Page 52 of His Trick

My mom did. Hell, she died from seeing the monster in him. She tried to run with me in tow, and he chased her down and slaughtered her. He took away all her warmth and suffocated me in his forced affection.

Rot behind those bars, Dad. I hope she haunts you in your dreams like you haunt me.

I hadn’t seen this picture in years. I wasn’t even sure it still existed. The fact that Carrington had it, of all people, that he had found it or obtained it in some methodical way, was worse than any photo he could have taken last night. Or ever.

I flipped it over, the fucking Turkish smoke suffocating me further.

In thick black ink, pressed so hard it indented the card, were the words:

Interesting day indeed, Sunshine. Now I see you, Baby Boy. Like father…like son.

The photo rattled in my grip as my pulse hammered against my ribs, like I was still strapped to that wooden board with his fucking knife just above my skin. My father’s voice echoed in my mind—all his insults and disdain. Now Carrington’s handwriting lay over it like a brand, binding me to a legacy I’d spent my whole life trying to outrun.

“You always looked like hope.”

I stumbled back into the doorway, knuckles whitening on the photograph. The photo wasn’t just a taunt or a form of retaliation. It was proof…proof Carrington knew where to cut me the fucking deepest. Proof that he could reach into my past as easily as he could slice those girls to ribbons.

I was no different.

I wasn’t special.

I was interesting to him because he could see I was lying to everyone…but him. He had my truth.

And the worst part?

A sick, gnawing voice in the back of my head whispered that maybe he wasn’t wrong. Maybe I was no better than my past, and it was only a matter of time before the darkness took over.

Like father…like son.

The fucking rain came down like needles, soaking my cigarette before I could even finish the drag, but I didn’t give a fuck. Shiloh learned where the cameras were, and now he was dodging every single one. I tried to follow his movements, but he may as well have stuck gum on them. I was blind to his reaction to my little gift.

His father, being a convicted serial killer in Kentucky, was an interesting twist I hadn’t seen coming. What did make sense, though, was why Shiloh fought so hard to keep from falling into the darkness. A darkness I could feel as if it were circling him like mist.

He’d shown me that void, little moments when his deep blue eyes weren’t the warm, dopey pools he tried to portray.

They mirrored my own, not in color, but in the cold clarity. I wanted to taste his skin when he was pulled into that void. I needed to understand why another killer tasted so fucking delicious to me.

But Shiloh isn’t a killer, is he?

He almost killed the woman in the woods, but just when I thought he’d snap her neck, he let the bitch run off. The amount of strength to stop yourself from killing had to be greater than even my own comprehension. He called me weak before, and it frayed the edges of my nerves to understand why he thought that.

I disagreed.

He was the weak one.

Always running, never allowing himself to accept what he wanted, whether that was spilling someone’s blood or…

Me.

I was leaning against a stone pillar of my idiot family’s estate, my hair was plastered to my skull from the fucking downpour. There was a peace in watching the smoke curl from my mouth and disappear into the storm.

So much of my life was filled with noise: work, my family, and even my own thoughts. The rain and the thunder’s rumble were enough to drown out the whispers.

It reminded me of the storm I saw every time Shiloh got close enough for me to unveil the layers of lies he hid behind.

As if my thoughts summoned him, I heard his heavy, wet footsteps on the asphalt, searching in the rain for something or someone.

Me.