Page 40 of Evidence of a Folktale

“That’s always a possibility,” Eamon said as he reached for the whiskey, but instead of pouring it into his glass, he drank straight from the bottle. “I warned you I was evil. I always will be. You soften my edges, and at times, you almost make me honorable, but I was born of hell and violence. Death is in my DNA. It won’t ever truly leave. All I can promise is that I’ll never harm you again… or the people you love. My darkness might rear its head, but because of you, I battle that part of me every day. I once lived for the hunt. I needed it. I craved it, loved it, belonged to it. But now? Now I want to be the person you see when you look at me… or at least the man you thought I was before tonight.”

“I…” Bel stood up. She couldn’t breathe. The weight of his confession was crushing her chest, forcing her lungs to collapse in on themselves. Eamon wasn’t the monster he was painting himself out to be. He couldn’t be. She loved him too much. Yet she saw it in his black eyes. He was death on Earth. The Beast of Bajka. He’d never lied to her. He’d warned from the beginning that he was evil, and she always suspected darkness shrouded his past. She just hadn’t expected the terror of being confronted with one of history’s most unsettling murderers.

“I… um,” she stuttered as she stepped away from him, hating how his shoulders hunched in rejection, but before she could sift through her thoughts, Cerberus ran for the front door. He tapped his nose on his leash and then barked, signaling he needed to relieve himself, and Bel stared helplessly between the two men in her life.

“He…” she started. “I just…” She backed away from Eamon and grabbed her coat. The house was spinning. Or maybe she was. “I need to take him for a walk,” she said as she snapped on the pitbull’s leash and fled the mansion into the frigid night, leaving a crumbling Eamon in her wake.

Bel walkedCerberus until she lost track of time, the mansion’s lights so far behind them she had to use her phone’s flashlight to keep from tripping on her pitch-black dog. Her body was numb, but she wasn’t sure if it was the frigid night air or the truth she’d fled. She knew who Eamon was. He’d never hid it from her. They’d met when he’d left her bleeding out on that lonely New York City street because of Alcina’s curse, but to learn he was the monster behind one of the most infamous killers history remembered? She was a police officer. She upheld the law and hunted down murderers, and while she was aware of his destructive past, she hadn’t expected the true scope of his brutality. Could she forgive that much bloodshed? And what did it say about her that she wanted to?

Bel sank to a seat atop a fallen tree trunk and watched Cerberus dig his way to some hidden treasure only he sensed. The freezing tears burned her cheeks, and she craved the warmth of her bed. She wanted to stop being cold, to stop being transported back to that nightmare of a mountain she’d thought she’d die on. She wanted to go home… only her cabin wasn’t the home that came to mind.

Her tears fell harder as she curled her legs against her chest to brace against the wind. How could his mansion be home now? How could she ignore the magnitude of his crimes? Or that his true nature might rear its insatiable head again? She was a hypocrite. She’d argued with Olivia that Eamon and Ewan were men worthy of love, yet here she sat, hiding among the ice to avoid associating the man she loved with the murderer history remembered. Bel hated herself for being a coward, for being no better than Olivia as she fled from the truth. In reality, she was worse because while Ewan had lied to her partner for months, Eamon’s honesty surfaced the moment her survival broke Alcina’s curse. They’d met with his teeth around her throat, and Bel had instantly understood he belonged to the darkness. He hadn’t even pursued a friendship with her until he confessed to scarring her. She’d entered their relationship with eyes wide open, and while he hadn’t told her everything, he’d warned it was terrifying. She knew the devil was in her bed, yet she welcomed him anyway, so how could she run away now? And how could she justify staying? Could she give her heart to a man who killed infinitely more people than the most heinous serial killers to walk the earth? She’d thought the Matchstick Girl Killer was a monster unmatched, but compared to Eamon, his dozens of homicides were child’s play.

Her phone rang, the trilling too loud in the empty darkness, and Bel almost fell off the tree trunk. “Hello?” she answered as she captured Cerberus’ leash. The cold had grown unbearable, and she suspected the aggressive frost and not the horror of Eamon’s birth was to blame for the new tears slipping down her cheeks.

“Hey… are you all right?” Briar asked through the connection.

“I’m walking Cerberus, and it’s freezing,” she lied.

“This weather is miserable,” Briar said. “But it sounds like you’re crying. Are you okay?”

“I don’t like the cold,” Bel said. “It deposits me back on that mountain, and my brain keeps preparing to freeze to death.”

“Oh, Isobel…” Her sister’s voice broke. Now they were both crying. “That’s actually why I called. I saw the news about that writer’s murder, and I wanted to check on you. After our last conversation, I realized I haven’t been doing a good job of that.”

“You’re busy with the kids. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not because I never knew my baby sister was almost blown up. I should know these things.”

“Why? So I can stress out yet another person in my life?”

“Yes!” Briar practically shouted. “For all intents and purposes, I am your mother, so yes, I want you to stress me out. It’s better than realizing I barely know you because you feel uncomfortable talking to me.” She paused, clearly waiting for Bel to speak. “Would you like to talk about it?” she asked when the line remained silent.

Bel opened her mouth to answer because she wanted to talk. Only not about the snow. She’d been unpacking her mountain survival with her therapist, but her discussion with Eamon was something she wanted to share with her sister. She wanted to ask how a cop could forgive such a bloodthirsty killer. Or why she still loved him despite the images of him impaling ancient armies on spikes. Or why her brain had started associating his mansion with the word home?

“Eamon and I had a rough conversation,” she blurted.

“Okay…” her sister dragged out the word. “You guys all right?”

“Yes… no… I don’t know.”

“Can you tell me what it was about, or is it personal?”

“Personal,” Bel answered.

“Okay… was it a rough you two will grow from, or the kind you don’t recover from?”

“He told me about his past, and his childhood was so different from ours. His family survived on hate, and it drove him to become someone I could never love. It was painful to hear, and I never want to meet that version of him. The man I know uses his body as a human shield to save my life. The man I love bought almost the entire pet store for my dog. He isn’t the heartless person he warned me he used to be, and I…” she trailed off.

“What do you mean, human shield?” Briar asked.

“He covered me during a shootout,” Bel said, keeping it vague for her sister’s sake, but her memory played out the real version. He’d used his own back to protect her from an IED. And he hadn’t hesitated to take a bullet for her when Wendy Darling’s lunatic husband tried to shoot her. How could the man who’d willingly been torn to shreds to save her be the Impaler?

“Oh my god, marry that man,” Briar said. “Also, that’s terrifying, and I’m sorry that happened to you, but he threw himself over you?”

“Yeah,” Bel lied. Better to let her sister think Eamon pulled a movie stunt and lay on top of her than to learn the blast had peeled the flesh from his bones to expose his lungs.

“Wow, that’s brave. I take everything I ever said about him being terrifying back. Thank goodness someone is watching over you.”

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