Page 26 of Bird on a Blade

Huge huge huge huge huge huge?—

Dead eyes gaping at me, old blood congealing where I now stand.

“Thank you,” I say stiffly, folding the box closed, hating that I can’t just accept this gift even if it is from a killer.

Sawyer stops on the other side of the banister, frowning up at me. “I thought you wanted one,” he says. “Saw you looking at them in the bakery the other day.” His frown deepens; his eyes darken. Fear twists in my chest. But only a little. It’s not like with Scott, who brought me gifts of expensive chocolates just so he could see me toss them in the trash, my thinness—such as it was—more important than my happiness.

I swallow and look out the woods, trying to figure out the best way to answer. “I did want one,” I finally say. “But… it’s complicated. Thank you, though.” I let myself glance over at him, and he’s staring at me in that way that reminds me he’s a killer. Like he wants to devour me. “I do like the bird skull.”

Something flickers across his face. A flare of lust. It’s the same way he looked at me the other night as I relented to his touch.

I think he can see it, that strain of darkness inside me.

“What’s so complicated?” he asks. “About the cupcake?” He scowls a little. “The stupid thing cost me damn near five bucks. You really ain’t gonna eat it?”

I laugh in spite of myself. “Five dollars? It’d have been eight out in California.”

He tilts his head, and a curl of hair falls into his eyes. It takes every ounce of my willpower not to reach over the banister and brush it away.

He’s a fucking killer, Edie.

“Is that where you’ve been?” he says. “California?”

“Yeah.” I stack the bird skull on the cupcake box and lift them both up. Sawyer just stares at me, and I realize, with a jolt, that I don’t want him to leave. When he’s here, I’m not thinking about Scott. I’m notworriedabout Scott. That sick, twisting anxiety that’s followed me around the last week is gone.

“Do you want to come inside?” I ask.

Sawyer’s eyes go wide. For a second, I’m sure he’s going to say no. But then he grins, and there’s just enough cruelty in it that it’s notexactlya heartthrob grin but Jesus Christ is it close.

“Want a repeat of the other night?”

I laugh, disbelieving.

Do you?

“I was actually just going to offer you some coffee.” I had no idea I was going to say this until I do. “And tell you why I’m here, if you want to know.”

The grin wavers and something in his eyes softens. “Oh. Yeah. I’d—I’d like that, actually.”

I try to ignore how weird this is all is, how I’m inviting the man who terrorized me in for coffee. Terrorized me on paper, anyway. In the papers. On the podcasts.

The man who actually terrorized me—well, it’s easy not to think about him. Not with Sawyer here.

I carry the cupcake and the bird skull inside, listening to his footsteps as he follows me, heavy against the cabin’s wooden floor. I wouldn’t say I’m scared of him, but it still feels wrong to turn my back on him. The skin on my neck prickles, and I glance over my shoulder.

He’s watching me.

I put the two gifts down on the counter and go to brew some coffee, sneaking glances at him like he might attack me. He doesn’t. He stands stiffly beside the counter, eyes drinking me in.

As the coffee brews, I turn toward him. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him in the sunlight, a thought that doesn’t occur to me until now.

“Your bruises are fading,” Sawyer says.

It startles me, how forthright he is. My fingers go up to my throat. “Yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

The coffee bubbles and hisses as it brews. I walk across the kitchen and stand on the other side of the counter. The sunlight flooding the cabin is bright and vaguely golden, carving out Sawyer’s sharp, distinctive features. He tilts his head a little, watching. Waiting.

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