25. Rae

I returnto the Galloway House the next night. Crave doesn't show, and yet my mind is a blur of excitement and need. I tell myself he's just waiting until I'm bursting at the seams.

I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Does he think I'm going to try to kill him for murdering my father?

Is that why he's avoiding me?

"No," I say out loud. I smooth the comforter on my bed. "If he thinks I'm going to try to kill him, he'd just kill me first. He knows he can get away with it."

I write a note on a piece of paper, then tape it to the ceiling so that it dangles in the camera's view.

You're scared, the note says. But I see you. The real you. And I still want you.

More days. More nights. More thoughts of Crave. I can't think of anything else. Crave is a parasite, burrowing inside of my brain, controlling every thought. I knew from the first time I laid eyes on his bondage mask that he was a killer. Now, I know my father was one of his victims, and he covered everything up like a murder-suicide.

"So fucking what?" I argue. "I still want him."

Everything matters,my brain screams. He killed your father.

I look at the lens in the corner of my bedroom and point at the note. I never knew my father, but I do know Crave. And Crave sees more of me than anyone else has. More than Ned. More than my own mother. More than even I do.

At the mall, Penny comes by the boutique to update me on the audio recordings she took the night of the party. I lie, saying I'm going through my files too. Ned hugs her and kisses my cheek. He talks to both of us, and I automatically smile. He must not have seen me fucking Crave on the stone. That or he is Crave.

Either way, we go on like normal.

I buy rope from the hardware store and follow a video tutorial about how to tie a noose. It's how Miranda Hall—my father's wife—died. And maybe, in a way, it's how I'll end up killing myself too. If that's how Crave killed Miranda, then seeing me in a noose will excite him. It has to.

I hold up the noose to the camera lens, beckoning Crave to come after me, to burst through the doors and knock me down for provoking him

Nothing happens. I'm alone.

My phone rings. I startle. My shoulders sag when I see the caller: Penny.

"Hey," she says. "I meant to come by earlier, but I had an essay due. How did your files turn out? Anything interesting?"

I sigh, unable to hold my disappointment back any longer. I can't think about our fake project anymore. I have my answer. I know who my father's killer is.

I just need Crave to admit it himself.

"I think I need a break from the project," I say quietly. "Maybe we can get together to talk about it in a week?"

"Sure," she says. "I need the extra time for my classes anyway."

Another shift at work goes by. Officer Gaines judges me from across the lobby with his bulbous eyes. Neither of us moves.

I wanted to kill Officer Gaines with Crave, but now I don't even care about that. I just want Crave to know that even though he killed my father, I still accept him.

And I want Crave to accept us.

That night, I head to the Galloway House. A few soda cans still lie on the kitchen counter. Spilled alcohol sours the air. I head down the basement stairs and take off my sweater, resting it under my head like a pillow.

I sleep right where I saw Crave kill that first couple. I fall asleep with the noose in my hand.

When I open my eyes, a dark figure looms over me. I stand up. Crave cocks his head to the side.

I reach forward and unzip his mouth.

"I know it was you," I say. "You killed Michael Hall. It's why you're always here, isn't it? The killer always returns to where he feels most powerful."

He continues to stare at me, as if to ask: Is this where you feel most powerful too?

"You killed Miranda Hall while my father watched," I say. "You made my father watch you kill his wife. You wanted an audience, right?" I step closer, grabbing his gloved hands, and Crave bares his teeth, warning me to stay away, but I don't care anymore. I refuse to keep my distance. I need him. "You wanted to force him to acknowledge your strength, your power. I understand that." I squeeze his hands. "I record everything, even when I'm the one committing crimes, because it reminds me that I can control others. It's proof of what I'm capable of, even when I feel weak."

I hand him the noose.

"Here." I take the little lens off of my purse and toss it onto the ground. "I don't need that anymore. We have more of a connection than a shared love for violence and power. I know you feel it too."

Crave stays silent. My skin prickles.

"That's how it is for you, isn't it?" I ask.

His lips don't move.

Panic, then anger, flows through me, filling me with an uncomfortable heat.

"Say something!" I demand. "Say something, damn it! You killed my father, and I'm keeping that a secret because I don't care. I just want someone who sees me for who I am, just like I see you."

"I should kill you," he says.

A chill sweeps over me. It's true. We should kill each other for all the shit we've seen. If I kill him, it would be justice, and if he kills me, it would be insurance.

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," I whisper. "But fuck me first. Fuck me like you fucked her, because I know you did." I wrap his fingers around the rope, forcing him to grip the natural fibers. "I want to feel what it's like. I want to know what it felt like when she died." Tingling spreads across my face in a mix of pleasure and anticipated pain. "I know you want that too."

My heart beats in my throat.

"It may snap your neck," he says.

"I know."

"It will strangle you."

"I know."

"You might die."

"I know," I say. "I trust you."

His jaw tightens into a smile. "You're very, very stupid for trusting me."

"You're stupid for trusting me too."

His lips twitch. He knows I'm right. Both of us have each other locked in a place of danger, truth, and trust. No matter where we come out, both of us will either win or drown in the evidence of who we really are.

I put the noose around my neck. Crave goes into the corner of the basement and returns with a small stool. I stand on it, and he removes my clothes, then aims his cock at my entrance. He braces my thighs, and those barbells and rings cut me in half.

I hold his shoulders, supporting myself. I clutch the base of his neck, my fingers sliding across the zipper on the back of his mask. My mind races as he pulls me off of the stool, the noose constricting around me. My vision darkens at the edges, my pussy throbbing around his metal and flesh shaft. I don't know why, but I want everything that has to do with him. I want to be with him. I want to be him. He's a killer, and those urges are inside of me too.

I pull the zipper's latch, unzipping the back of the mask. Crave keeps goring me with his cock. Every noise tunnels in my ears, drowning out every logical thought.

His breath.

My wheezing.

The last ounces of truth.

He won't let me die. Not like this. I know that deep inside of my soul. He wouldn't waste a victim like that. Not with what we're capable of.

Still, my instincts fight. I flail. Panic surges inside of me, my thoughts swirling until there's nothing but survival and need. Because this is it. This is where I die. In a house where more than six people died. It's pathetic to find comfort in a man who killed my father, the same man who may kill me right now, but I finally feel like I belong.

"You think you're fucking the man who killed your father," he grunts. "What a dirty, pathetic little girl."

My pussy constricts around his violent shaft. It's true; I don't care though, because Crave is hard, and he's stabbing into me, and I've never felt more like myself than I do with him. A killer. The man who killed my father. The man who wants me so badly, he's willing to risk his freedom. The man who can still kill me right now. But he won't, because he needs me.

My muscles contract, and as I fall into the abyss of pleasure and pain, I rip off his mask. Crave gasps, sucking in cold air. My heart stops. He keeps thrusting. His jaw clenches as he growls into me.

Dark, bulbous eyes stare back at me. A widow's peak hairline. His teeth bared, jagged and raw. Officer Gaines.

Crave.