Page 55 of The Blood we Crave

I have never, not once, talked to anyone about this. The boys drew their own conclusions about my private habits, but none of them had asked what happened in that basement. I keep that separate from them. A secret all my own.

Not even my father, who shared this trait with me, knew what I’m divulging to Lyra. All for what? For her to stop pouting?

“Power over what?” she asks, trying to take little pieces of me in hopes she’ll be able to make a full image of who I am. “You’re a man who will inherit a billion-dollar company. A legacy. Is that not enough power? You need more?”

Power of him.

That’s my first thought.

I would give it all up, the legacy and the money, if it meant I could take the power back from the person who took all of mine from me. She has no idea what it is to be truly powerless to someone.

For someone to take and take and take until you are nothing, a vacant canvas for them to work with. That’s what my father did to me.

And every single slice, every tortured scream I rip from someone’s lungs, is another piece of power I take back.

But I don’t tell her these things. Because she doesn’t need to know.

“You can never have enough power, especially not this kind. Material things and status are one thing, Lyra. But standing over a human, knowing you’re in control of life and death? That’s something entirely different. You own their fear. Their breath. Their soul. When you hear their screams of mercy, of pure agony, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”

My fingers ache to run along the inside of someone’s chest cavity, to feel their heart pump in my palm as warm, slick blood flows through my hands. At that moment, when I play their ribs like piano keys, I’m in total power.

Knowing I have to wait another six months before I can do that again should bother me. It doesn’t. It gives me more time to think about the way I’ll kill him. Dismembering? Cracking his chest open? Splitting his gut open and giving him a little anatomy lesson as I pull organs from his body?

The options are infinitely horrific.

“Do you think power is what it will be like for me?”

We hadn’t gotten around to this portion of the conversation. Mostly because I tell myself I couldn’t care less why she wants this so badly. But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious.

My father had nurtured the psychopath in me. What may have laid a dormant seed of evil inside of me, had he left it be, was now a blooming, vicious flower. I was harvested and taught.

But my father had neglected what he’d left in the closet of Phoebe Abbott’s bedroom. Who knows what that night did to her? What has been festering inside of her all these years, untamed and undiagnosed?

“I’m not a specialist on the mind of serial murderers. If you want to know those answers, call a shrink.”

“I just thought—”

“You know what it feels like, Lyra. You know the feeling you’re chasing. How the hunger for it pumps in your veins.” I look over at her, and a memory I wish would leave floats in my brain. “The one you got the moment you slipped that blade across Detective Breck’s throat. I saw it in your eyes when his blood coated your fingers. Did that feel like power to you?”

I remind her once again that she’d already felt the rush of ending someone’s life. Just because she hadn’t planned it doesn’t mean she’s any less of a killer.

There’s been little in the past that sticks with me. I don’t keep much. I allow moments to slide through my memory like water because nothing feels worth holding on to. Only a few stick.

But it’s hard to forget what she looked like with that knife in her hand, a dead body at her feet and blood splattered across her face.

“What was it you said?” I continue. “Is it like a weight off your shoulders? Do you feel relieved? Are you my sexual sadist in training, Lyra?”

The corner of her lips lift, but the answer in her mind weighs down the smile she wants to give me. Like she is torn between embracing the darkness that lurks behind the curtain of her mind and knowing the way she feels is immoral.

I doubt she’s even spoken this out loud before.

“When he was dead, I did feel a weight off my shoulders.” She breathes deeply, chewing the inside of her cheek. “During, it was such a blur that all I recall is how hot the blood was. How thick it was.”

Her throat strains as she swallows. “But before? That was what I remember most. How I felt watching him hold the gun to your head. It was a feeling I’ve had many times before. One that I only remember having after watching Henry kill my mother.”

The pause that follows is long and heavy, just the sound of our wet footsteps as we travel farther towards the cemetery.

“Did you know I was in foster care?” she asks randomly, changing the subject.

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