Page 200 of Kiss the Villain

I shrug, feigning indifference. “Because I wanted to get rid of something in my blood. It was poisoning me, and it hurt. So I decided to take it out.”

“Then you should’ve hurt them, not yourself.”

Heat floods my face, and I shift uncomfortably on the bed. “You…you’d be okay with that? Me hurting others?”

“If they hurt you, why not? Why the fuck would you hurt yourself instead of them, Gareth?”

I stay silent, my heart hammering so loudly it drowns out his words.

Dad’s okay with me hurting others.

He said it’sokay.

“Son.” He takes my hand—the one not covered in little Band-Aids. The ones I refused to let Mom replace because I can still feel Kayden’s touch when he put them on.

I stare at Dad, probably looking lost as hell. “Yeah?”

“I want you to tell me why you hurt yourself and not them. You’re not someone who’d hurt himself. Ever.”

“Leave the kid alone,” Grandpa says.

“Be quiet or get out, Dad,” my father barks, the tension between them sparking like static electricity.

“Why are you so sure I wouldn’t?” I ask, my voice barely audible, even to myself.

“Because you’re outward, not inward. That’s why I got you into hunting, archery, and shooting. I wanted you to channel your energy at a target instead of yourself, or…” He trails off. “…people.”

“Christ,” Grandpa mutters under his breath, the weight of Dad’s words sinking into the room.

My teeth dig into my lower lip. “Y-you…you knew?”

“That you wanted to kill people?” His lips tug into a faint, almost bitter smile. “Sort of.”

“H-how?” My voice cracks before I can rein it in.

“My suspicion started early.”

“How early?”

“When you were eight. Nine, maybe. You’ve never been the type to let things slide, especially when it came to what you considered yours.”

“And that made you think I wanted to kill people?”

Dad leans forward, his green eyes locking with my identical ones. “My suspicions were confirmed after the fight with Gilbert in school. You were both ten, and you beat the crap out of each other until a teacher intervened. It seemed over after that. But then at Killian’s birthday party a month later, you asked Gilbert if he wanted to see the toy he’d been begging his parents for. A toy you asked your mom for two weeks prior. You took him to the indoor pool, pushed him in, and held his head underwater. If I hadn’t followed you out of suspicion, you would’ve drowned him. And you had a poker face the whole time.”

“He pushed Kill down the stairs,” I snap, clenching my fists. “He twisted his ankle and almost broke it. He needed to pay.”

I purse my lips, stealing a glance at Grandpa, who gives me a sad smile.

The words tumble out before I can stop them. It’s the concussion talking—or maybe it’s the aggression that’s been festering in the void for years.

Gilbert was the first person I wanted to kill.

The demons in the void whispered that the world would be better off without him. When I was holding Gilbert under the water, I heard a noise, so I ran off. When I came back, I saw Dad pulling the waste of space out of the pool and helping him, but I hid from his view, then called Grandpa to pick me up, and I spent a whole week at his place.

I was terrified Dad would have me diagnosed like he did to Kill. That he’d hate me, reject me, and stop liking me. But when Dad picked me up from Grandpa’s, he took me and Kill hunting for the first time.

I believe that’s when I became self-conscious about the image I needed to portray in public. To ensure that I’d never be caught in a Gilbert-like incident again.

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