27. Theo Glass

Chapter 27

Theo Glass

I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t even lie down.

I couldn’t do anything but think of Jace. Think of my father. Think of Marielle.

It was like a hurricane battered at the confines of my skull, trying to snap it in half from the inside. I’d never felt this kind of intense panic. I wanted to run laps around my apartment. I wanted to bang my head against the bathroom mirror. I wanted to leap off my balcony, grow wings, and take to the sky.

I wanted to hunt down my father and make him pay.

Wanted to fall back into Jace’s arms and make things right.

He was close to figuring it out. I could feel it down in my bones. The walls of my living room felt like they were collapsing. It was six o’clock in the morning. The sun still hadn’t broken across the horizon yet. I walked out on my balcony, placed my hands on the cool railing. The season was shifting from fall to winter. The air had a cold bite to it, especially up here on the twenty-eighth floor.

I looked down over the railing. My head spun with vertigo. The streets were busy with people heading to work, grabbing breakfast, going on their morning runs, completely unaware of the turmoil and chaos that swirled around me like hundreds of invisible phantoms, snatching at me, trying to pull me over.

It would be easy, huh? It would solve some problems.

Marielle had chosen this path. My own sister.

Maybe this was written in our DNA? Maybe fate had already decided this choice for me?

Luke appeared by my feet. He meowed, curling through my legs. He rubbed himself against my ankles, tail twining around my calf.

I took a few steps away from the banister and crouched down.

Luke, my furry little guardian angel. He must have sensed the insanity that threatened to crack me in half. I was becoming unmoored. So much was happening in my being, but having Luke purring by my face helped calm some of that down.

Fucking hell.

“Luke, what do I do? What can I do?”

He answered me with more purrs.

My options were slim and lessening by the minute.

I could take a train to Brooklyn and show up at Marielle’s right now. Would my father be there? Would I be able to handle seeing him ?

Or I could go to Jace’s instead. I could confess, cleanse my soul. He’d turn me in. I was sure of it, even though I desperately wanted him to do the opposite. But how would he ever be able to understand my actions? I couldn’t expect him to. Couldn’t expect anyone to. From the outside, I appeared crazy. I was a lunatic. But from the inside, I could see all my actions were justified. I dealt vengeance in a world that didn’t protect the innocent, only the rich, the connected, the ones who deserved protection the least. I evened the scales. Did it for my sister, for everyone who suffered at the hands of Pressure Point.

Yet… was it my place to deliver any kind of punishment?

Of course it is.

If I didn’t do it, then who would?

But Jace… he’s going to figure it out. And if he does…

I’d want it coming from me. I’d already bared nearly my entire soul to this man. He pulled out parts of me that I was never expecting to share. Our connection had grown exponentially since that first night at Chained. He’d driven me to the brink of passion, taken me to new heights, made me fall in love, for fuck’s sake. He fixed me. Pieced together the broken parts of me with his kind heart, his generous spirit, his overflowing sexuality.

If there was anyone who deserved the truth, it was him.

No matter the consequences.

The decision became clear. It solidified inside me like freshly poured cement, hardening around my ribs, my lungs. I kissed the top of Luke’s head.

“I love you, buddy.” I found myself crying. “Thank you for everything.” He looked at me with big green eyes that had no idea I was potentially saying goodbye to him for the last time. I picked him up and held him against my chest. The sun began to break across the sky, painting the greens of the park in a soft purplish-blue, light reflected off the skyscrapers surrounding it. More tears escaped. I held Luke tighter. How’d I get here? How’d I been so unlucky at my hand in life? I thought I’d be able to make it out alive—whole, happy—but I was a fool. My tragedy had already been written in the stars. There was no way to change this ending.

Nothing I could do but submit.

I gently placed Luke back on the ground. I went inside, grabbed a piece of paper, and hastily jotted down a note for Billie, explaining that I was going away on a last-minute trip and needed him to care for Luke while I was gone. I folded the note around a spare key. I put my shoes on, closed the balcony, filled Luke’s food and water, and left before I could second-guess this.

Every step toward the subway station felt like walking across burning hot coals. The sounds of the city were extra loud. It was as if everyone around me was yelling, their voices and their laughter amplified as if they were using megaphones, rubbing their normal lives and bright futures in my face.

But I had made this bed, and now I had to lie in it.

The train rattled across the track. The wind rushed in through the slightly open windows. It sounded like a monster waking up from the depths of hell. I squeezed my hands, feeling my bones protest. The pain was nice. It was real. Not like the anxiety and panic that tried to regain its grip on my throat.

The closer I got to Jace’s stop, the more calm I began to feel.

The train came to a screeching halt. I walked out with the flow of people, getting lost in the crowd of men wearing suits and holding briefcases and women in pencil skirts and tourists in joggers and kids in uniforms. I passed a busker singing an Adele song, her voice bouncing off the tiled walls of the subway station, her guitar case full of dollar bills.

Beautiful voice. Angelic, almost.

Fitting, considering I was walking toward my own funeral.

I climbed the stairs up out of the station, down the street, making a left, another left, a right. There was Jace’s building. Maybe I should have called him. Maybe I should have just kept walking.

I went into the building. To the elevator. It took forever to reach the ground floor. I started feeling anxious again, tried not to let that scare me.

The elevator brought me up to his floor. I stepped out into the narrow hallway. A water stain darkened the ceiling. The carpet also could have used a deep clean. Someone fried bacon inside their apartment, the greasy smell drifting out into the cramped space. I stopped outside of his door.

No noises came from inside. I willed my hand to raise, to close into a fist, to knock hard on the door.

No one answered.

I knocked again.

Nothing.

Maybe he was already at Stonewall… although he normally didn’t show up to the office until around nine. It was still early. Or maybe he was at the police station. Maybe I was too late?—

The lock clicked open. The door creaked. Jace appeared in the sliver of empty space.

“Theo. I can’t talk now.”

“Please,” I said, desperation cutting into my voice. “This will be quick. I just need to tell you what’s been going on.”

“Theo—”

“It will all make sense. I promise, I’m here to tell you the truth.”

His gaze dropped down to my hands.

Holy shit. Of course, if he already suspected me of being Nevermore, then he could possibly be thinking I was here to hurt him.

That thought alone cut me deeper than any knife could have. It sliced me in half. I’d never hurt him. He had to know that, didn’t he? Fuck, I’d kill anyone who did hurt him. I kept my hands out of my pockets, a subtle sign that I had no weapon on me.

“Please, Jace. Please.”

He closed the door. I wanted to slam my entire body against it. Wanted to beg and plead for him to open up. For him to hear me out.

For him to forgive me.

All I did was hold my hand up against the doorknob. Tears started to slide down my face. I’d fucked up. I really fucked it all up. There was no fixing this. I rested my head against the door, stopped myself from rearing back and bringing my forehead crashing against it.

The door opened. Jace stood there, in the same clothes he wore last night, his face pale with dark bags under his eyes. “I don’t know what to do. Theo… tell me right now. Are you Nevermore?”

“Can I come inside?”

“Answer me.”

“Let me in, Jace. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Answer me. Now.”

I could only nod. A small movement that would undoubtedly cause a tidal wave of change.

Jace stumbled backward. “Say it. Say it out loud.”

“Jace… I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Holy shit. Holy shit.”

“Hear me out, please.”

“You’re Nevermore. You’re the killer. You’re the one I’ve been looking for.”

“I had my reasons, Jace. Everything I did was with a purpose.”

He looked like he was close to passing out. He patted down his pockets, searching for his phone. He found it and pulled it out. His hands were shaking, his eyes pinned on mine. There was fear there. Anger as well. Betrayal.

“I’m so sorry. Please believe me, Jace.”

“I need to tell the police.”

“You can. I’ll confess to everything. But let me confess to you first. Let me tell you why I did what I did.”

“I don’t want to hear your sick excuses. You’re a murderer.”

The word hit like a gunshot. BANG. Murderer. I was a killer. Jace knew who I really was now. There was no more hiding it. No more running from my fate. The judge and jury stood right in front of me. He had his phone unlocked in his hands but wasn’t dialing the cops yet.

“Those people, they were all monsters, Jace. Not only were they involved with Pressure Point—the group behind my sister’s death—but they were the scum of the Earth. They were rapists, they were thieves. One of them had a hard drive full of videos that would make you crawl out of your skin with disgust. Julie, she’d purposefully sell drugs laced with fentanyl, drugs that killed one of her own best friends. Ricky, he roofied and raped his best friend. They were sick. Sicker than me. I made sure of it. I made sure none of those people were innocent, and if they were, then I wouldn’t go after them.”

“That wasn’t your job to decide. You killed them. You killed them and then displayed them like some kind of twisted art.”

Tears slipped into my mouth, salt exploding on my tongue. I held on to my chest. My heart felt like it was close to exploding.

But he still wasn’t calling the police.

I took a tentative step forward, crossing the threshold. I just wanted him to hold me. Wanted him to kiss me, even if it was one last time before I was dragged away in handcuffs. Wanted him to understand what I had done, why I had done it.

“Marielle, Em, she was my best friend, my everything. Finding her body hanging from the ceiling, it broke something inside me. It made me want to make the entire world pay for their collective crimes. I funneled all of that energy into Nevermore. I made it my mission to make her death mean something. She’d been obsessed with Poe’s poems ever since we were children. I knew this would be a way to keep her around, to make it all make sense.”

A door down the hallway opened, its hinges loudly announcing the new audience member to this fucked-up play. I looked over my shoulder. Jace was speechless. I reached for the door handle, slowly started to close it. He could tell me to get out. He could tell me to stop.

He didn’t. He stared at me. Was he frozen in fear? Was he processing what I was telling him?

“I’m not a monster, Jace.”

“No, you’re a fucking sociopath.”

He might as well have reached out and slapped me. “I’m not a sociopath. A sociopath wouldn’t feel the kind of emotions I feel toward you. You’re the reason why I’m here, coming clean. You mean as much to me as Em did. More, even. I’d stop the world for you. I’d stop my own world. It’s what I’m doing, right now. I’m ending it all. Because I had to be the one to tell you. I had to be the one to put the pieces together. I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry. Please, Jace, please believe me.”

“You’re a killer.”

“I…” had nothing to say.

“From the beginning, from that first night at Chained, you had already killed. You’ve been toying with me the entire time.”

“No! I swear, this hasn’t been a game to me. You’ve made me feel whole for the first time in years. I genuinely feel healed with you. I wasn’t toying with you—I was falling in love with you. I have fallen in love with you.”

Jace placed both hands over his mouth. Dragged them down his chin. There was a distant look in his gaze. He was examining me. He was sifting through his thoughts. I moved a step closer to him, but this time, he moved back, as though we were two of the same polarized magnets, unable to ever touch again.

My heart ached, my stomach twisted.

Finally, after what felt like hours but must have only been a couple of minutes, Jace said, “I’m taking you to the police station myself. Don’t make any sudden movements. Turn around and keep your hands out of your pockets.”

There it was. The ending to my story.

I knew there’d be no rewrites. Tragedy was always the plan.