Page 109 of Soul of a Psycho

“I know,” I scream. “I know about graduation!”

He stops, a silhouette of black, and I clutch my stomach and run to him. My heart hammers at the ramifications of what he will do. Do I have to go in the ground like Bobby? Isthatwhat happened to him? I start to shake, even though I know Cade wouldn’t do that to me.

“I know you think you need to do it.” I slow, afraid to see his expression. “But you don’t have to. We’re about to leave this place. You can be free and put it all behind you. I love you, Cade. Let me help you.”

All the horrible things that have happened to him here… what he’s done… It doesn’t have to be his whole world anymore. I can give him the money I tucked away for Japan, he can get the first flight out of the country before anyone has to know what’s happened to Bobby. I’ll find a way to follow him.

He suddenly spins on me, a look of disgust on his face. “You want to help me? You love me?!” He towers over me, and I shrink back. “You think youknowabout graduation? You don’t know the half of it. I’m a fucking monster, Sky.” He closes the space I put between us. “I’ve spent three years, threeagonizingyears, waiting for graduation. And you want to know the only thing that got me through it? You want to know what kind of person you love?” His dark brows are sharp, eyes smolderingwith contempt. “The only thing that got me through it was knowing that if I held out just a little bit longer, I would get to kill four hundred people.”

My mouth goes dry and my stomach twists, and I have to take another step back, his words shredding my heart—not because he wanted to kill, but because that was all he had to hold onto? I picture him alone in the shack, with no one and nothing, while the world spun around him.

“Does that sound like someone you should love?” He advances. “Does that sound like someone who deserves your help?”

I want to say yes, that I wish I could have been there, that I’ll be there for him now. But my voice doesn’t work. My lips don’t move. He has me snared, like a rabbit in a trap, ankle bloody and broken. Except it’s my heart in the clamped hinges.

“Pity?” he scoffs, reading my expression. “Don’t pity me. Iwantedit. I wanted it more than the air in my lungs. I wanted to die, and I wanted to take everyone with me.”

He suddenly grabs me by the throat. “And then you showed up.” He eyes me up and down as I gulp under his palm. “With your hair.” He grits his teeth and pinches a strand between his free fingers. “With your lips.” He drops the lock and drags his thumb across my mouth. “With your god damn fuckinglove.” He fiercely cups my cheek. “And…” He swallows, his adam’s apple tightening, and I notice his eyes have started brimming with tears. “And I was going to throw those three years away.” He tilts his head to the side, his black irises softening. “For you. I was going to live… for you.”

His emotions swing faster than a pendulum, and my own tears have barely hit my cheeks when his jaw hardens and his eyes turn to slits again.

“But it was a delusion,” he sneers. “People like me don’t get to live.”

I try to open my mouth to convince him it’s not true, to tell him that it can be real, that he can live, that we canalllive, but he cuts me off, anticipating my rebuttal.

“You don’t get it, do you?” He pulls me into him, angling his grip to force my chin up. “Those three years? They were spent cultivating a monster. I pruned, and I watered, and I nourished the sickest part of myself. I lived on promised blood, and baited out a serpent—a serpent that now expects to be fed and takes what it wants if it isn’t. Don’t you see this is who I am, whether I want to be or not? You were too late, Sky.Wewere too late.” He drops his hand from my throat, the loss of heat sending a shiver through me. “So just stop.” His shoulders sag. “You can’t help me. You shouldn’t love me. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t show up for graduation.”

He turns, leaving me trembling, and disappears into the fog.

I fall to my knees and cry.

Chapter Seventy-Five

Cade

The night is dead, the air still, as I silently flip over the final chair. I’m a ghost in the empty pews of a celebration yet to come, behind the dormitories and on the cusp of tamed woodland. It’s a pristine set up with an ugly underbelly; My bombs attached to ninety-nine of the perfectly spaced chairs—soon to be one-hundred.

I turn to the crate and its lone holding, scooping out the last of three years of hard work, as a sleepy kind of ache sets in my bones. This is the crest of a steep mountain, and I can’t help but want to finally rest my bones. There’s nothing left to do but show up tomorrow.

I rip off a piece of putty and kneel down in the lush grass, not sure if I’m hoping someone else does or does not show up tomorrow. My darkness has invaded her, though. My pretty little angel has no wings left. Sky might be as sick as me now. I held her on those tracks and she gave up, willing to let me pull her into hell with me.

Even after, when she revealed that she knew, I stopped and waited for her to threaten to turn me in. But it never came. How she knows, or how much, I have no idea. It doesn’t matter at this point. What matters is that she does, and she hasn’t done anything about it. All she wants is to try and stop me from sellingmy soul to the devil. But she doesn’t know about Bobby. And that I already have.

A stubborn tear leaks from the corner of my eye and falls onto the bomb.

I love you, Cade. Let me help you.

“I love you too,” I breathe. “But you can’t help me.”

I wipe the tear away and stretch a strip of duct tape over the explosive.

We’re about to leave this place.

“I wish, angel. I wish.”

Maybe I don’t want her to come tomorrow. Maybe one of us should make it out of here. Even if that means she finds out about Bobby.

Another damn tear falls.

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