Page 62 of Ricochet

He’s holding his breath as his eyes fly across the page. I wish I could read his mind right now.

“I followed you that night too. And…fuck, Stone. You were so fucking beautiful.”

His gaze snaps to mine, and all the air comes rushing out of his lungs. He blinks several times as though he’s seeing me for the first time. He opens his mouth, and I can almost see the words lodged in his throat. He swallows them back and tries again. “What are you saying, Callum?”

Instead of answering, I counter his question with another. “What is it about killing that you enjoy? Because I can tell you do. You fucking bask in it.”

He takes a deep breath, and when he releases it, his shoulders slump with the release of tension. Like he’s about to share his greatest secret with me too.

“The power.” His voice is still low and gravelly, but he pushes on. “Holding a life in my hands, controlling it. Taking it away.”

I smile.

His frown deepens. “What?”

“I think you just made me realize why I’ve never tried to do it myself. I don’t think I’d like that part. For me, it’s…the feeling of beingarounddeath. Not the killing. It’s the sight, the smell. But more than that, it’s as though I can sense a fading life in the air. One that’s not mine. Everything just goes quiet. Calm. Tranquil.”

I don’t know if Stone is having a difficult time understanding or if he simply can’t believe what he’s hearing.

I guess it’s a pretty big coincidence that the boy who’s obsessed with death, one who can’t bring himself to murder another person, would find himself a serial killer.

“I’ve considered trying to recreate that feeling myself,” I continue. Because he either won’t or can’t speak. I’m still bound to the chair, but it’s insignificant right now. “But I just don’t think I have it in me. When I watched you that night on thedock…for the first time in five years, everything feltright. I followed you tonight because I wanted to feel that again.”

Slowly, Stone closes my book, sets it on the couch behind him, and rises to his feet. He picks his knife back up and crosses the space between us. If I’m supposed to be afraid, then that’s just another thing I don’t feel that I should.

Still, I stare up at him and say, “I’d never turn you in, Stone.”

His voice is at least a little more steady when he speaks. “I believe you.”

Leaning over, he cuts through the rope around my ankles, and they fall off. Then his legs come over mine, and he’s sitting on my lap again. He rests the knife on his thigh between us and reaches up, lightly running his fingers down my temple. I wince, and that’s when I feel a slight tug against my skin where I assume blood has dried. My head still kills.

“I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you.” He’s back to trembling, quaking with each breath. I wish I could reach out and soothe him, but he hasn’t freed my hands yet. “I never wanted to hurt you, Callum.”

“I know. You don’t like to see me hurt. I realized that’s why you looked at me the way you did five years ago. I thought it was because you thought I was weak.”

Once the secrets start coming, they all start pouring out.

Stone shakes his head. “I’ve never thought you were weak.”

Andthatis something I’ve needed to hear.

“Was it him?” he asks, his words tense. “Your stepdad who did that to you?”

I can only nod because my throat is suddenly tight.

As he trails his fingers down the side of my face, his eyes tracking the movement, I watch him carefully. Sometime between that night on the dock and now, I’ve wondered about the possibility that it was him who murdered my stepfather. While it makes sense as far as Stone being a killer goes, the restof it doesn’t. Lewis had enemies. A lot of them. I wasn’t surprised one of them had decided to take him out. Besides, Stone and I hardly knew each other back then.

Why would he kill for me?

It’s a romantic thought—is that the right thing to call it?—but I won’t let myself hope it’s true.

And I won’t ask.

There’s conflict brewing in Stone’s eyes, and just for a second, I wonder again.

But then he asks, “Is that all he did?”

Fuck. Those shadows. They’re reaching for me. Their ghostly fingers are wrapping around my throat, turning solid one by one. Squeezing. Dragging me down.

---