Page 155 of Runaways

But I ignore him.

"I'm sorry," I tell her. "You have to believe me—I never wanted to hurt you. We're just going to leave, okay? Someone will find you, and you'll be okay."

"Bullshit," she says. "You're a fucking serial killer! You took advantage of me. If I had any idea who you really were andwhat you did, I never would have shown you an ounce of kindness." She spits on my face, and I gasp, wiping it away with my shirt. "I should have shot you in the goddamn parking lot."

"You sure I can't kill her?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. My real mom shot me, too, remember? I can take it."

Still, it hurts. I spent a lot of the last year thinking if I'd had a mom like Jodie, I could've met someone nice like Mason, and I would have been different. Different things would have made me happy, and that version of me would have gone to the police at the carnival; she wouldn't have gotten infected.

And I loved her, too. I jumped into the hole for her. But that's something she'll never know or understand.

"When they catch you, I hope they shoot first and ask questions later. How could you do this to me!?"

"I'm saving you!" I yell back at her, realizing I sound exactly like them. "They were going to kill you, and now…" I shrug. "Now, you just get to sit in a chair for a while. And that's not that big of a fucking deal. I've been through worse."

"Mmm…true," Tate says. He sits on the sofa, props his feet up on the table, and fucks around with her revolver. "I've seen it,andI've caused it."

"Lilah…" She pauses before correcting herself. "Noah…" She grimaces, the name rolling off her tongue like a disease. "If there is any goodness in you, you will let…me…go."

I shake my head. "I can't do that."

"God, tape her damn mouth, Noah," Tate bemoans, rolling his eyes.

"Turn yourself in," she continues. "It's the right thing to do. You're going to get caught, anyway. And you deserve it. Youknowyou deserve it. Do it for your dead mother."

"Eh, wrong button," Tate says. "Did you hear the part where Noah's mom shot her? She let her husband abuse her, too."

But she is getting to me…just a little bit. It's not that I want to go to jail. I just don't want to disappoint one more person. I don't want to be a plague on someone else's life.

"Is that true?" she asks, her voice softening. "A court will understand something like that, L-Noah. If you were being abused at home, and you were coerced into killing—"

"I didn't kill anyone!"

"You have to turn yourself in. You know it's the right thing to do. If they kill more people, that will be on you."

I shake my head. "Silas said they won't. He said they don't hurt people, and we'd just…live in peace."

Jodie throws her head back and laughs. "Oh, sure. If the other mass murderer says you'll live in peace, then it has to be true." Her words fade into laughter. Once she finally calms down, she adds, "You will never know peace."

My cheeks burn, and my eyes sting with fresh tears.

"Noah?" Tate calls. "He's not lying."

"Well…have you killed anyone else?"

"Just the hiker," he says. "And…one other man. That's the truth."

"That blood's on you," Jodie says. "You helped him get away, didn't you?"

I blink, sending thick tears down my cheeks just as Silas descends the staircase.

"Not exactly," I almost whisper.

"Fucking finally," Tate says. "I'm getting bored with this bitch. What'd I tell you, Noah? The second this woman found out who you were, she went after you with a gun. She doesn't care about you—she doesn't care about what actually happened. Don't fucking listen to her."

"I'm not going to turn myself in," I tell her. "I don't want to hurt them; I love them." I shrug. "I can't help it. They're my family."

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