Page 56 of Pretty Little Psycho

He turns his head to look at me, and I almost cry when his blue eyes meet mine. “Yeah, but you were mine first. Before…”

“Before you knew I was a Blackwell,” I say sadly.

He sighs and looks back to the ceiling. “I was raised to hate you.”

I wait to see if he’ll elaborate but when he doesn’t I’m filled with grief. Remorse for a life that was thrust upon us without our say. “Yeah, well, I was raised in the dark. To not know anything about you or my own family. I know you think I’m lying, but it’s the truth. I grew up in Wickford Hollow, the daughter of the town’s alcoholic Sheriff and his cheating wife. My best friend is a ghost and after you zipped me up in the bathroom that night, I went upstairs and killed a man.”

Riot rolls over to face me. “Why did you kill him?”

I pull the sheet up around my body as I shiver at the memory. “Because he and his friend tied us up and threatened to do horrible things to us. And they would have if we hadn’t gotten away. Because they’d been taunting us since we were kids. Because they used to spike my drinks and make me suck their cocks. Because his friend killed my friend. An eye for an eye.”

“A soul for a soul,” Riot whispers back and a wave of chills trickles over me. Those had been Bailey’s exact words.

I nod. “When I stuck the knife in his neck, I didn’t feel shame or guilt… just relief.”

“If those bastards weren’t already dead, I’d kill them myself.” Riot cups my face in his hands, and I want to melt. To drown in his icy blue eyes forever. “I don’t want to hate you,” he rasps. “Especially after that night…”

Butterflies swim in my belly. I remember seeing his eyes through the ski mask that night in the bathroom. I was drunk and sloppy and a hot fucking mess. But I remember how he looked at me. The same way he’s looking at me now.

My lip trembles as I stifle a sob. “Why did you really kill those guys from the bathroom?”

He breathes in another deep breath and presses his forehead to mine. “Because they didn’t deserve to touch you. They were bragging about spiking your drink. About fucking you like you were a piece of trash. You’re so much more than that, Firecracker. And no one gets to hurt you but me.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. His words confuse me. I know he struggles with this lifelong vendetta of hating my family, but I can see he’s torn between it and the way he feels for the version of me he met back in Wickford Hollow. So I don’t say anything back. I just let him hold my face in his hands. We fall asleep like that I think.

And when I wake again, I’m back in my own bed, wondering if it was all a dream. Until I turn my head to see a black rose on my pillow attached to a note that reads: In absentia lucis, tenebrae vincunt.

“In the absence of light, darkness prevails…” I murmur, remembering their chant from last night in the altar room.

I shudder and burrow myself in the blankets, wishing I was still in Riot’s arms.

Maureen

“We’re worried about you,” Villette says after taking a long sip of her peppermint mocha. Libra scrunches her nose over an egg nog latte and scoffs. I almost laugh because I know that showing concern for others is not one of her strengths.

I gaze out the window of the coffee shop and get lost for a moment in the view. The brown and gold autumn leaves are almost gone as winter slowly approaches. It makes the trees look naked and lonely. It invokes old memories. Good memories of Bailey and I getting ready for the holidays in Wickford Hollow. We’d go gift shopping together and then spike our coffee with rum for the walk home. Those days are gone now, and I can’t ever get them back. We grew up too fast. Lived too hard.

I hover my nose over the steaming cup of pumpkin spice coffee, probably my last one for the season, and breathe in those nostalgic scents of cinnamon and nutmeg. And I think it’s nice that two girls I barely know care enough to worry about me. “Thank you,” I murmur.

Libra rolls her eyes. “Um, you’re welcome? What the fuck, Blackwell? That shit in the dressing room last week was crazy. I know how they can get, but they are obsessed with you with a capital O.”

Villette throws her a warning look. “What she means is, are you okay? Is this whole thing with them… consensual?”

How do I even answer that? “It’s complicated…”

“So, that’s a no then. Have they brainwashed you?” Libra snorts.

Villette shakes her head in protest. “Lib, we talked about you not blurting out every thought that enters your head, remember?”

“It’s fine,” I concede, but my shame threatens to drown me. I can’t admit my darker tendencies to these girls. I’m still dealing with the guilt from what I did last Halloween. I don’t know how to explain to them that Riot, Atlas, and Valentin’s brutality brings me to life. I crave it so much that it makes me question my own sanity.

“I feel safe with them. I know that must sound strange, but there’s a connection between us that grows every time we’re together… I don’t know why.” I feel my hands start to shake around the cup as I try to explain our twisted relationship.

“They’re dangerous,” Libra says.

I nod. “So am I.”

“They’ll just keep hurting you,” Villette groans.

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