Page 92 of Grave Love
I turn to Ren, and my chest heaves. Not because my last blood relative is gone. Not because I killed him.
Because of Ren.
Fear wavers in her pupils, threatening to boil over. Those vibrant brown eyes focus on me. Afraid of me. Emotion taking over her body, and not because I forced her to endure my cruelty. Not because I forced her to watch me kill my brother.
Because I forced her to live.
My shoulders drop, heaviness controlling every part of me.
I’m just like them, aren’t I?
We’re all the same.
“You,” she stammers. Her voice stabs into me. I stare at the corpse on the floor, unable to face her. “You killedhim,but you can’t kill me?”
She’s not shocked that I killed someone in front of her. She’s jealous.
And thathurts.
I can’t make her want to stay. That’s her will. Her decision. No matter how much I do or force her to take, she’ll always have control over that.
“I told you,” I say as I grasp for those last bits of power that I have left. Clinging onto the denial that I’ve failed her. “I’ll kill you—”
“When?” she cries. She gestures around us. “When?When you feel like it? When I’m not good enough for you anymore?” Her body shakes, the tears reaching the surface again. “You think it’s funny to keep me in limbo, don’t you? So that you can destroy me. So that you can play with me like—”
“You’re nothing to me,” I say, the words dry on my tongue. They’re not real. Seeing her like this, I try to remember what we agreed on. The promise I refuse to follow through on now. Desperate to make her feel okay, like I’ll give her the death she wants, even if it’s just a lie. To comfort so that she trusts me again. At least until I can figure this shit out. Until I can convince her to stay. “You’re a future corpse,” I say. “You’re nothing.”
I’m nothing.
We’re nothing.
There is no “we.”
“You want to know why you’re pissed off at me?” she snaps. “Because you can’t kill me. Because you can’t control your feelings for me. Because you damn well know that you don’twantto kill me anymore. You caught feelings for your next victim, and it’s fucking pathetic. You thought you couldsaveme, like you’re some kind of hero. Well, congratulations.” She jerks her chest forward, the chains jingling beside her. “I still want to die. Are you happy now?”
A throbbing pain begins in the back of my neck, stretching up to my temples.
“This isn’t about me,” she snarls. “It’s about you, and your weak—”
“Everything is about you, Ren,” I say, raising my voice. “Don’t you get it?”
We stare at each other. My body heats, and I realize I’m holding my breath. Afraid to let it out. To understand what this means to both of us.
The truth is out there now, and it’s like I’m handing my life to her.
She’s right. Iamweak. Weak for her. Weak like a little boy. Weak like a fucking idiot who thinks a woman like her could see something in a piece of shit like me.
No matter what I do, I can’t kill her.
Her fists ball at her sides, rage building in her chest like a bomb ready to explode. I blink at her, imagining a future where I keep her here. Chained to my bed. Brainwashing her into thinking that this is a life worth living.
Then she wouldn’t be Ren anymore.
Strength empties my body. It takes everything I have to step around the corpse. To go to the other bedroom. I sit on the trunk full of my victim’s hair, and I clutch the gun in my lap, refusing to let her have access to it, even now. The medications are gone now; Brody never gave her the final order of it. He might’ve been on his way to deliver it to her now. Maybe he thought she’d be here with me. He probably knew I was going to do something stupid.
I’ve fucked everything up.
I open the wooden trunk. The shades of blond hairs mix together like sun bleached shells in white sand. Her ex’s short hair is mixed in there too, along with a few black strands from the random college girl I killed. Those shells are new, not yet damaged by the sun.
