Page 39

Oz flashed to his aunt’s dire warnings about his innate evil. “I’ve had some experience with the concept, yes.”

“I joined up with him when I was a girl. And he told me that I was special and that together we would do great things. But we didn’t.

At the end of it, all I got were broken bones and scars.

And… and the nightmares.” She swallowed.

“He hurt me, Oz. He… he hurt me bad.” She smoothed a strand of her hair behind her ear, still not meeting his gaze.

“Turned me into someone I didn’t want to be.

It took me years to work up the nerve to try to kill him. And I’d thought I’d done it. But…”

“Sometimes garbage doesn’t stay buried.” Oz observed, making a silent vow to kill that man himself, when the opportunity first presented. Oz was a man who lived his life by a lot of rules and guidelines, but the first entry on that list was: if you hurt Natalie, you die.

“Exactly.” She nodded. “That’s why I don’t work with partners anymore.

They… they die. And they can hurt you. And he can’t hurt them to get to me…

” She paused, squinting at him like he distracted her from her thoughts.

“Why the fuck are you hovering?” She gestured to him.

“Are you just standing there because the thought of entering someone else’s bedroom disgusts you or are you standing there because of some obscure bit of gentlemanly manners I’ve never learned? ”

“The latter.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Come in if you want, stand in the hallway alone if you want. Whatever floats your boat, Oz.” She dumped a package of bullets into her bag, next to her toothbrush.

“Jesus. You’re so high maintenance. Pretty soon I’m going to have to remind you that it’s okay to blink, it won’t offend me. ”

“I’m not worried about offending you, I’m worried about scaring you.” He admitted. “People… people have told me that I’m always on the verge of being evil. That I creep them out. Men in my family are cursed with insanity.”

She snorted, tossing a handgun into the bag.

“I’m out of my goddamn mind, Oz. Full-blown batshit balls-to-the-wall gonzo crazy.

And not in the ‘Cynic’s so socially unacceptable, isn’t he funny!

?!’ way, but in the ‘Holy shit, hide the cutlery before that loony bitch kills us in our sleep’ way.

” She threw several knives and a domino mask into the bag.

“I have the leftover shit from ten thousand different personalities rattling around in my head. It’s… it’s a mess in there.”

“Well… sounds like neither of us feels good then.”

“So it would appear.” She sighed.

He looked at her for a long moment.

The moment turned into two.

And Oz noticed that his pulse was now racing.

He was pretty sure it had nothing to do with his ailments now, it was entirely due to the woman standing across from him.

The pulse alarm on his watch went off, warning him of his elevated heart rate, just in case he needed medical attention. He’d set it to a very low level, because he wanted an early warning if something was wrong.

Natalie tore her eyes from his, glaring at the object on his wrist. “You know what? I’m sick of this shit.

” She started towards him angrily. “If you think you’re dying, I can help you along with that.

Or you’re going to start living right fucking now.

” To his surprise, she slapped him across the face.

Oz stumbled backwards into the hall, bumping one of the tables and almost sending its varied contents spilling across the floor.

She prowled after him. “What do you want? Huh?” She slapped him again, more surprising him than causing actual pain.

“You wanna die or do you want to start living? What will make you fucking happy!?!”

“Ow!”Oz backed away.“Can you stop…”

“What. Do. You. Want!?!” She demanded, raising her hand to hit him again.

He caught her wrist. “You. Alright? You’d make me happy.” He admitted, her wrist feeling delicate and soft in his gloved hand.

The answer seemed to take her aback. “I… I can’t even make myself happy, Oz. You don’t want me.” Her voice broke. “Trust me, you don’t want me.”

“I think I do.” He assured her softly.

He leaned closer and their lips touched. Due to Oz’s difficulties dealing with the outside world, this was technically the first time he’d ever kissed anyone. The entire idea had always seemed gross to him. The exchange of trillions of horrible viruses and pathogens.

In practice though, Oz found it pleasant.

An instant later and the dark parts of Oz’s mind took over, slamming his lips into hers more forcefully, staking a claim to them.

He’d almost let his stupid brain get in the way of being with her.

She’d almost died. She’d almost died and he’d almost let his fear over his powers and his preoccupation with germs stop him from taking what he wanted while she was actually here. She could have died and Oz would have regretted not trying this for every second of his life.

Natalie made no effort to escape him, instead wrapping her arms around his neck, returning the kiss.

Oz took that as an invitation to continue, running his hands down her back, touching her body places he’d never touched before.

She let out a small sound of pleasure, raising her leg to wrap around him.

Oz ran his hand down her thigh as she held it against him, fulfilling a dream he’d had for three solid years.

Unsurprisingly, her legs felt as amazing as they looked.

Soft skin over strong, elegant muscles. He wanted them wrapped around him.

He wanted to feel them pulling him close, offering her body to him.

…But then Oz considered the matter, his brain once more getting in the way of the fun he was having.

He hadn’t washed his hands since he’d arrived in the building.

And even though he was wearing gloves, he’d touched the elevator buttons, the doorknobs, the table in the hall, and the pile of mail!

Mail! Mail was some of the dirtiest things in the world, and now he was smearing all of those germs and microbes all over the perfection of Natalie’s body.

And he hadn’t showered in almost three hours.

He was filthy and disgusting.

She was just out of the hospital, the last thing she needed was for someone to infect her with a super-virus simply because he didn’t wash his hands before touching her.

Oz had spent his entire life obsessively cleaning his own hands, because he knew the filth was always there. He could feel it, no matter how much soap he used.

Oz was trash.

And trash had no business being anywhere near someone as amazing as Natalie.

He tried to push the idea from his mind, but it refused to go away.

It somehow fused itself with his own guilt over her almost dying.

She’d almost died once, and now was he really willing to risk her life?

Because of something so simple? When you came right down to it, that was selfish.

He should just go wash his hands, and then everything would be fine.

Unfortunately, the internal conflict was causing his other OCD tendencies to come to the surface. And the entire room now felt like chaos which needed to be organized if this moment could ever hope to be completely perfect.

His sudden distraction did not go unnoticed.

Natalie stopped the kiss and lowered her leg, simply staring at him with an odd look on her face. Oz wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but he knew it wasn’t good.

“Can you please not look so disgusted while we’re making out, Oz?” She said softly, sounding hurt. “It kinda kills the mood.”

Oz swore to himself, something he very rarely actually did. “Sorry, I know. It’s not you, it’s just…”

“I know.” She nodded in understanding, looking tired. She sat down on the bed. “It’s my fault. I should have known better.” She gestured to the left with her head. “The bathroom is that way, if you want to compulsively wash your hands and mouth or whatever.”

Oz stood still for a beat. “It’s… it’s really not about you.” He assured her again.

She nodded. “I know.”

“I just… I touched the elevator buttons on the way in, without thinking, and now I just can’t…”

“I know.” She nodded again, not willing to argue with him about it, because she was already resolved to the conclusion about him she’d reached. “It’s okay.”

But Oz could tell it most certainly wasn’t. He just wasn’t sure how to go about changing that. Because the compulsions sometimes seemed to hold Oz hostage. He couldn’t control them. He tried, it was just…

They scared him. They were the part of him which terrified him, and he knew he couldn’t beat them.

“I’m sorry.” He told her softly. “I just… I can’t…”

“You don’t want to be with me, Oz.” She told him simply, tilting her head to the side. “You just think you do.” She stood up and closed her suitcase. “I’m… I’m a Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, Oz.”

“Is that your name today?”

“No… well, yeah. I guess. But do you know what that is?”

“Should I?”