Page 58 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You’re going to regardless of how I answer.”

“Probably.” I pluck a piece of cucumber from the salad on the island. “How many people have you killed?”

The question rings into the warm air.I was hoping the casual delivery would distract him from the harsh question. Maybe he wouldn’t even notice he was answering.

But he notices everything.

I’m met with only the sound of a sizzling pan and the thud of his knife against the wooden cutting board.

Chop, chop, chop.

When he stops, I expect some resistance. A snarky comment or outright lashing out for asking something so personal. But he simply plucks another carrot from the bunch and begins chopping again.

“Seven.” He exhales. “Two every year since I was seventeen. Minus this year, of course—someone stole my number eight.”

My cheeks heat, and I’m thankful his back is to me. The picture of Michael left in the center of the circus ring with blades dug into the sockets of his eyes is something I won’t forget soon.

“Seven,” I repeat, trying to grasp that the man cooking dinner in front of me is the same one capable of murdering seven people. It should make me uncomfortable; it should scare me or freak me out, but I feel no different about him now that I know.

“How do you—” I wave my hands in front of me, trying to find the words. “—find them? I mean, do you have a type or just any man?”

Speaking these details out loud just reminds me how odd of a pair we make. How strange our dinner conversation is compared to others.

I’m not sure if he’ll answer, if he’ll share this part of himself. I don’t even know if he’s spoken about this to anyone else. But he surprises me. He continues talking as he works.

“My grandfather, Edmond, knew what my father turned me into. What I could do. They tried, both him and May, for a long time to love me back to normal. Give me a steady life in hopes it would change the inevitable, but there was too much damage done. Henry had shown me too much, trained me too well. So.” He lets out a heavy breath, as if blowing the dust on an old record that hasn’t been played in years.

“For my sixteenth birthday, my grandfather gave me a stack of files and a parting message.Thou shall not kill, but if you must, kill those deserving of death.All the people in the files were men who’d evaded the justice system. Other killers who preyed on the innocent, those who were weak. They each in some way weren’t able to be caught, or the police couldn’t convict them. They just kept showing up after Edmond died, always arriving on the first Tuesday of June and last Thursday of October. Left inside a PO box downtown that’s billed to a fake name.”

“You kill other killers?”

“Mm-hmm,” he hums.

“And May never knew?”

His shoulders tense at the mention of her name, but he swiftly tosses the cut vegetables into the pan, shaking it to stir them.

“I think she suspected it but enjoyed a blissful ignorance. Edmond told me the only way to protect those around me was to keep them in the dark. He was the only one, besides you, who knew about this. To May, I would always be Thatcher, her grandson, never the man who killed people in the family estate basement.”

She knew more than he’d like to think. Our conversation in the garden told me she knew, but I think she loved him. Maybe it had been denial, but May was more than aware of who her grandson was.

This—it makes sense. Why he’s so secretive. He felt it was the only way to protect the guys, May, me, from what he is. The distance is to keep us safe fromhim.

“Wait.” I furrow my eyebrows closely, fear spiking my pulse. “The basement? That’s where you do it? Thatcher, the police raided the estate. Did you leave—”

“I’m not stupid, Lyra,” he cuts me off, pulling some kind of bread from the oven and sitting it on the counter. “The basement is just that. A basement. I cleared any and all evidence of torture before they found May’s body. Cleaned and left in impeccable condition.”

Silence falls between us as he cooks, pulling plates from the cabinet. In this private moment, with the truth of him settling between us, I accept just how much I like him.

How much I love him. How I would shred the world with my teeth to have him. Would lie, steal, and cheat for his safety.

And yet, that still doesn’t guarantee our happily ever after.

That fact alone cripples me. Knowing that you could care for someone this fucking much and it wouldn’t be enough for the universe to let you live in that love.

My mother wasn’t religious, I’m not religious, but if it meant keeping him forever, I’d pray.

---