Page 213 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

Exactly what I thought. A switchblade, and a sketch of Poppy dead, posed like the children her husband killed.

That sealed it.

She wasn’t just grieving.

She was planning a tribute to her husband with the woman that locked him away for ever.

So I made sure it never happened.

Poppy never knew.

But I kept watching her.

Telling myself it was just to make sure she was safe.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I whisper, voice raw, shredded at the edges.

“Jesus Christ.”

The man in the mirror stares back—broken, bloodshot, fucking pathetic.

“You’re not real,” I tell him. That other side of me that’s been her shadow for a fucking year.

It sounds pathetic even as I say it.

“You’re a sickness. An excuse.”

Something I’ve worked hard to keep separate from the other part of me. The detective side of me that shows up to work with her everyday on this case.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because she kissed him.

Not me.

Not the man who tries to be better.

She kissed the monster in the dark.

The monster I made.

The one I thought I could control.

The one I don’t know how to fucking stop.

And worse?

It was the best fucking kiss of my life.

I press my fingertips to my mouth like I can still feel her there.

Soft. Trembling. Wanting.

“I wanted her to choose me,” I mutter, staring down the stranger in the glass.

“Me.”

The anger boils over before I can stop it.

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