judge me on my deepest level, and I can’t begin to guess what he sees. Why does he look and feel so damn human? Why do little zips of electricity still fire off between us like he hasn’t ruined every damn thing? The stories spoke of claws and fangs and glowing eyes like flames, not irises like sunflowers. How was I supposed to be prepared for the devil to come disguised as a man?

“If you didn’t want someone to take care of it for you, you should have taken care of it yourself .” He leans into me so I’m forced to accept what he’s saying.

“What does that mean?” I ask, not getting how I could have changed how Granny treated me. Physically stopping her was never an option. Letting him in was my fault, but I couldn’t have kept Granny from beating me without destroying my entire life here.

“You could have stopped her. You didn’t,” he accuses with a harsh glare. “It’s not my fault you were too much of a coward to do what needed to be done.”

So what, I should have hurt her or left home in order to keep her safe from some murderous monster who thinks he’s a vigilante all of a sudden?

“What could I have done?” I shout.

“Anything but stand there while she kept beating you. Anything .” And it’s then I realize he’s angry with me too.

“So this is my fault?” My voice barely makes a sound as I speak, the truth breaking me down to the smallest pieces. This is my fault.

“As much yours as mine, Redley,” he agrees.

Tears, hot and fat, swell on my lashes, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop them. His words cut me to my core. Those ones at least are true.

“I have nothing now! No one! You did this to me!”

More tears spill, sobs catch in my throat, and I can’t breathe around them. I haven’t cried like this in five years. Not since I walked up the mountain looking for Granny’s help, but there’s no one here to tell me to stop or they’ll give me something to cry about anymore, so they just keep falling.

“Come with me.” His voice has dropped even deeper, and I'm so shocked by the suggestion that I gasp like he slapped me.

He pushes closer to me until I can feel the warmth of his chest pressing against me and holding me up against the wall behind me. He shuffles both my hands into one of his, then tips my chin up with the free one so I’m forced to look into his yellow eyes. The intimacy should repulse me, but that’s only half of what I feel.

“I’ll take care of you. No one will ever touch you again if you’re mine,” he promises, his voice much softer now.

I hate him so much for being soft with me again after all this. I like how it feels to touch him despite everything. The offer still tempts me.

“I would never. I hate you,” I swear to him and myself at the same time.

“You could love me too, if you wanted. I could show you things you’ve never even dreamed of. That cassette in my bag? It’s nothing compared to what I can give you.”

I hate the way I believe him, and how his belongings speak to a world I’ve never seen and a life I could never live on my own. Even that tempts me, the idea that there is so much beyond Grimm Groves and that there might even be a place where I’m not so alone.

“I don’t want it,” I lie for my sense of dignity and whatever loyalty remains to my family after what I’ve allowed to happen.

“You don’t even know what it is to know whether or not you want it. What the hell do you know other than this mountain, Muffin?”

He drops my hands and takes one step back to spread his and demonstrate that we’re on top of the world, but it’s such a small world compared to the rest. I don’t waste time. I swing my fist, dead set on at least hurting him, and once again, he snatches my hands in his before it lands. I pull my wrists trying to get free, lift my leg to kick him, but he just shoves me back against the wall.

My breath leaves me. I’m practically whispering when I say, “Do not call me that. You don’t know anything about me.” My disgust and outrage burn in every part of my body, but the warmth of his chest still touches something empty deep inside my own. “You’re just a killer. You’re a monster. I hate you.”

“Let me keep you safe,” he insists, eyes blazing like he’s my hero and not the monster that’s taken everything from me.

“Never. I would never choose you.”

I slump between him and the wall. I’m still so hurt, not okay after last night, and feeling like I’m about to fall. I need to stand on my own, though. Choosing him would be a violation to every member of my family who’s come before me, all of them dead by his hands. So why not me? Why not kill me too? It would be kinder.

He squeezes my hands even tighter, and my joints complain as they grind together. He’s only a breath away from me when he says, “I saw that pitiful garden out there. I know you’re poor. There wasn’t enough food for both of you to survive this winter anyway. You’ll live now. If you’re going to spit on my offer, at least thank me for helping you not to starve.”

His words hurt more than any I’ve ever heard because they’re true. We were going to struggle this winter, but we would have made it like always. “There’s nothing you could show me that I would want to see, and I will never thank you.”

“I promise you there are some things.” He comes closer, his lips softening, and I recognize his body language from the time I kissed Bobby.

Oh no. Oh, hell no.

And because I have absolutely nothing left in the world to lose but a couple of scraps of my own dignity, I headbutt him, but because Granny did such a number on me before she died, everything goes black, and I’m unconscious before I even know if I managed to hurt him.