Page 161 of The Spider & the Storm

“Oh, come on, Charlie boy. Yes, you do. That day we dumped your folks in the ground. He said you should've been in the car with them. You remember that?”

A fresh wave of tears wet my face as I nodded. “Y-yeah. I remember that.”

“Yeah,” he said, hoarse and whispered. “And I was thinking, he was right.” I saw his eyes shift to mine, but what I didn’t see was his hand readying the knife low, near my hip. “None of this shit would've happened if they had just let you die with them.”

Then, his knife plunged into my lower belly, just barely above my groin, slicing through flesh and muscle. I gasped, my mouth gaping as I stared into his cold, crazed stare. I saw nothing there, and I felt nothing, although I knew my blood was pattering against my feet and my mother's worn, matted carpet.

“Better late than never though, right?” Tommy asked, shrugging nonchalantly.

“You never fuckin’ know. You might go hunting one day.”Luke's voice. The knife. The one in my hand.

“You need it today. You need it now.”Luke's voice again. “Use it. Now, Charlie.”

So, I did.

I raised the serrated hunting knife, painted black and etched in silver spiderwebs, and thrust it into Tommy's lower back. His eyes bulged, staring into mine, but he held me to the wall. His strength was waning, but he wouldn’t let go. I pulled it out, desperation and determination helping to deafen my ears tothe revolting squelching of blood and guts and flesh, and jabbed again. This time, he stumbled away, hitting his back against my bedroom doorframe.

His hands fumbled, touching his chest, stomach, then rounding to find the blood pooling at his back. His widened eyes held mine. “W-what did you do?”

He knew what I’d done, and so did I.

“I'm sorry,” I breathed, my blood-soaked hands wrapping around the knife in my belly. Wanting it gone, but too afraid to pull it out. “I'm sorry, Tommy. I-I'm sorry.”

Then, before he could reach out for me, I ran, not risking the stairs this time, terrified Tommy would regain the strength to come after me again. Instead, I ran past the open bathroom and to the door that had remained sealed for nearly two decades. I entered my parents' bedroom and slammed the door behind me, making sure to lock it. Aged dust and stilled time enveloped me in a cocooning embrace as I stumbled to their bed, made and untouched. Waiting an eternity for their return. I collapsed onto the flowered comforter Mom had loved and Dad had hated, laid my head on her pillow, and inhaled the final shreds of her scent as I bled into their sheets.

I listened to Tommy shout in the hallway. Listened to him stumble closer and closer. Listened as his hand landed weakly against the door once, twice, three times until he no longer could.

Then, as my breath slowed and my eyes shut to the closest I'd ever come again to being under my parents' protection, I listened as the sirens approached.

And all I could think, all I could hope for was,Please, please, please, please,pleasedon’t let him die…

CHAPTER FORTY

CONNECTICUT, PRESENT DAY

“I killed him.”

The truth exhaled out of my lungs with the most surprising sense of relief I'd ever felt. I was grateful for the darkness shrouding Stormy's childhood bedroom. Grateful I couldn't see the look of shock and horror on her face. She would be right in feeling both, now knowing that the man she loved had stolen the life of another, but I didn't want toseeit. I saw it enough when I looked in the mirror.

She was so quiet, barely breathing beside me. I licked my lips, suddenly dry and desperate for moisture, and I filled the dead air with more stupid, terrible words.

“He died at the hospital. I found out while they were stitching me up.” I touched the one-inch jagged line at my jaw and then the place where Tommy's knife had protruded from my lower abdomen, just above my groin. “They told me I was insane for caring, but I just kept asking, ‘Is Tommy dead? Is he all right? I didn'twanthim to die. I-I didn'tmeanto kill him. I just … I just wanted him to stop. I …’”

“You did what you had to do,” Stormy croaked, her voice sounding like it was full of splinters. Like it hurt her to speak.

Hanging my head, I tried to decipher the inflections in her tone. How she was feeling. What she was thinking.

“But I could've stayed with him,” I replied quietly. “He was defenseless at that point. But I ran. That's all I fucking do. I run. I'm a fucking coward. I'm—”

She grabbed my arm and gave it a harsh jerk. “Will youstop?”

I finally turned to face her, and although the room had been swallowed in midnight darkness, I could make out the affection and heart-shaking sympathy in the tip of her eyebrows and the tears glistening on her cheeks.

“Jesus, Charlie! He wanted to murder you for something you hadn’t even done. Do you not understand that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then, why the hell are you acting like you murdered him in cold blood?”

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