Page 193 of Like Grim Death: Part One

“Don’t be stupid. Stop being naïve.” He snaps the words out like he’s personally offended about my desires to distort the truth. This is all personal to him, but it has nothing to do with Lucifer or Sid or Maverick.

“What did you want to tell me last night? What happened with Natalie?” I manage to gasp out, flicking my gaze to the stopper in his hand, the bottle between his strong fingers. “Where is she?”

His eyes lock on mine. “She’s in hell.” He enunciates each word carefully. “It was either her, or Samson.”

A life for a life.

Liar’s Island.

My mind is spinning. I don’t know what to do or say or… “Did you kill him? Was it…you?”Horror spreads and grows and pulses in my brain.

He doesn’t answer me.

“Liar’s Island.” I gasp it out. I can’t hold it back anymore. “Is she there? Was Samson ever there? Did he see it? Whatisit?”

He stares at me, and a shadow crosses his face.

My stomach churns. “You killed him because he saw it. Because it was true, what he posted. What he said. It’s where children go to die.” I sound crazy, even to myself, and Iloathethat. But I can’t stop talking and I hate the fact Atlas doesn’t look at all surprised I know this. “You left Natalie there. Didn’t you?”

He says nothing at all.

My voice sounds frantic and unlike my own when I screech out,“Didn’t you?”

His gaze flicks up and down my body. “I’m not answering any more of your questions.” He seems a little deranged, and for the first time, I notice his pupils are blown. It’s the way he tilts his head, and his gaze catches in the low lights.

He’s…on something. Why? Is he afraid? Is he running? What is he hiding? Is it like what I’m keeping a secret too?

He steps closer, lifting the glass dropper up to my mouth. I can’t see the color of the liquid, because the glass is amber. “Now, open your pretty fucking mouth, and sayyes.”

“I need to go.” I gasp the words out and turn around, reaching for the door, but Atlas fists my hair, dragging me up against his chest. The pain sears in my scalp, and I open my mouth to scream, but Atlas is holding the dropper to my lips, and I taste something sickly sweet. It reminds me of the fair Mom would sometimes bring me to, hoping to steal food or pick up men. It’s like…cotton candy but made of sharp chemicals.

“You suddenly don’t trust me?” he sneers in my ear, panic setting in. “You don’t wanna keep our secrets?”

He’s an actual fucking psycho.

He is literally psychotic.

His whispers to me ring in my head, about different versions of foreplay. Is this his? Drugging girls? My chest heaves as I keep my lips pursed together.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” His words are quiet, and his tone has shifted. From unhinged to… something with more feeling.

The tension doesn’t leave my body, but his voice now is like a bizarre balm.

“I won’t hurt you,” he says again. “Just give me this, Ella. It doesn’t have to mean anything, but I can promise you, right now, Maverick is fuckingsomeonewho isn’t you.”

My stomach burns. I think of last night. Even beyond the murder, the violence, I think of Maverick putting his arm around me at the end of it all, in front of Lucifer and Sid. How, in that little moment, I felt so big to him.

But then tonight, he tells me to go away, then I find him withher,both of them betraying me. I think about him fucking Chelsea. My chains rattling on the bed. The way he taunted me by saying he’d fuck her in the ass too. How, afterward, he expected me to just take it. He didn’t expect me to retaliate.

Are you only his puppet?

I grit my teeth, imagining my mom’s hands against my face. Her shackling me up so she could go out and get high. The men she brought into my life. The food she didn’t. I think of being hungry and lonely and scared and starving for more than nutrients.

Attention. Love. Hugs. Soft touches.

I got none of it. Igetnone of it.

“That’s it,” Atlas says against my ear. “Remember how it stings, all the ways he’s made you feel small.”