Page 80 of The Grave Between Us
He knew what the man behind that voice was capable of.
He’d listened to that voice describe horrors that flourished under a black moon. Horrors that carved Ian off from humanity, and that had carved Cole off from humanity, too, when they had lived in his own mind and he’d relived the agony of Ian’s victims night after night after night.
His chin trembled as he turned his head. Dirt fell from his lips. Fog clung to the damp earth. He smelled decay, old leaves and moldering wood. Saw worms crawling along the ground. Heard water lapping at a rocky shore. Branches crossed his vision, a tangle that covered the gray sky and blocked out the light. It was fitting, in a way. He and Ian, alone in the darkness again.
For the first time in eight years, he knowingly laid eyes on Ian. His gaze traveled up from Ian’s worn work boots, over his faded jeans, to the zip-up hoodie and canvas jacket he wore. He was broader, stronger than he’d been eight years ago. His face was weathered, tanned from years in the sunshine. His chest had grown barrel shaped, his shoulders more pronounced. His hair was more gray than brown, and he’d grown a salt-and-pepper goatee. His eyes were still like holes to another terrible universe.
“You’ve changed.”
“I had to. I needed a new life, after you took the one I had.”
“I didn’t take anything. You were arrested, Ian. You killed people—”
Ian laughed, the sound exactly the same as eight years before. Cole’s teeth clenched, and he closed his eyes.
“I dreamed of this moment,” Ian said. His voice was barely louder than the burbling water close by. “I wasn’t going to come after you, you know. I wasn’t going to hunt you down. I didn’t think there was any way the reality of taking you could match all those days and nights I spent fantasizing about it. I didn’t think it could rival the way I’d imagined you seizing beneath my hands or how you’d look up at me, begging for another breath. I imagined how you’d taste, and I didn’t want to be disappointed if you didn’t live up to my dreams. No, I decided to let you go, and instead, I spent years putting your face on replacements, finding men who were close enough to fill my needs.”
Cole dug his forehead into the dirt. He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to hear how men had been murdered because they looked like him.
“Until, all of a sudden, I saw you again. I told you we were bonded forever. How else can you explain us both moving to Iowa independently? Or crossing paths as we did, in such a small place? Seeing you in Boone, at the ski slopes… it was like being struck by lightning. Hearing your voice and seeing your smile again. I was close enough to hear you laugh. Close enough to hear you tell Noah you loved him.”
“Leave Noah alone!” Cole bucked against his restraints. Mud mashed beneath his shirt, slid up his belly and beneath his collar.
Again, Ian laughed. “You still don’t get it, do you? All this time, all these years, and you’re still as ignorant as you were the first day you walked into that interrogation room. All those studies and charts, all for nothing. How many times did you say you wanted to know me, that you wanted to understand me?” Ian’s boots crunched in the dirt as he sauntered to Cole’s side. He crouched and took Cole’s cheek in his hand, squeezing his jaw and turning his face up until Cole was looking into Ian’s midnight eyes.
“Have you been scared? Have you been afraid, these past few weeks? Have you been staying up at night, thinking about how I’ll take Noah from you? Will I shoot him again, or will I abduct him? How close to him am I? What terrible tortures will I inflict on Noah, like the ones I told you about eight years ago? Have you been living in terror, day and night?”
His heart was blazing, beating so hard it hurt. He could feel his pulse behind his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Good. That’s what I wanted.” The way Ian spoke hit Cole first, before the words. The growl, the predatory hunger, the way he sounded more animal than man, more monster than human being. It was a voice Cole had never heard from him before, something darker, more sinister than the cultivated persona Ian had taken pains to show him. “I’ve craved your terror. Just like this. You, stinking of it.”
Ian dragged Cole up by his jacket, bringing their faces close, and inhaled. “God, you smell good afraid. You’re going to smell even better when I’m done with you. I’m going to bring you back, like I brought back Brenden and Paul. Remember? They were begging me to kill them in the end. To let them stay dead when I strangled the life out of them for the third, fourth, fifth time. I’m going to bring you back and kill you again, as many times as you can take it. You’ll open your eyes and see my face, feel me inside you, over and over again.”
He started to shake again, uncontrollable tremors running through every muscle and nerve. His teeth chattered, and his vision went blurry.
“You’re going to smell amazing as a corpse. And when you’re dead, I’m going to keep fucking you. I’ll bury you in the snow and come back to fuck you for days, until all that’s left of you are bones. Maybe I won’t bury you and leave you behind. Maybe I’ll take your skull with me and masturbate into your empty eye sockets.”
He dropped Cole back to the dirt and grabbed his feet, dragging him toward the river. “No!” Cole screamed. “Ian, no! Wait!”
Ian threw him down the soggy riverbank, into the tangled brush and waterlogged decay. He rushed Cole, throwing him on his back and grabbing Cole’s face in his hands. “Do you remember when I told you you’d be a good killer?”
Cole nodded, more trembles than conscious action.
“You proved I was right, didn’t you? You shot that man last year, and I know you can kill again. You have a taste for it now. Why don’t you come with me? We can be a team. Say the words, and I’ll cut you free.” Ian pushed his face against Cole’s, smelling him again. Sniffing his wet, mud-soaked hair. “We’ll start with Noah,” he whispered. “I’ll teach you how to take a man and bring him inside you. How you take a man’s life out of him with your bare hands and breathe him in so he stays with you for all time. You want to be with Noah forever? I’ll show you how to make that happen.”
The tears came, pouring out the corners of his eyes. He whimpered, shook his head. “No, no, no…”
“Let’s get rid of Katie, too. I bet she annoys you. Isn’t it fucking awful when you fall in love with someone and they already have something else in their life?” Ian’s lips parted in a snarl before he grabbed Cole and hurled him at the river with a roar.
Cole hit the bank like a piece of driftwood, rolling through the mud and the sandy river bottom, sputtering as the frigid water hit his face. He screamed, gasped. Tried to kick himself into a sitting position—
Ian was there, on him, grabbing his jacket and wrenching him onto his back. He knelt on Cole, all his weight suddenly on Cole’s diaphragm. Cole gagged, fighting for an ounce of air. River water came over the side of his face, fell into his throat. Soaked his face. Washed away his tears.
Ian grinned again, his fingers in Cole’s hair, yanking him out of the water. “Do you finally understand what I am? I told you never would, as long as you’re alive. You have to experience terror to really understand it. You have to live in it, drown in it. Then you’ll understand.”
He wrapped his other hand around Cole’s neck and thrust him under the river’s surface. The world wavered, water flowing over Cole’s face, his lungs freezing in shock.
Ian hauled him out and dragged him close, face to face. Cole coughed. Sputtered. He was crying again, the tears hot on his frigid skin.
