Page 73 of It's One of Us

His father.

Yes, there was free will. Yes, there was socially acceptable behavior. Yes, he could be conditioned to not hurt people.

But in order to quell a craving, first you must slake the thirst.

It took him forever to get the name out of Winterborn. He’d befriended a woman who worked there, seduced and cajoled and flattered and begged and maybe did a tiny bit of threatening until she finally broke the rules and gave him the details.

He’d left her by the side of a quiet Georgia road, inside a thick field of cotton. An inelegant solution, but as far as he knew, her body had never been recovered. He missed her sometimes. She’d been so nice to him, in the beginning.

Once he had the name, it had taken him all of ten minutes to find his father. Living in Nashville, only miles away from his childhood home. Not a huge surprise; Winterborn was a popular regional sperm bank. He’d probably seen his father in the store or driving downtown sometime.

He followed. It’s what he did.

His father and stepmother were a typical Nashville couple, did all the typical Nashville things. It was fun watching them, getting to know their tastes and patterns. Until he trailed them to Charlotte and 23rd Avenue North and saw them enter the building that would change all their lives forever.

His father, with his beautiful fragile, lovely wife, at a fertility clinic.

Olivia had given Peyton a tremulous smile in the building’s elevator, and Peyton fell in love with her in an instant. Fell, hard. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. The more he watched, the more he wanted her. She was his ideal. Perfection, in so many ways.

Oh, and their terrible problems. His heart really did go out to Olivia. She wanted it so much. She wasn’t all that different from the women who were pouring out their hearts to his mother online, night after night. They wanted this commonality, they wanted to carry, bear, and raise children. Some didn’t want a partner; some had a partner who couldn’t give them what they wanted. Some were gay, some were straight. Some had no kids, some full families they wanted to add to. One who needed to get pregnant again with a genetically matched child who didn’t have the crippling disease her other kids suffered from so “it” could be used as a bone marrow donor. She figured a different genetic stream might provide a healthy child or two. She had actually called the possible child “it.”

That bothered him, the harvesting of other children, but it wasn’t his problem.

Point was, the stories were endless, varied. Every life, every need, every desire, different.

Did they ever stop to think that the children might not be what they wanted? That a child would not heal the emptiness in their soul? That a child might tear a hole in an otherwise perfect life?

Online, his mother tried so hard to warn them. She tried to make them aware there could be issues, that everything wasn’t always sunshine and roses. She spoke from experience. She spoke from the heart. She spoke of his problems so eloquently while still protecting him. So loyal, his mom.

When he’d realized he was different, thathewasn’t sunshine and roses, he’d done everything they’d asked of him and more. He wanted to be good for his mother. He loved her. Loves her.

Those people in her group, they never listened.

He finishes placing the solar panel, taping it securely, and steps back into the darkness. The last traceable part of his previous life is journeying to its last stop. It’s heading east to the mountains, and he is not. He doesn’t feel sorry to see it go.

The phone shivers again, and this time he takes it out and looks at the breaking news alert.

He almost feels relief. Almost.

It’s over. As he feared, there will be no goodbye.

31

THE MOTHER

It is nearing dawn, and Darby hasn’t slept.

How could she? She’s been calling Peyton every five minutes for the past several hours to no avail, alternating frenetic speed-dialing with laps around the bottom floor of the house. Her calves and thighs ache. Her heart aches.

This is not the situation she ever thought she’d be in, faced with an impossible choice.

Confront her son and ask if he murdered a woman or call the police and tell them she knows the man in the sketch they’re circulating. And hope to God she does it before a stranger does.

The boy. He’s barely a man.

Apparently, he’s man enough, her mind helpfully provides. Man enough to rape. Man enough to strangle.

Her boy, that darkness in him. The rages. The altercations. The push and pull of love and hate.