Page 56 of The Blood we Crave

“Yes? And do you know I had yogurt for breakfast? What does that have to do with this?”

This is not a therapy session or friends getting to know one another. I don’t want to know about her or hear about the things she went through.

I will not be sharing with her how I know she grew up in the system or how I’m aware of the substantial amount of money sitting in her bank account that allows her to live more than comfortably on her own at this age.

There are some things people are better off being unaware of.

“The first time it happened was in one of the group homes,” she whispers so sweetly that I can almost smell the cherries on her breath.

My hand tightens into a fist, my nails digging into my palms. I do not want to hear about this. I can’t hear about this. But I also can’t prevent my reaction to it.

I look down, staring hard at her.

“Did someone touch you while you were in there?”

My eyes dare her to lie or withhold information. I did not let her live just so another person could abuse her. Lyra might be a pest, a stubborn thorn burrowed into my skin, but she is mine.

Mine to deal with, mine to end.

No one else.

My six months between each victim rule seems to fade at the idea of boiling whoever had thought it was okay to touch something that is mine. Flashes of shredded body parts and melted flesh.

I’ll take my time with them. Make sure they feel every single cut.

“No, no.” She shakes her head aggressively. “Nothing like that.”

My leather-gloved hand curls around her weak bicep, my thumb pressing into her fragile skin. “Are you lying to me? I promise you, Lyra. The last thing you want to do is lie to me.”

Her bright eyes widen, flicking down to the place we are attached. That’s where they stay for a prolonged amount of time, just staring as my grip tightens around her arm, but she doesn’t even flinch. If anything, it feels like she is pushing into my hold.

“I’m not lying to you. Not to you, never you. I wouldn’t do that. I promise,” she swears, looking back up at me. “I was talking about the first time I ever got that feeling. It happened while I was living in a group home.”

She would lie.

But not to me? Never me?

It shouldn’t matter what her reply was. It shouldn’t affect me either way, but every single time she opens her mouth, it stirs something inside of me. I hate this feeling. I loathe being around her. All it does is put me in a sour mood.

Removing my hand from her, I keep walking. My silence must have been an encouragement for her to continue because she keeps speaking.

“I was eleven, and there was the older girl in my group home. Her name was Sonya, and Gods, she was a bitter teenager, angry that the world had dealt her these shitty cards, and she took it out on the younger kids. One night, I came downstairs to get some water when I saw Sonya forcing this little boy to walk across broken glass from a bottle he’d dropped. And this thing—” She places her hand on her stomach as if it’s a real living organism inside of her. “—it shook. It rattled me. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was see what her blood would look like spilling onto the floor. How it would feel to plunge a knife into her gut repeatedly.”

We get closer and closer to our destination, and I just listen. Instead of drowning her out like I do everyone else, I tune in to her. Because for the first time, I can relate to what she says.

“I thought it was just a protective instinct, you know? Something normal. I wanted to stop a bad person from doing a bad thing. People feel like that all the time, right? That’s what I told myself. Until it kept happening, until I—” She stops, like the truth on her tongue is choking her.

“Until you?” I push, making sure she finishes what she is about to say. Forcing her to own her thoughts.

A deep V creases between her brows, and out of all faces, that’s my least favorite of hers. As much as it pains me to say, even inside my head, Scarlett Lyra Abbott is beautiful.

Terrible dresser, nasty habits, and feral hair, but beautiful in all her obscurity.

I find classical music beautiful, foie gras striking, and the occasional scenery pleasing. But I do not find human beings attractive. They are bones, skin, and flesh. A pliable machine running on blood. I’m certainly fascinated by how much pain it can take but not pulled in by it.

Yet every moment I’m forced to see her face, I’m disgusted. Not due to how she looks but because I’m required to admit the truth of her proportionate features, and that, that makes me sick.

She’s so exquisite it makes me palpably ill.