28. Olive

28

OLIVE

ONE MONTH LATER

“ Y ou ready?” Dad asks, his hand on the driver door as he pulls the keys from the ignition.

Two men dressed in sweatpants pass a crack pipe by the dumpsters behind my apartment building, and when they spot me looking, they wander out of sight. But it isn’t them I’m looking at anyway. I’m not looking at anything.

“It’s safe, honey,” he says, putting a gentle hand on my arm. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

Safe.

As if Alik would ever hurt me. As if he ever could .

My throat grows thick. I look at Dad with a pinched smile and nod before opening my door and climbing out of his Buick.

It’s been a month since I touched Alik’s face but only hours since I saw him in my dreams. He’s always there, every night when I go to sleep, he’s waiting for me, sometimes in a wolf suit, sometimes in his black jeans and black jacket, and sometimes he’s wearing nothing at all.

Occasionally, I dream of his hand around my neck. He’s squeezing the life from me while his eyes, once soft and caring, are cold and ruthless.

I mouth words to him while I lay on the floor in the same spot I found Mrs. Barkley’s bloodstain, not fighting, my muscles perfectly relaxed.

It’s okay.

I forgive you.

And then I wake up. Dream Alik never manages to kill me, hard as he tries. Dream Olive never seems to care, much as she should.

And real-life Olive? Let’s just say I’ve taken a lot of naps the last month in hopes of seeing his image. Because despite everything, despite all of it, I know real-life Alik.

He might have been ordered to hurt me, but he didn’t follow through. He might have moved across the hall with sinister intentions, but he gave me sanctuary in his apartment. He offered me safety in arms meant to kill.

He loves me.

No matter the past, he would never hurt me now. He couldn’t even hurt me before he knew my heart. Now that I know his… I forgive him. I love him.

So, so very much.

We grab the cardboard boxes from the trunk meant to pack my things then head inside the building, my dad taking the lead while I skulk behind. My heart beats faster with every step we come closer to Alik’s apartment.

If I could see him and know that he still loved me, I would run into his arms. But the thought of him moving on this last month, of finally seeing that I’m nothing but a curse for everyone I touch, including him, paralyzes me. It would shatter the remaining pieces of my heart beyond repair.

I can’t see him. I certainly can’t live across the hall from him.

For at least the next few months, I’m moving back in with my parents. Creeper has a warrant out for his arrest, but he still hasn’t been found, so it isn’t quite safe for me to live by myself. But more than that, my dad wants to make sure my medication is working. It seems to be.

Things with my mom have been better. Much better. She got me a job doing landscaping for her tennis club, which has been pretty shitty, but in the evenings, I’ve been spending less time drawing and more time practicing graphic design on the laptop my sister loaned me.

I’ve designed websites for one of her friends, free of charge, and another wants me to design a logo for her hair care business. I grow more and more confident in my skills every day, and one day, I think it may even be something I could charge for. Something I could be proud of. Something … me .

When we reach my floor, my throat closes to where it’s hard to breathe, and I lower my head until I can barely see through my hair.

He’s not home during the day.

It’s fine.

He won’t be?—

My head lifts at our frizzy-haired super coming from Alik’s apartment with a tall, lanky man on her heels.

“So we have this layout, and then a two-bedroom on the third floor,” Margarette, Frizzy-hair, says, waving her hand as she inserts the key to lock up.

“No.” The man shakes his head. “This will be fine.”

“Splendid, so it’ll be first and last months’ rent and…” She chatters on, her hand twirling while she leads him past Dad and me down the hall.

My stomach drops into my feet as I feel my face grow cold. When we reach my apartment, I stare at Alik’s door, his former door, while Dad unlocks mine.

“Sweetheart?” he prompts once my door is unlocked. When I don’t respond, he follows my gaze. His cheeks puff with a sigh. “He isn’t a good person. You know that… No matter what he tricked you into thinking, you saw the pictures I showed you. At some point, he would’ve hurt you.”

The pictures he showed me. Pictures of just a few of Alik’s victims, brutally mutilated, one eaten alive by rats. They certainly had an effect on me— I threw up in the kitchen sink while my dad gathered the photos into the folder on the table—but they didn’t make me stop loving Alik. I don’t know that anything could.

After following Dad inside the apartment, I try to focus my attention on packing my things. Minutes tick by, and just when I think I’ve gotten my bearings, I open my pants drawer to come face-to-face with my sketchbook.

My lips part as my heart pauses.

I left it at the lake house. Alik must’ve brought it back for me.

Running my hand over the smooth cover, I close my eyes and fight back tears. As I open the book up to a page with him at his window, a cigarette in his hand, my nose starts to run. I sniffle just as Dad appears in the doorway.

His shoulders sag when he sees what I’m looking at. “Olive…”

“Can you just wait in the car?” I ask, my voice hoarse. I don’t look up from the book. Won’t look at the disappointment in my dad’s eyes. He’ll never understand.

He lets out another one of his heavy sighs. “I’ll take some of the boxes down.”

I bring the book to my chest when his heavy footsteps carry him away and close my eyes as my heart tears. My forehead taps the dresser as I lean forward and let out a small, strangled whimper.

A minute goes by while I wallow in peace, but when footsteps approach, I grit my teeth in frustration and push off the dresser, forcing my head to the door. “Dad, please, give me just a?—”

My jaw hangs open and lungs seize at the figure in the doorway.

Creeper tilts one side of his lips in an evil sneer. “Did you cry like this for me?”

I drop the book and scoot backward until I hit the wall, which just makes Creeper laugh. “Oh, Olive . My nervous little wreck.” He crouches in front of me, his eyes wide with malicious delight. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to show your ugly fucking face? You spineless little cunt.”

“My dad is on his way up,” I say, pressing my knees to my chest. “If I were you, I’d run.”

He laughs. “Do you think I didn’t see Daddy? Better question, do you think I’m scared of Daddy?” He runs his hand over my knee then jerks my leg to the side, opening me to him while I gasp.

“If I was afraid of your dad, I wouldn’t have spent so much time fucking his daughter.”

“Creeper, I?—”

“Shut your fucking whore mouth,” he says, his voice cryptically low as he raises his chin with a warning. “I was nice to you before, princess , when you were Damian’s bitch, but I’ve got new friends now.”

He reaches toward my mouth to slip his meaty fingers past my lips while I whine. He grips one of my side teeth and pushes so hard, a sharp pain shoots up my gum, followed by blood coating my tongue.

I let out a scream that he doesn’t seem to care to muffle as he leans in to my ear.

“And we’re gonna have some fun .”