Page 63 of The Road to Ruined

I've been watching you for months.

"No…" I shake my head. "No…how can you…Sebastian?"

He neither confirms nor denies it, staring back at me with dark eyes through the holes of his mask. But are they Sebastian's dark eyes? The voice I heard on the phone earlier…itwasfamiliar.

"But you were nice," I argue. "You were my friend. You can't—"

Sebastian was funny. He made me laugh…gave me extra drugs sometimes. But there were times he hurt me there, too—when he was incidentally cruel without knowing it, and I couldn't really blame him. Except if he was Bone Saw, they weren't incidents at all. They were intentional.

Like when he'd walk me to therapy and whistle the tune to "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver. Or when he made that joke about how drugs sound like they'll be fun until you wake up with a dead body under you, and your life is ruined. He acted like he didn't understand why I wasn't laughing.

Like when he told me there was a blonde girl waiting to see me on the front patio.

"Were we friends?" he asks.

"Don't," I sneer. "Don't do that. You're…you're ruining it."

"Ruining what?"

"You're fucked up." I shrug him off and move toward the back of the room. "Take it off!"

"It's not that easy."

"Then get the fuck out!"

He stares me down for what feels like minutes before he finally says, "Okay, Teagan."

His hands move to the chin of the mask and I don't breathe while he pulls it up over his head and lowers the hood. Sebastianstands in front of me—it was his dark eyes behind the mask, his dark curly hair I put my hands through, his mouth on my body.

It was him hiding in the shadows of my room at night.

"There's only one other person in the world—alive—who knows me as both things. And you like me as both things. You're an anomaly, Teagan. You're the only person in the world I've ever wanted to know. You're the only person I could never kill."

Things. He said both things, not people. Unable to speak, all I can do is shake my head.

"What'd I tell you, Teag?" Fake Luca laughs. He slaps Bone Saw…wait, no…Sebastian on the back before throwing his arm around his shoulders. "I told you he's just a man. To be fair, I didn't see this one coming, either."

"Teagan?" He looks back over his shoulder. "What are you looking at?"

"Luca is touching you."

"You're safe, Teagan," he says. "I promise. I'm going to move closer to you now." Sebastian slowly closes the space between us. "I ask that you consider not stabbing me."

Once he reaches me, he takes the knife from my hand and tosses it onto the bed. "Come upstairs with me," he says. "You can use my shower and sleep in my bed. You can look at my books, too. Theyaremybooks, and the records are mine, too. I don't live here or anywhere—that's the truth—but unlike the others, I do have some of my own belongings and get to choose where I go on occasion. A perk of being raised by one of the Elders, I guess."

"I thought you were good."

He shrugs. "Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth." He takes my hand in his. "Come on."

He escorts me to his bathroom and then turns on the water for me.

"Do you need help?"

"No," I tell him.

"You were limping. You said you weren't hurt."

"I said I've had worse. I'm fine."

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