Page 88 of Three for a Girl

“You’re not the game, life’s the game—

“But you’re still playing against me?”

“I worried you’d go back to work, and your morals would destroy you. You’re so focused on this idea of balance. This making right a wrong, and I don’t understand it. Everyone in your life has wronged you, Chad. Why do you feel like you owe them something? Every person that you see as normal has judged you, outcast you … why the hell would you want to be among them?”

Chad cupped the back of his neck, but it was no use, he could feel the chill of eyes. His ears fizzled with endless whispers.

“Sometimes you’re as alien to me as I am to you.”

Chad shook his head, and Romeo quirked his eyebrow.

“I don’t think that’s true. We’re more alike than you know.”

“How are we alike?”

“We both wanted to be normal as children, be like everyone else, fit in this world, but couldn’t.”

“We’re different, we didn’t find a fit in this world, but we did fit together.”

“We both exist for this buzz, this euphoric feeling we can’t explain, you from killing, me from catching killers, it’s all we lived for. It’s the only thing that’s ever made us feel alive.”

Romeo nodded, reaching for Chad’s hand. He let him take it again. “Maybe not the only thing.”

Chad shot him a small smile.

“But what if there could be more?” Romeo whispered.

“More?”

“What if we could share that buzz. It sounds awful, but I was terrified when I came back you would have coped without me.” Romeo flashed a savage look at the bin. “I worried you wouldn’t need me, and you’d turn on me. Get me arrested, locked up and this time, not visit.”

“Never … I’m just tired of the games.”

“Puzzles are games, so are crosswords, murder investigations. Life itself. They’re all games—different stakes, but games.”

“I’m fed up with you playing games with me, against me.”

“Not against you.”

“You’re always one step ahead, leading me down a path.”

“I’m not ahead of you. I took a detour, but we’re on the same square on the board, and not even I know how it’ll end. I know how I want it to end, though.”

“And how’s that?”

“Us being happy. Romeo and Chad. The monster and the detective.”

“How?” Chad murmured through his tightening throat. “How do we get there?”

Romeo shrugged.

“Communication and compromise.” Chad said, answering his own question with Ally’s wisdom.

“Well, we’re working on the first one right now.”

Chad sighed. “When you disappeared that night, I thought you might have started killing.”

Romeo averted his gaze, finding the kitchen window. “I’m not gonna lie, I thought about it, but you wouldn’t have taken me back if I had. It wouldn’t have been the same killing when I know it’ll hurt you.”

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