Page 57 of Behind the Shadows
He shifted in his chair, his attention trained on me, assessing. “You liked it, didn’t you? The blood on your hands, watching the life drain from his eyes. Has little Samantha grown up fighting the compulsion to kill others? Is that what drove you to become a psychiatrist? Bloodlust?”
I refused to answer him. The only way that he would recognize what I felt and fought against was if he dealt with it himself.
“You don’t need to answer. I already know. But here’s the thing.”
I pulled my knees to my chest, fighting the cold that made me shiver.
“That’s not what I was asking you earlier,” he growled.
“What? You asked me how I was alive. I told you.” Maybe his seizure had affected his brain cells, because I was well aware of what he’d asked me.
He placed his elbows on his knees, his stare stabbing at my soul.
“That night. It was the night before your birthday. Your family came over. It was the first time I saw you. We didn’t talk because I was hanging out with some friends, and you and Ally stuck close together. Later that evening, I heard a scream, so I ran into the house, but no one was there. I heard another one and ran to the outbuilding on the property. When I opened the door, I saw you and your sister along with my uncle and Mother. You were fighting your parents. I rushed in, trying to help you, but then …”
He shot out of his seat and paced the room. “There was blood everywhere. All over me, all over the floor. Your father was slumped over a table with a bullet in his forehead. I don’t know what happened to your mother or your sister. But you …” He massaged the crook of his arm as if soothing an old wound. “You …” He barked out a laugh and spun on his heel, facing me. “I … I. Killed. You. I fucking killed you with my bare hands. You were dead on the damn floor.”
My pulse hammered in my ears, drowning out his words even as they carved into me.
He was talking aboutme—about a night I had locked away so deep it only lived in broken flashes.
The night before my birthday?I clawed at the memory, desperate, but his face wasn’t there. His voice wasn’t there.Nothing about him was familiar. What I did remember was my father’s heavy hand on my arm, Ally’s fingernails digging into my palm as we hid behind her, and my mother’s frantic whisper—Run.
And then … the echo of a gunshot. The metallic tang in the air. Someone slumped forward.
A bullet in their forehead.
I didn’t know if I had seen it or if my mind had painted it after the fact, but the weight of it crushed the air from my chest.
I pursed my lips. “That’s not what I remember. I barely remember a guy my age being in that room. I had no idea it was you. It was a blur. I was trying to get away when I realized what was happening, and so was Ally. When we were fighting back, my father knocked me out. The next thing I knew, Ally and I were locked up in a dirty cell. You didn’t kill me. In fact, you never touched me, Kip.”
He placed his palms on the side of his head and yelled, “I know what I saw. There was blood all over my hands.Yourblood.”
“It had to have been someone else. It wasn’t me,” I said softly, my compassion and training kicking in. How had he carried something like that his entire life? I’d seen it in my clients, and I’d lived it myself. Someone’s past didn’t just haunt them. Itbuiltthem.
It was all making sense now. His need to insert himself into my life, protect me, and why he kept demanding answers and asking if I remembered him.
“Our minds are powerful, Kip. My guess is that you couldn’t stop them from taking Ally and me, and so your memories became something you could make sense of. You put a puzzle piece into that spot that didn’t fit, so you made it fit. We do it all the time. Denial, PTSD, the brain protects us. You didn’t kill me.”
He scratched his arm as a storm of emotions twisted his features. “She …” he bit out. “As punishment, she forced me to relive it over and over and over. She never let me forget what I’d done.”
“Who is she?” I kept my tone soft and accepting of everything he was telling me.
He shook his head. “If it wasn’t you, then who the fuck did I kill?”
I wished I had an answer for him. “I can’t imagine what that’s been like, especially if you were trying to help whoever that poor girl was. But Kip, if Ally and I were taken from your property, then there’s a good possibility I wasn’t the only one. Maybe you saw it happen a few times and snapped.”
Kip walked toward me, his body language angry and overwhelming. “I get it. You think you can fix me now? You feel sorry for the poor kid that killed an innocent girl with his bare hands.” He leaned down, his face mere inches from mine. “It shaped me all right. I became a highly skilled cleaner. Do you know what that is or are you so busy pretending that bad things don’t exist in the world when you sit behind your little desk and take notes about your patients? Maybe it gives you power over other people to know their secrets.”
The muscle in my jaw ticked as I willed myself not to throat punch him. “I don’t know what a cleaner is.”
“My uncle taught me how to dissolve a body, bone, blood, hair into nothing. I can make anyone disappear without a trace left on this fucking earth. Along with that came an overwhelming urge to kill, so I do. I choose men to feed to a serial killer to be tortured and murdered. Men like Draco. Lately, I’ve done some killing myself. All the bodies and blood get into your head, and there’s something addictive about having the power to give or take a life.” He straightened. “You know that though. You feel it too.
We.
Are.
The.
