Page 60 of Saint

Answers I can’t give her.

Something to pacify her fears.

She wants to pretend she’s strong, but even as her eyes blink up at me, her expression bleeds with hurt.

For a girl as smart as she is, she’s dumb enough to search for my affection. I’ve shown her I’m not capable, painted her in blood, and done the least of the sick things I’d like to do to her eventually.

Clearly, she has no survival instincts.

Violet runs her hands over the surface of the water as she leans back, straightening her spine. That fire of hers is welling back up to the surface.

“I see,” she says, clearing her throat when I haven’t responded. “So, if this all means nothing to you, why not kick me out the door the moment we’re done?”

“All I said was, ‘It’s just a bath.’ I didn’t say you mean nothing to me.”

She tips her chin up. “You’re a killer, Kole. People meannothingto you.”

Walking over to the tub, I squat beside it and grab her by the throat, tightening my grip just enough to color her blue eyes in the prettiest shade of fear.

“Do you put yourself in that category withall other people, Violet? Do you think I’d kill you just because I have no problem killing them?” I grip her neck tighter and pull her face to mine. “I believe it was you who wrote…Emotion exists on a spectrum. Just because a person might not feel love doesn’t mean they’re incapable of feeling anything. While action is easily measurable, emotion is often defined in extremes, not balance.There is never truly nothing.”

“How do you know what I wrote in my Criminal Analysis report last semester?” she whispers, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Because I pay attention.” I drag my thumb over her cheek and brush the wet river running down it. “What you see in yourself and define as sickness is what makes you beautiful. You understand what others can’t.”

“I don’t understand you,” she says as I release her throat. “And I definitely don’t understand myself.”

Her fingers find her neck, and she traces them delicately over it.

“You do. But your books can’t define it for you, so you’ll continue believing that.”

“That’s because this is wrong.” Violet blinks, wiping another rogue tear from her cheek. “You want to hurt me.”

“I do.” I reach for her wrist, rubbing my thumb over the mark I carved into it. “And I will.”

She might not like my response, but I won’t lie to her. There’s no point. Hurting people is what I do. And Violet consumes me. I want to chain her to the wall and make her scream until I understand why the sound tearing from her lungs is the only thing that wakes me up inside.

Violet runs her wet hands through her dark hair. It spills like ink over her skin.

“Besides…” I rub my thumb along the apple of her cheek, wiping away her smeared mascara. “Right and wrong are like emotion; they exist on a spectrum and shift depending on how you define them. Youwantmeto hurt you. That’s why you didn’t immediately run from me in the forest. So then, is it really wrong?”

She wets her lips. “Legally, none of this is right.”

I can’t help but smirk. “Am I the criminal in this scenario?”

“You kill people. What else would you be?”

“If you say so,” I agree with her, appreciating that all it does is annoy her more as her eyes narrow.

“What would you call yourself?”

“I already told you.”

“Saint?” She rolls her eyes. “You aren’t my savior, Kole.”

Kole.

She’s still so far from putting the different sides of me together. To her, I’m still two people: one who will hurt her, one who won’t. She doesn’t realize it’s irrelevant. Both sides of me want the same thing.

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