Page 66 of Half the Summer's Night

“Where is he?” Nameless asks.

I twist around in his embrace, trying to look at him. His mask tilts down. For a second, I see the gleam of his eyes, burning straight into me.

You can stop this, I think, but I don’t fucking want to.

“Cabinet seven,” I breathe out.

Nameless releases me and walks over to the refrigeration unit and pulls out the drawer. I laid transparent plastic over the body after my autopsy, a show of respect. Nameless yanks it off and lets it flutter to the ground.

The red of the victim’s ruined skull is striking against the silver of the examination room.

Nameless looks down at the body and runs his gloves along the cold, mottled flesh. I stare at him, shivering, waiting for his next instructions.

He looks up at me. The mask leers.

“You were right,” he finally says. “I followed you to Neptune’s Adventure.”

Blood pounds in my ears. “Why?”

He stares at me for a long time before he answers. “Because you’re the focus of everything I do, Abi. I always want to be near you.”

It’s the last thing I expect him to say, and it knocks me breathless

“I want to protect you,” he continues. “Not from someone like Rowan Han?—”

He stops abruptly, like he can’t even get Rowan’s name out. My insides twist around. “Please don’t hurt Rowan,” I whisper. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

Nameless looks at me through his mask. Then he hooks his finger, beckoning me to come over.

And I do, like I’m on a fishing line, like he’s reeling me in. As soon as I’m close enough, he yanks me up to him by the waist and positions me so both of us are facing the body.

It feels different, looking at it with him.

“Do you know who that is?” Nameless growls in my ear.

I shake my head.

“He was there,” Nameless says, his voice ragged. Rough. “At the same time you were.”

I stare at the torso and think back to my report.Young Caucasian male. Early 20s.

“He insulted you,” Nameless says.

I jerk away from him and look up at his mask again. No, not his mask. His eyes. Trying to see him. Neptune’s Adventure had been somewhat busy. It’s summer, after all, peak tourist season. I play through the faces of everyone who had been there. Not trying to find the victim.

Trying to find my killer.

Nameless grabs my wrist and pulls me up to him, then grabs my chin, directing my gaze down at the body. “Heinsultedyou,” he says darkly. “Insulted your friend.”

Rowan.

“And you killed him,” I whisper.

“Yes.” Nameless jerks me to face him, and the roughness is surprising but not unpleasant.

Neither is the presence of the body.

Or, the most terrible realization, the fact that the body only exists because of me.