Page 107 of Vicious Behaviors

“Did you hurt anyone tonight?” she asks in a low whisper.

“Yes.”

“Did they deserve it?”

“Yes.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

Her muscles relax at the final statement, her arms wrapping around my neck.

“Was ithim?”

My head snaps back at the question, finding nothing but patience and tenderness in her eyes.

How does she always know?

How is she always so in tune with my misery?

“How do you—

I don’t have time to finish the question since Izzie’s lips are already on mine. I lose myself in that moment, all my anxiety and worry lifting off my shoulders with just one touch of her lips. When she breaks our kiss, her gaze is a molten golden hue.

“I’ve seen my share of darkness in my lifetime,” she explains, running the pad of her finger on my lower lip. “I’ve seen more than a few good men be crippled by it. Sometimes they feelso helpless that they let the darkness take over and taint every aspect of their lives. Let it ruin all the good that surrounds them.”

“I won’t let it ruin us. I’ll never let it hurt you,” I vow.

“I know that too.” She smiles sheepishly. “I just want to help you. Let me in, Marcello. Let me help you.”

Izzie places her head over my heart afterward, while I hug her tightly against me.

Let her in… Fuck, not only have I let her in, but my heart is hers for the taking. Because in this moment, two things become very clear to me. The first being that Izzie sees me in a way that I haven’t let myself be seen since I still had my innocence, and the second is that I love her. I’m in love with her. I’m in love with the one person who should have always been off limits for me.

If this is a trap, a ploy just to confuse me enough to reveal all my secrets so one day she can lock me up for good, then my fate is in her hands. I’m too far gone to put up a fight any longer.

Chapter 23

Isobel

I take notes like a madwoman in the back of the school auditorium, hanging on every word Professor Jane Montgomery says about dissociative identity disorder. Everything she explains seems to fit Marcello’s vicious behavior to the letter.

These last few days, he seems even more determined to control that side of himself. As if afraid that his alter might show up at any given time just to hurt me. His training sessions at the gym have become even more intense. At night, when he nods for someone to challenge him in the ring, he’s no longer content with just one opponent. Instead, he’s dead set on fighting two men at a time.

I can no longer stand idly by and watch Marcello in the ring every night. It hurts too much to see his alter flicker through, taunting whoever is across from him. It hurts even more to watch how he lets his opponent strike first, as if the monster is punishing Marcello for not letting it out of its cage during the other twenty-four hours of the day.

Every night, there’s a new gash, a new bruise. My heart stops every single time he steps out of the ring a little more broken than before, and I can’t bear it anymore. There has to be a safer way for him to navigate his illness, a way to cast out his demons without destroying himself.

However, it’s the quiet times that concern me more. The lulls in Marcello’s day. Sometimes when he doesn’t think I’m watching, he looks so lost, as if he doesn’t quite understand himself. It physically hurts my heart to see him like this. I want to help him, but I’m not entirely sure how. That’s why this lecture is so important. I need to understand every peculiarity about DID and how it’s triggered, so I can help ease his suffering.

Deep down, I know I should be more worried about my case than Marcello’s mental well-being, but something shifted inside me last Saturday when he left me at his house. I was so afraid he wouldn’t come home. Afraid he might get himself hurt, or worse… killed. It was only when he slipped under the covers of our bed that I allowed myself to breathe. Only when I felt the warmth of his body cocooning me in his embrace did I find peace.

A part of me believes that Marcello seeks me out because it’s the only time the voices in his head are quiet, and he can hear himself think. That it’s in my arms that he finds that same peace, too. If this is the only way to help him fight his demons, then I’ll happily share his bed every night. It’s better than the alternative he’s been forcing himself to endure.

Once Professor Montgomery finishes her lecture, I have half my notebook filled with scribbled notes. Students fly past me as I thread through the crowd to reach her at the front.

“Professor Montgomery?” I call out as she wipes the whiteboard clean.